JP5936458B2 - Information processing apparatus, application execution control method, application execution control program, and recording medium - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus capable of executing a plurality of applications.

  As an information processing apparatus capable of executing a plurality of applications, there is a portable information terminal such as a smartphone. In recent years, applications installed in such personal digital assistants have become more multifunctional and sophisticated than before, and along with this, application initialization processing has become more complicated and more resources have been used. .

  In general, in an application with a GUI, when a user uses it, an operation such as touching the icon from the application list is used as an opportunity to generate a process dedicated to the application, to acquire a memory to be used, and to a database. The user can operate only after performing initialization processing such as reading representative initialization information from a file or the like, obtaining a screen to be used, and using the input device.

  However, these initialization processes lengthen the time until the user can use the application and reduce convenience. In particular, in applications such as a phone book that is a junction to various functions such as making calls and creating mail, if the time until it becomes available is long, the total operational feeling of the information processing device is lowered. It will be.

  In particular, when the portable information terminal is activated, the activation process of the portable information terminal itself is also added. Therefore, it takes a long time until the user can use a desired application. 4A to 4D show transition diagrams from when the power source of the portable information terminal is OFF to when the user can use the phone book application. Among the four states shown in FIG. 4, first, in FIG. 4A, the power source of the portable information terminal is turned off. Here, when the user turns on the power, the portable information terminal is turned on as shown in FIG. Then, after the activation process of the portable information terminal is performed, the launcher application is activated, and the screen shown in FIG. Here, the launcher application is an application that is executed first when the portable information terminal is activated, and activates a desired application by selecting a desired application icon from a plurality of displayed icons. It is an application that can.

  When the user selects the phone book icon 60 on the launcher application on the screen shown in FIG. 4C, the phone book application is initialized. As shown in the screen shown in FIG. Is complete.

  In this way, particularly when the portable information terminal is activated, since it takes a long time until the user can use the application, it is required to perform more efficient application initialization processing.

  Here, as an invention for improving the efficiency of the initialization process of the application, for example, the following Patent Documents 1 to 3 can be cited.

  In Patent Document 1, when a GUI (Graphical User Interface) application is started, the GUI screen is immediately displayed to the user, and user input is accepted during the start-up process, thereby improving operability. And a technique for improving the efficiency of input processing.

  In Patent Document 2, bitmap data is generated from display element data including title characters, and a title list or action menu image is created from the bitmap data for font data search and drawing processing. There is disclosed a technique for generating an image at a relatively high speed without the overhead caused by the above calculation.

  Patent Document 3 discloses a technique for improving operability by performing control to support operations performed in the near future based on an operator's operation history (hereinafter, operation pattern).

JP 2003-280884 A (released on October 2, 2003) Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2005-141596 (released on June 2, 2005) JP 2006-344018 A (released on December 21, 2006)

  However, the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 preferentially displays a GUI screen by controlling the internal order of initialization processing such as content loading and screen rendering processing. For this reason, it is not intended to speed up the activation of the application itself, including the display of content.

  Since the technique disclosed in Patent Document 2 needs to hold special data in advance, it is necessary to configure a different initialization process for each application.

  The technique disclosed in Patent Document 3 requires a processing load other than the initialization process due to the storage and collation of operation patterns. Further, since it is necessary to store the user's operation pattern in advance during the initialization process, there is a problem in that operation pattern information cannot be acquired at a timing accompanying system initialization such as when the information processing apparatus itself is activated. .

  Furthermore, generally, the initialization processing of the system that is performed when the information processing apparatus is activated uses many resources such as a memory and a CPU. At this time, if the application initialization process is performed at the same time, resources may be insufficient, and as a result, there is a possibility that the time until the user becomes available becomes longer. In addition, in a system having a function for forcibly terminating an application when the system cannot acquire a resource, there is a problem that initialization processing performed in advance is wasted when the application is forcibly terminated.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and its purpose is to perform a time until the user can use the application by performing initialization processing of the application at an appropriate timing in advance. It is to provide an information processing apparatus that can shorten the sensible speed of application activation.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the information processing apparatus of the present invention includes a display unit that displays a running application and an application activation management unit that manages the activation of the application. When the process other than the drawing process on the display unit is set as the initialization process, the application activation management unit detects the completion of the drawing process of the first application, and the second application different from the first application is detected. It is characterized by executing an initialization process.

