JPH0429075B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to an information processing device having a display memory and a display device that visually displays the contents thereof.
In particular, the present invention relates to a multi-screen display information processing device that simultaneously displays a plurality of screens (windows) on one screen of a display device.

[Background of the invention]

Most screen displays on conventional information processing devices cannot display multiple pieces of data at the same time on a single display device, so if you want to view multiple pieces of data at the same time, you must install multiple display devices. However, these systems tended to be expensive. Nowadays, interactive processing based on display devices has become central to devices for personal use such as personal computers. Under these circumstances, displaying multiple pieces of data simultaneously on a single display device has become an important issue in improving user operability and processing efficiency, and there are signs that companies in Japan and overseas are implementing this. . Regarding this point, the situation is detailed in an article titled ``Multi-window software that is the decisive factor in improving the operability of personal computers'' in the January 30, 1984 issue of Nikkei Electronics. A more specific example of a multi-screen display information processing device is BYTE, Feb.1983
The Lisa Computer System is detailed in ``The Lisa Computer System.''

By the way, in these multi-screen display information processing devices, in order to perform interactive processing based on the display device at high speed, it is important to efficiently manage the display position of all information on the display screen. When an arbitrary position on a display screen is designated, a major problem is how to extract display information corresponding to that position or to execute corresponding processing at high speed.

In addition, in the above-mentioned multi-screen display information processing device, the method of arranging commands, menus, icons, etc. for interactive processing based on the display device, that is, the screen configuration, is an important factor in improving operability. factor, and whether or not the screen configuration can be easily set and changed is also a major issue.

[Purpose of the invention]

In view of the above-mentioned problems, it is an object of the present invention to make it possible to arbitrarily set or change the screen configuration on a display screen, and to provide position information pointing to the displayed screen information so that the screen information can be adjusted in advance. This makes it possible to quickly execute the corresponding processing, and furthermore, when displaying multiple pieces of information on the same display screen by allowing overlapping, it is possible to interactively change the display position of each display information through the screen. An object of the present invention is to provide a multi-screen display information processing device that allows multiple operations.

[Summary of the invention]

The multi-screen display information processing device according to the present invention sets one or more first control areas related to the entire display screen on the display screen, and also sets one or more second control areas within each window area. The control area was set. On the other hand, the processing device and memory manage the respective positions of the first and second control areas and the corresponding control information, and the corresponding control information is calculated from the position on the display screen specified by the screen coordinate input device. By determining this, the process is executed accordingly. Therefore, for control of the entire system, the user specifies the first control area,
When controlling only one window, interactive operations can be performed on each window by specifying the second control area of that window.

Further, in the multi-screen display information processing device according to the present invention, the position of the control area of each window and the management of control information are provided for each window at the display position on the display screen and within the window area (second A control table is provided in the memory for managing the position of the control area (1) within the window area and control information corresponding to each control area, and the processing device uses this to determine the control information. Therefore, even if a window is moved, there is no need to change the management information regarding the display position of the control area of each of the many windows, and it is only necessary to change the display position of the window.
Furthermore, since this management information is collectively managed for each window, the procedure for determining control information can be simplified.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a computer system, such as a personal computer, according to the present invention. The system consists of a main memory (MM) 10, a processing unit (CPU) 11, a graphic display controller (GDP) 20, and a display (D).
19, Magnetic disk (DISC) 14, Magnetic disk control device (DC) 13, Keyboard (KB) 1
6. Consists of KB control device (KBC) 15, pointing device (PD) 18 such as a mouse, PD control device (PDC) 17, printer (PR) 29, PR control device (PRC) 28, common bus 12, etc. be done. In addition, as shown in FIG.
3, and display control device (DD) 2
4 are connected by an internal bus 25. Here, SM21 is MM if the system scale is small.
11 can be substituted.

The display method will be briefly explained using FIGS. 1 and 2. When displaying a figure or character in D19 by the program _P1 running on the CPU 11, first the figure or character data to be displayed (these are generally a figure drawing command string or a character code string) Program P ₁
Transfer from MM10 to SM21 by
Issue an execution request to GP22. GP who received execution instructions
22 takes out the graphic data or character data from SM21, develops the data into dot data corresponding to each display point of D19, and stores the dot data in a location corresponding to the display position on FM23. On the other hand, the display control device DD24 of D19
scans the FM23 at regular intervals and displays the content on the D19. Therefore,
The dot data stored in FM23 is DD2
4, it will be immediately displayed on D19.