  According to the above configuration, when the process other than the drawing process of the application on the display unit is set as the initialization process in the application activation process, the application activation management unit completes the drawing process of the first application. Is detected, the second application initialization process different from the first application is executed.

  That is, since the initialization process of the second application is executed after the drawing process of the first application is completed, when the user starts the second application to operate the second application, the second application is already executed. Since the initialization process of the two applications has been completed, only the drawing process is required to start the second application.

  As a result, it is possible to shorten the time until the user can use the application, and to improve the sensation speed of starting the application.

  The first application is preferably an application in which a plurality of items for the user to select are displayed on the display unit.

  According to said structure, the said 1st application is an application which displayed the several item for a user to select on the said display part.

  That is, after the drawing process of the first application is completed, a plurality of items for the user to select are displayed on the display unit, and thus the items that allow the user to achieve a desired purpose from the plurality of items. In order to find and select, a waiting time for checking the display unit occurs, and the initialization process of the second application is executed during this waiting time.

  Therefore, it is possible to efficiently execute the initialization process of the second application by using the waiting time of the user without applying any other processing load.

  The item is preferably an icon for starting an application different from the first application.

  According to the above configuration, since the item is an icon for starting an application different from the first application, the second application is included in the plurality of applications displayed on the display unit by the first application. In the case where the second application is searched for and selected from a plurality of applications, the second application initialization process is executed using the waiting time generated until the second application icon is searched and selected. When the second application is selected, the second application is drawn.

  That is, since the first application and the second application are related, there is a high possibility that the initialization process of the second application performed during the standby time can be used effectively.

  Therefore, there is an effect that the initialization process of the second application that is executed in advance is not wasted.

  The first application is preferably a launcher application that is executed first when the information processing apparatus is activated.

  According to the above configuration, the first application is a launcher application that is executed first when the information processing apparatus is activated.

  That is, when the information processing apparatus is activated, the first application, which is a launcher application, is executed first, and after the drawing process of the first application is completed, the initialization process of the second application is executed.

  In general, when an information processing device is started up, a large amount of resources such as memory and CPU are used. However, when the launcher application rendering process is completed, there is room for resources such as memory and CPU. is there. For this reason, there is no possibility that the initialization process of the second application is forcibly terminated.

  Therefore, the initialization process of the second application can be performed safely without affecting the processes of other applications and systems.

  The initialization process of the second application is preferably the same as the initialization process for realizing other functions.

  According to the above configuration, the initialization process of the second application is in common with the initialization process when realizing other functions, so that the second application is executed in a state where the second application is being executed. When starting an application with the same initialization process, the initialization process has already been completed, so the time until the user can use the application can be shortened. There is an effect that can be.

  An application execution control method for an information processing apparatus according to the present invention is an application execution control method for an information processing apparatus including a display unit that displays an application being executed and an application activation management unit that manages activation of the application, Of the application activation processes, when the process other than the drawing process on the display unit of the application is set as an initialization process, the application activation management unit detects the completion of the first application drawing process. An initialization process for a second application different from the one application is executed.

  According to the above configuration, when the process other than the drawing process of the application on the display unit is set as the initialization process in the application activation process, the application activation management unit completes the drawing process of the first application. When this is detected, the initialization process of the second application different from the first application is executed.

  That is, since the initialization process of the second application is executed after the drawing process of the first application is completed, when the user starts the second application to operate the second application, the second application is already executed. Since the initialization process of the two applications has been completed, only the drawing process is required to start the second application.

  As a result, it is possible to shorten the time until the user can use the application, and to improve the sensation speed of starting the application.

  As described above, the information processing apparatus according to the present invention includes the display unit that displays an application being executed and the application activation management unit that manages the activation of the application. When the process other than the drawing process to the part is set as the initialization process, the application activation management unit detects the completion of the drawing process of the first application, and initializes the second application different from the first application. By executing this, it is possible to shorten the time until the user can use the application, and to improve the perceived speed of starting the application.

It is a schematic block diagram showing an example of an information processing apparatus of the present invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the feature point of the initialization process performed by the information processing apparatus shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the initialization process performed by the information processing apparatus shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows the state transition after a user powers on a terminal until it becomes possible to use a telephone directory application.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. In this embodiment, an example in which the information processing apparatus of the present invention is mounted on a smartphone that is a portable information terminal will be described.
(System configuration of this smartphone) ... Fig. 1
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of a smartphone according to the present embodiment (hereinafter, this smartphone).

  As shown in FIG. 1, the smartphone includes a storage unit 2, a display unit 3, a touch panel 4, an operation unit 5, and a CPU 1. In the block diagram shown in FIG. 1, the communication function, the call function, and the like that are naturally installed in the smartphone are omitted, and only the blocks necessary for the present invention are shown.

  The storage unit 2 is a ROM that stores a launcher application program 200, a phone book application program 201, and initialization information 202. The launcher application program 200 and the phone book application program 201 are executable files for executing the launcher application (first application) and the phone book application (second application), respectively, and are read by the application management unit 10 of the CPU 1. And executed.

  The said display part 3 consists of flat display panels, such as a liquid crystal panel and an organic electroluminescent panel, and displays the information (application etc.) processed by this smart phone.

  The display unit 3 displays a launcher that lists icons of character input screens and various applications. The launcher drawing process will be described later.

  The touch panel 4 is provided so as to cover the display screen of the display unit 3. The touch panel 4 is used to input a character string on the character input screen displayed on the display unit 3, or to display an application in the launcher displayed on the display unit 3. It functions as a user interface that accepts touch operations by the user, such as selecting an icon and scrolling the display screen of the display unit 3. The drive method of the touch panel 4 may be any drive method such as a capacitance method or a resistance film method, and the drive method is not particularly limited.

  The operation unit 5 is an input unit composed of physical operation keys that function when pressed by the user. In other words, in addition to the touch panel 4, the operation unit 5 functions as a user interface in the smartphone.

  The CPU 1 controls the overall operation of the smartphone, and is an information processing apparatus including an application activation management unit including an application management unit 10 and a display management unit 11.

  The application management unit 10 manages each application executed by the smartphone, and is activated by an OS (Operating System). In the case of this smartphone, the application management unit 10 includes a launcher application management unit 20 that manages launcher applications, and a phone book application management unit 21 that manages phone book applications. The display management unit 11 includes a launcher application display management unit 30 that performs drawing processing of a launcher application, and a phone book application display management unit 31 that performs drawing processing of a phone book application.

  The launcher application management unit 20 reads the launcher application program 200 and initialization information 202 necessary for initialization processing for starting the launcher application when the application management unit 10 is started by the OS, and executes the launcher application. An initialization process for starting is performed.

  Here, the application initialization process includes all initialization processes other than the process of drawing the application on the screen. Specifically, it refers to process generation, memory acquisition, reading of initialization information such as a database, acquisition of usage rights of screens and input devices, and the like.

  The launcher application management unit 20 sends the initialized data (initialization data) to the launcher application display management unit 30 of the display management unit 11.

  The launcher application display management unit 30 performs a launcher application drawing process based on the initialization data sent from the launcher application management unit 20.

  Further, the launcher application display management unit 30 sends the data subjected to the drawing process (drawing data) to the display unit 3. Thereby, the launcher is displayed on the display unit 3.

  The launcher application display management unit 30 sends drawing data to the display unit 3 as described above at the time when the launcher application drawing process ends, and calls a drawing end signal indicating that the drawing process has ended. The data is sent to the book application management unit 21.

  The phone book application management unit 21 uses the drawing end signal from the launcher application management unit 20 as a trigger to generate a phone book application program 201 and initialization information 202 necessary for initialization processing for starting the phone book application. Reading and initialization processing for starting up the phone book application are performed.

  The telephone book application management unit 21 sends the initialized data (initialization data) to the telephone book application display management unit 31 of the display management unit 11. The phone book application management unit 21 sends initialization data to the phone book application display management unit 31 triggered by the input of a request signal from the phone book application display management unit 31.