FIG. 3 explains a display example using the multiple screen display control system according to the present invention, and shows a screen 30 of D19. The screen 30 is mainly composed of three parts. One is a system control display area that allows the user to interact with the system through the screen, and an area 310 that displays a system control command menu (characters).
319, and areas 320 to 329 for displaying system control command icons (graphics). The other is a system/input/output display area, which includes a character input area 330 for displaying character strings input from a keyboard or the like, a message output area 331 for displaying system error messages, and the like. The last one is the user display area 390. In the user area 390, multiple pieces of information can be superimposed and displayed simultaneously.
These display areas 340, 360, and 380 are called windows. respective windows 340, 36
0 and 380 are displayed in the order of 360, 380, and 340, that is, the window 340 has the highest display priority and is displayed at the forefront.
The display priority of these windows can be changed as appropriate, so if you specify the window you want to bring to the forefront, the display priority will be changed immediately and all hidden parts of the specified window will be displayed. be done. Regarding the window 340 that is displayed in the foreground, you can move the display position of the window in any direction, enlarge or reduce the display size of the window, erase the window, and change the display inside the window. Window control such as changing the contents (scrolling) arbitrarily can be performed. For this purpose, the frontmost window 340 includes a window control command/icon area 341 for performing window control around the user display information 352.
~351 is displayed. Here, areas 341, 34
3 is for moving the window, area 342 is for erasing the window, areas 344, 345, 347, 348,
Areas 350 and 351 are for scrolling within the window (corresponding to scrolling in the up, down, right, left, bottom, and upward directions, respectively), and areas 346 and 349 are for enlarging/reducing the window. You can perform the following operations.

FIG. 4, FIG. 5, FIG. 6, and FIG. 12 show control tables according to the present invention. The input coordinate buffer (ICB) 40 is for storing coordinate values on the display screen instructed by the PD 18. A system area control block (SACB) 410 controls each system display area 3.
10-319, 320-329, 330, 331
This is a control table for managing the display position, display content, and processing when an operation is instructed for that area, etc., and system area attribute management fields (SAA) 413a to 413i,
Field indicating the maximum number of SAA (SAMAX)
414, a field (SAN) 412 indicating the number of currently valid SAAs, and a user display area 39
Field (UACS) 4 that manages the display position of 0
Consists of 11. The detailed configuration of the SAA 413 is shown in FIG. 5, including a field (SACS) 4131 that indicates the display position of the corresponding display area, and a field (DDADDR) that indicates the memory storage address of the data area (DATA1) 450 to 452 that stores display contents.
4134, control information indicated by a field (MADDR) 4133 indicating the memory storage address of the area (PROG1) 420 to 422 for storing the corresponding processing program, and other fields.

Window Icon Control Block (CWICB)
430 is the window 34 displayed in the foreground
Window control commands displayed around 0.
Display positions regarding icon areas 341 to 351;
This is a control table for managing display contents and processing when an operation is instructed for that area, and its configuration is similar to that described above as shown in Figure 6.
Same as SACB. That is, WICS431 is
To UACS411, WIN432 to SAN412,
WIMAX434 to SAMAX414, CWIA43
3 to SAA413, IACS4331 to SACS41
31, MADR4333 to MADDR4133,
DDADR4334 corresponds to DDADDR4134.

The window control block (WCB) 471 is
The size of each window manages the display position, display data number, presence or absence of window overlap, etc., and is connected to the WCB list pointer (WLST) 470 in descending order of display priority.
As shown in FIG. 12, the configuration of WCB 470 is related to the window with the next lowest display priority.
WCB pointer (WPT) 4711 pointing to WCB,
Coordinate value W1471 indicating the display position of the window
5, W24716, etc.

Window overlap data save area management block
The SICBs 480 to 482 are for managing display information SIDBs 490 to 492 of other windows that are hidden by each window.