  The phone book application display management unit 31 receives a signal that the phone book icon in the launcher displayed on the display unit 3 is touched via the touch panel 4, and the launcher application display management unit 30 receives the signal. 21 is requested for initialization data, and the telephone book application is rendered based on the received initialization data.

  In addition, the telephone directory application display management unit 31 sends the drawn data (drawing data) to the display unit 3. As a result, the phone book application is displayed on the display unit 3.

  Here, the phone book application display management unit 31 uses the signal that the phone book icon in the launcher displayed on the display unit 3 is touched via the touch panel 4 as a trigger to the phone book application management unit 21. On the other hand, the initialization data is requested. However, for example, if an arbitrary key of the operation unit 5 is made to function as a key for starting the telephone book application, a signal from the key is used as a trigger. Then, the initialization data may be requested to the telephone directory application management unit 21.

  Here, in FIG. 1, the display management unit 11 shows an example provided in the CPU 1, but using hardware specialized for screen display processing such as GPU (Graphical Processing Unit), It may be provided outside the CPU 1.

  In addition, illustration is abbreviate | omitted regarding RAM which functions as a work area of the program for performing an application with CPU1.

(Telephone book application initialization process timing) FIG. 2
FIG. 2 shows a process flow from when the smartphone power is turned on until the phone book application is displayed on the display unit 3 of the smartphone. FIG. 2A is a flowchart showing a general process flow. (B) is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process which concerns on this Embodiment. In addition, about the member demonstrated in both flowcharts, it is set as the member as described in the smart phone shown in FIG.

  First, a general processing flow will be described with reference to FIG.

  First, when the terminal is powered on (S11), the system is activated (S12). Here, OS initialization processing, network connection, and the like are performed.

  Next, the system activates the application management unit 10 and the display management unit 11 (S13), and the application management unit 10 activates the launcher application (S14).

  When the launcher application activation process is started, the launcher application management unit 20 and the launcher application display management unit 30 described above are activated, the launcher application initialization process and the drawing process are performed, and the launcher is displayed on the display unit 3. The

  Next, when the phone book icon is touched by the user (S15), the phone book application is activated, initialization processing is executed (S16), drawing processing is executed (S17), and the phone book application is displayed. It is displayed on the display screen of part 3.

  Here, in the general smartphone processing flow shown in FIG. 2A, after the launcher application is activated, until the user touches the phone book icon (S14 to S15), Become. When the user touches the phone book icon (S15), the phone book application is initialized (S16), the phone book application is drawn (S17), and the phone book application is displayed on the screen. Thus, the user can operate (S18).

  On the other hand, in the process flow of the smartphone shown in (b) of FIG. 2, the processes from S11 to S14 shown in (a) of FIG. 2 are the same, and the processes after launching of the launcher application (S14) are different.

  That is, after launching the launcher application (S14), the telephone book application is initialized (S20). That is, the initialization process of the phone book application is performed during the standby state of the user operation until the user touches the phone book icon.

  After the initialization process of the phone book application is completed, the user enters a standby state. When the user touches the phone book icon (S21), the phone book application that has already been initialized is rendered (S22), the phone book application is displayed on the screen, and the user can operate it. (S23).

  Here, as shown in FIG. 2A, in the case of general processing, until the user can operate the phone book application, the phone book icon is touched, and then initialization processing and drawing are performed. It is necessary to go through processing.

  For this reason, some users may feel that the phone book application has been activated for a long time.

  On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 2B, if the initialization process of the phone book application is completed before the user touches the phone book icon, the user touches the phone book icon. Since the user operation can be performed only by the phone book application drawing process, the user touches the phone book icon for the time required for the initialization process as compared with the case of FIG. It can shorten the time until it becomes possible to operate.

  The reason why it is desirable to perform the initialization process of the phone book application at the timing after the drawing process of the launcher screen is completed will be described below for two reasons.

  The first reason is that when a screen is displayed, a human first has a step of confirming the screen, and after the confirmation is completed, input is performed on the screen. In general, it is said that it takes about 500 to 700 milliseconds for a human to visually recognize what is displayed on the screen and to perform an operation on it. Therefore, by performing initialization processing of a desired application during the standby time, the standby time can be effectively used.

  The second reason is that the launching process of the launcher screen in the startup process of the smartphone terminal is completed because there are enough resources such as RAM and CPU. Therefore, it is possible to perform initialization processing of a desired application without affecting processing of other applications and systems.

  Furthermore, the application targeted by this smartphone is not limited to the combination of the launcher application and the phone book application.

  For example, it is not limited to a launcher application that a user waits until a touch operation is performed, but in an application that involves an operation for selecting an item that allows the user to achieve a desired purpose from a plurality of selection items. This is a common feature.

  In this case, during the waiting time for visually recognizing multiple items displayed on the display unit, initialization processing that does not place any other processing load is performed by executing initialization processing of other applications can do.

  Also, the target for the initialization process is not limited to the phone book application. The reason why the smartphone has exemplified the phone book application as the target of the initialization process is that the phone book application is an application that becomes a junction to various functions such as making a call and creating mail. An application that becomes a junction of another function is considered to have an initialization process common to an initialization process for realizing another function. For this reason, the effect of performing the initialization process is great.

  Therefore, the application that is the target of the initialization process of the present invention may be, for example, a data folder application. In addition, an application to be initialized may be arbitrarily set by the user.

(Phonebook application activation processing) ... FIG.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a flow of activation processing of the phone book application in the smartphone according to the present embodiment. Here, the processing flow from S14 to S23 in the processing flow shown in FIG. 2B will be described in detail.

  First, a launcher application initialization process is executed (S31). Here, the launcher application management unit 20 reads the launcher application program 200 and the initialization information 202 from the storage unit 2, and performs a launcher application initialization process.

  Next, a launcher application drawing process is executed (S32). Here, the launcher application display management unit 30 executes a drawing process based on the data initialized by the launcher application management unit 20. As a result, the launcher application for which the initialization process has been completed is displayed on the display unit 3.

  When it is determined that the drawing process has been completed (S33), the telephone book application initialization process is executed (S34). Here, the launcher application display management unit 30 monitors the completion of the drawing process and sends a drawing completion signal indicating that the drawing process has been completed to the phonebook application management unit 21, so that the phonebook application management unit 21 The phone book application program 201 and the initialization information 202 are read from the storage unit 2 and the phone book application is initialized.

  Thereafter, it is determined whether or not the phone book icon is touched (S35). Here, the process waits until the user touches the phone book icon on the touch panel 4. Specifically, it waits until the phone book application display management unit 31 detects that the phone book icon on the launcher application displayed on the display unit 3 is touched on the touch panel 4. When the phone book icon is touched (YES in S35), that is, when the phone book application display management unit 31 detects that the phone book icon is touched, the phone book application display management unit 31 has already The drawing process of the application initialized by the telephone directory application management unit 21 is executed.

  Thus, the illustrated initialization process ends.

  In the present embodiment, the first application has been described as the launcher application, and the second application has been described as the phone book application. However, as described above, the present invention is not limited to these combinations, and is a combination of other applications. Also good.

  The second application is preferably an application that becomes a junction with other functions such as a telephone directory application as described in the present embodiment. As a result, it is possible to speed up the start-up of applications that share the initialization process.

  In the present embodiment, the first application is described as the launcher application, and the second application is the phone book application. However, the user may be able to change the setting of the type of the application.

(Regarding the scope of the present invention)
In this embodiment, the example in which the information processing apparatus of the present invention is mounted on a smartphone has been described. This is because there is not enough memory or other resources like a portable device such as a smartphone, so the technology to quickly launch an application is effective in cases where it takes time to launch the smartphone or application. Because there is.

  However, the purpose of the present invention is to improve the perceived speed of starting an application, and therefore, the present invention is not limited to a portable device such as a smartphone, and sufficient resources are allocated, such as a notebook personal computer or a desktop personal computer. It can also be applied to an apparatus.