7 to 11 show the processing procedure of the multiple screen display control method according to this embodiment. In this embodiment, system display areas 310 to 319,
Definition (DFF-SYS-AREA) 70 of 320 to 329, 330, 331, etc., and deletion (DEL)
-SYS-AREA) 100, definition of window control command/icon areas 341 to 351, etc. (DEF-WINDOW-CONTL-AREA) 80,
and delete (DEL−WINDOW−CONTL−
AREA) 110, and when an arbitrary position on the screen is specified, a process corresponding to display information at that position is determined, and control is immediately transferred to the process (SELECT-DATA) 90. In addition, each window display (WRITE-
Regarding window controls such as redisplaying hidden window information (POP-UP-WINDOW), moving the window display area (MOVE-WINDOW), and erasing the window (CLEAR-WINDOW), Gansho 59-
257570, and the detailed explanation thereof will be omitted in this embodiment.

Each processing procedure will be explained below using FIGS. 7 to 11.

(1) DEF-SYS-AREA FIG.
The processing procedure of the DEF-SYS-AREA command 70 for registering 0,331 is shown. CPU
11 stores the target coordinate values of the system rectangular display area on the screen 30, the memory address of the area storing information to be displayed in that area, and the processing program to be executed when the area is selected. When this command accompanied by the memory address of the specified area is received, those parameters are first fetched (block 705). Then,
The SAN 412 of the SACB 410 and the SAMAX 414 are compared to determine whether there is space in the SAA 413 (block 710). At this time, SAA41
If there is no space for 3, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. If there is space in SAA413, the diagonal coordinate value of the specified area and SACB413
It is determined whether the designated area is outside the system display area (block 715).
At this time, if the specified area is other than the system display area, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. If the specified area is within the system display area, then compare the coordinates of the SACS 4131 and the specified area for all SAA 413 that have already been registered, and confirm that the specified area is an already registered area. Verify that there are no duplicates (block 720). At this time, if the area overlaps with a registered area, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. If the specified area is an unregistered area, the specified parameters that were imported earlier will be transferred to the free SAA413.
SACS4131, DDADDR4134, MADDR
4133 (block 725). and,
The SAN 412 of the SACB 410 is incremented by 1 (block 730), and the processing of this command is ended (block 735). By executing this command, the specified system display area will be registered in SACB.

(2) DEF-WINDOW-CONTL-AREA FIG. 8 shows how the window icon control block (CWICB) 430 receives window control commands related to the window 340 that is displayed in the foreground.
DEF- to register icon areas 341 to 351
The processing procedure of the WINDOW-CONTL-AREA command 80 is shown. The processing procedure of this command can be easily understood in the same way as the explanation of the DEF-SYS-AREA command 70 explained earlier.

(3) DEL-SYS-AREA Figure 10 shows the DEL-SYS-AREA used to delete the system display area registered in SACB410.
The processing procedure of the command 100 is shown.
When the CPU 11 receives this command with diagonal coordinate values pointing to the system display area on the screen 30, it first reads the specified parameters (block 10).
05). Next, the SAN 412 of the SACB 410 is checked to determine whether there is a registered area in the SACB 410 (block 1010). At this time,
If there is no registered area in SACB 410, this command is immediately terminated. If SACB
If there is a registered area in SACB 410, check whether the specified area is other than the system display area or not in SACB 410.
The determination is made by comparing the diagonal coordinate values of the UACS 411 and the specified area (block 1015). At this time, if the specified area is other than the system display area, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. if,
If the designated area is within the system display area, then the coordinates of the designated area are compared with the SACS 4131 for all registered SAA 413 to find a registered area that matches the designated area (block 1020). At this time, if there is no matching area, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. If there is a matching area, SACS4131, MADDR4133 related to SAA413 at that time,
All registered information such as DDADDR4134 is deleted (block 1025). And SACB41
0 SAN4112 by 1 (block 103
0), ends the processing of this command (block 1
035).

(4) DEL-WINDOW-CONTL-AREA FIG. 11 shows the processing procedure of the DEL-WINDOW-CONTL-AREA command 110 for deleting the window control command/icon area registered in the CWICB 430. The processing procedure for this command is the DEL-SYS-
It can be easily understood in the same way as the explanation of the AREA command 100.