(Program and recording medium)
What is necessary is just to comprise the application management part 10 and the display management part 11 in the information processing apparatus with which the said smart phone is provided with a hardware logic. Alternatively, it may be realized by software using a CPU (Central Processing Unit) as follows.

  That is, the application management unit 10 and the display management unit 11 in the information processing apparatus can execute a CPU such as an MPU that executes instructions of a program that realizes each function, a ROM (Read Only Memory) that stores the program, and the program. And a storage device (recording medium) such as a memory for storing the program and various data.

  An object of the present invention is not limited to the case where the application management program for realizing the application management unit 10 and the display management unit 11 in the information processing apparatus is fixedly carried in the program memory. The recording medium in which the code (execution format program, intermediate code program, or source program) is recorded is supplied to the application management unit 10 and the display management unit 11 in the information processing apparatus, and the program recorded in the recording medium It can also be achieved by reading and executing the code.

  The recording medium is not limited to a specific structure or type. That is, the recording medium includes, for example, a tape system such as a magnetic tape and a cassette tape, a magnetic disk such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk / hard disk, and an optical disk such as a CD-ROM / MO / MD / DVD / CD-R. System, IC card (including memory card) / optical card, etc., or semiconductor memory system such as mask ROM / EPROM / EEPROM (registered trademark) / flash ROM.

  Further, even if the application management unit 10 and the display management unit 11 in the information processing apparatus are configured to be connectable to a communication network, the object of the present invention can be achieved. In this case, the program code is supplied via a communication network. The communication network is not limited to a specific type or form as long as it can supply the program code to the application management unit 10 in the information processing apparatus. For example, the Internet, intranet, extranet, LAN, ISDN, VAN, CATV communication network, virtual private network, telephone line network, mobile communication network, satellite communication network, etc. may be used.

  The transmission medium constituting the communication network may be any medium that can transmit the program code, and is not limited to a specific configuration or type. For example, even with wired lines such as IEEE 1394, USB, power line carrier, cable TV line, telephone line, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) line, infrared rays such as IrDA and remote control, Bluetooth (registered trademark), 802.11 wireless, HDR, mobile phone It can also be used by radio such as a telephone network, a satellite line, and a terrestrial digital network. The present invention can also be realized in the form of a computer data signal embedded in a carrier wave in which the program code is embodied by electronic transmission.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope shown in the claims, and embodiments obtained by appropriately combining technical means disclosed in different embodiments. Is also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

  INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention is used for an information processing apparatus that can execute a plurality of applications, and particularly for a portable information processing apparatus such as a smartphone that takes time to start up the information processing apparatus or application because there are not enough resources such as memory. can do.

1 CPU
2 storage unit 3 display unit 4 touch panel 5 operation unit 10 application management unit (application activation management unit)
11 Display Manager (Application Launch Manager)
20 Launcher Application Management Unit 21 Phone Book Application Management Unit 30 Launcher Application Display Management Unit 31 Phone Book Application Display Management Unit 200 Launcher Application Program 201 Phone Book Application Program 202 Initialization Information

Claims (6)

A display for displaying the running application;
An application start management unit for managing the start of the application,
Among the application startup processes, when the process other than the drawing process on the display unit of the application is an initialization process,
The first application is a launcher application that displays icons for starting a plurality of applications different from the first application, including the second application,
The application start management unit
When detecting the completion of the drawing processing of the first application, the information processing apparatus and executes the initialization processing of the second application. The launcher application, the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the benzalkonium executed first at the start of the information processing apparatus. The initialization process of the second application, the information processing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that in common with the initialization process when implementing other functions. An application execution control method for an information processing apparatus including a display unit that displays a running application and an application activation management unit that manages activation of the application,
Of the application activation processes, when the process other than the drawing process on the display unit of the application is an initialization process, the first application includes a plurality of applications different from the first application including the second application. a launcher application that displays an icon for starting, the application activation management unit, when detecting the completion of the drawing processing of the first application, information and executes the initialization processing of the second application An application execution control method for a processing apparatus.   The application execution control program which functions a computer as an application starting management part of any one of Claims 1-3. A computer-readable recording medium on which the application execution control program according to claim 5 is recorded.

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