(5) SELECT-DATA Figure 9 shows that when an arbitrary position on the screen is specified, a process corresponding to the display information at that position is identified using SACB410, CWICB430, etc., and control is immediately passed to that process. The processing procedure of the SELECT-DATA command 90 is shown. CPU
11 receives this command, first takes in the coordinate values of the position on the screen 30 designated by the pointing device 18, and stores them in the ICB 40 (block 915). Next, the coordinates of the specified position and
Compare UACS411 of SACB410 and determine whether the specified position is within the system display area (block 9
20). At this time, if the specified position is within the system display area, all SAA413 of SACB410
is searched to find an area that includes the specified position from the SACS 4131 (block 950). At this time,
If there is no corresponding area, the processing of this command ends immediately. If there is a corresponding area, the MADDR 4133 of the SAA 413 at that time is taken out, and the processing module having the memory address indicated there is branched, using the coordinate values of the specified position as a parameter (block 955). As a result, the process previously associated with the specified position is executed.

In block 920, if the specified position is outside the system display area, the WICS of CWICB430 is
431 and the coordinate values of the specified position to determine whether the specified position is within the frontmost window (current window) area (block 925). If it is within the current window area, it also corresponds to the coordinates of the specified position and the current window.
WCB471 W1 4715, W2 4716
It is determined whether the specified position is within the window control command icon area of the current window (block 930). Here, if the specified position is within the window control command/icon area, all CWIA43 of CWICB430
3 and searches for an area that includes the specified position from IACS 4331 (block 935). At this time, if there is no corresponding area, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. If there is a corresponding area, the MADR 4333 of the CWIA 433 at that time is taken out, and the processing module having the memory address indicated there is branched to, using the coordinate values of the specified position as a parameter (block 940). As a result,
Window control processing previously associated with the specified position, such as moving, enlarging, or reducing the current window, is executed.

At block 930, if the specified position is outside the window control command/icon area, a graphical pick (extraction) process regarding the user data displayed within the current window is performed. There are various methods for this picking process, but
Since this is not essential to this embodiment, its explanation will be omitted.

In block 925, if the specified position is outside the current window area, the WCB list connected to the WCB 471 corresponding to the current window is sequentially searched, and W1, WCB of each WCB is searched.
The coordinate values of W2 and the designated position are compared to find a window that includes the designated position (block 905). At this time, if there is no corresponding area, the processing of this command is immediately terminated. If applicable,
WCB's WN (window number) at that time: 471
Patent application No. 59-257570 that has already been filed with 2 as a parameter
“POP-UP-WINDOW” detailed in the specification
Perform processing. As a result, the window corresponding to the specified position becomes the current window displayed in the forefront.

By the way, the storage location of the control table and the execution location of the processing procedure used in the explanation so far can be any of the following combinations. (1) Control table is MM10, processing procedure is CPU11, (2) control table is MM10, processing procedure is GP22, (3)
Control table is part of SM21, processing procedure is GP
22.

As explained above, in this embodiment, by managing the system display area and the window control command/icon area, any screen can be configured, and any position on the screen can be specified. This has the advantage that predetermined processing can be executed immediately.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to arbitrarily set or change the screen configuration of the display screen, and by providing positional information pointing to the displayed screen information,
This has the effect of making it possible to quickly execute processing that is pre-assigned to the screen information.

Further, according to the present invention, when a plurality of pieces of information are displayed on the same screen by allowing overlapping, the display position of each piece of information can be interactively manipulated through the screen. be.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a computer system configuration diagram according to the present invention,
FIG. 2 is a block configuration diagram of the graphic display device portion of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the configuration of the display screen.
4 to 6 are configuration diagrams of control tables according to the present invention, FIGS. 7 to 11 are flowcharts showing the processing procedure of the multi-screen display control method according to the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of such a control table. Explanation of symbols, 410...System display area control block, 430...Window icon control block, 471...Window control block, 70...
DEF-SYS-AREA processing procedure, 80...DEF-
WINDOW-CONTL-AREA processing procedure, 90...
SELECT-DATA processing procedure, 100...DEL-
SYS-AREA processing procedure, 110...DEL-
WINDOW-CONTL-AREA processing procedure.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A processing device that executes any predetermined processing, a memory that stores data necessary for the processing device, and a display memory that stores display data generated as a result of processing by the processing device. , has a display device that visually displays display data on the display memory, and expands the display data related to a plurality of windows onto the display memory, thereby displaying the plurality of windows in a single display on the display device. In a multi-screen display information processing device for displaying on a display screen, a screen coordinate input device for specifying an arbitrary position on the display screen is provided, and for each of the plurality of windows, the display position on the display screen, the window A control table is provided in the memory for managing the positions of one or more control areas provided within the window area and control information corresponding to each of the control areas, and the processing device is configured to control the screen coordinate input device. A multi-screen display information processing apparatus, characterized in that the control information is determined from the position on the display screen specified by the control table, and processing is executed in accordance with the control information. 2. The multi-screen display information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control information is a storage location in the memory of a processing program corresponding to the control area. 3. The multi-screen display information processing device according to claim 1, wherein the control information is a storage location in the memory of display information corresponding to the control area. 4 The position on the display screen specified by the screen coordinate input device is one of the plurality of windows.
If the control area is related to a lower-order window other than the highest-priority window, the processing device also executes a process of displaying the lower-level window as the highest-priority window. Device. 5. A processing device that executes any predetermined processing, a memory that stores data necessary for the processing device, a display memory that stores display data generated as a result of processing in the processing device, and a memory on the display memory. It has a display device that visually displays display data, and displays the plurality of windows on a single display screen of the display device by developing the display data related to the plurality of windows on the display memory. In the multi-screen display information processing device, in addition to providing a screen coordinate input device for specifying an arbitrary position on the display screen, the display position of each of one or more first control areas provided directly on the display screen is provided. and control information corresponding to each of the first control areas, and for each of the plurality of windows, the display position on the display screen, the one provided in the window area,
or a control table for managing positions of a plurality of second control areas within the window area and control information corresponding to each of the second control areas is provided in the memory, and the processing device includes the screen coordinate input device. A multi-screen display information processing apparatus, characterized in that the control information is determined from the position on the display screen specified by the control table, and processing is executed in accordance with the control information. 6. The multi-screen display information processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the control information is a storage location in the memory of a processing program corresponding to the first or second control area. 7. The multi-screen display information processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the control information is a storage location in the memory of display information corresponding to the first or second control area. 8 The position on the display screen specified by the screen coordinate input device is one of the plurality of windows.
If the second control area is related to a lower window other than the highest priority window, the processing device:
The multi-screen display information processing device according to claim 5, which also executes a process of displaying the lower window as the highest priority window. 9 When determining the control information, the processing device first performs a process of searching for the display position of the first region, and if there is no corresponding first region, the processing device searches the display position of the first region in order from the uppermost window. Claim 5, which performs a process of searching the second control area.
Multi-screen display information processing device. 10 A processing device that executes any predetermined processing, a memory that stores data necessary for the processing device, a display memory that stores display data generated as a result of processing in the processing device, and a memory on the display memory. It has a display device that visually displays display data,
In a multi-screen display information processing device that displays the plurality of windows on a single display screen of the display device by developing the display data related to the plurality of windows on the display memory, In addition to providing a screen coordinate input device for specifying the position of the display screen, the processing device also includes one or more first
For each of the control areas, the display position and control information corresponding to each of the first control areas are managed in the memory, and one or more second control areas provided in the area of each of the plurality of windows. For each, its display position and the second
control information corresponding to each of the control areas is managed in the memory, the corresponding control information is determined from the memory from the position on the display screen specified by the screen coordinate input device, and processing is performed according to the control information. A multi-screen display information processing device. 11. The multi-screen display information processing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the control information is a storage location in the memory of a processing program corresponding to the first or second control area. 12. The multi-screen display information processing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the control information is a storage location in the memory of display information corresponding to the first or second control area. 13 If the position on the display screen specified by the screen coordinate input device is the second control area related to a lower window other than the highest priority window among the plurality of windows, the processing device 11. The multi-screen display information processing device according to claim 10, which also executes a process of displaying a lower-order window as a top-priority window.