JPH05250125A - Multiwindow display controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To display plural windows with no mutual overlapping so as to simultaneously confirm these windows and also to display an active window at an easiest-to-set position. CONSTITUTION:The number of windows is obtained in a processing ST1. Then a display screen is divided in accordance with the number of windows and these divided screens are assigned to each window in a processing ST2. Under such conditions, an active window is first pointed and therefore a specific screen section designated previously is assigned to the active window. That is, the active window is assigned to an upper screen section when two or three windows exist and then to the upper left edge screen section with four or more windows respectively.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multi-window display control device for simultaneously displaying a plurality of windows on a display without overlapping each other.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In personal computers and the like,
A multi-window system that displays a plurality of windows on a display at the same time is often used. In the conventional multi-window system, it is possible to generate a window on the display and move the position of the displayed window using the mouse. When the number of windows displayed on the display increases, a plurality of windows are displayed in an overlapping manner. In this case, the display order of the windows can be changed so that the required window can be displayed in the foreground on the display.

[0003]

However, in the conventional multi-window system, a plurality of windows are displayed so as to overlap each other, and it is not possible to understand at first glance what kind of window exists on the display. Therefore, in order to find the required window, the operation of changing the display order of the windows must be repeated, which is a troublesome and time-consuming operation. An object of the present invention is to display a plurality of windows without overlapping each other so that the plurality of windows can be confirmed at the same time, and an active window can be displayed at a position that is most easily seen.

[0004]

Means for Solving the Problems The means of the present invention is a window display control device for managing display positions and priorities of a plurality of windows, respectively, and displaying a plurality of windows on a display screen of a display according to the priorities. Means for generating control information for partitioning the display screen into a plurality of screen sections corresponding to the number of a plurality of windows, and displaying a plurality of windows arranged in each of the screen sections based on the generated control information And a control means for displaying the window having the highest priority in a specific screen section.

[0005]

The operation of the means of the present invention is as follows. Control information that manages the display position and priority of multiple windows, displays multiple windows on the display screen of the display according to the priority, and divides the display screen into multiple screen sections according to the number of multiple windows. Is generated. The control means arranges and displays a plurality of windows in the screen sections based on the generated control information, and displays the window with the highest priority in a specific screen section of the screen sections.

[0006]

The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

{Circuit Operation} FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. The mouse 5 is a simple coordinate input device. For example, when an operator holds the mouse 5 and slides it on the desk surface, data is added to the mouse control device 6 in accordance with the amount of movement. The mouse control device 6 displays the position coordinates of the mouse cursor displayed on the display screen 7,
A change is made using the data corresponding to this movement amount, and the changed position data is added to the processor 8.

The mouse 5 has a button switch 5-1.
When the button is pressed by the operator, switch information indicating that the button has been pressed is added to the processor 8 via the mouse controller 6.

The processor 8 is the mouse controller 6 described above.
A cursor pattern is written in, for example, a graphic display memory (not shown) based on the added position information, and is displayed on the display screen 7 (CRT) together with the display data stored in the display memory 10 via the display control unit 9. As a result, the mouse cursor moves in the display screen in response to the movement of the cursor 5.

On the other hand, when the button switch 5-1 of the mouse 5 is pressed down, the processor 8 stores the current position of the mouse cursor, detects which menu on the display screen is instructed, and receives the instruction. Execute the process corresponding to the menu. For example, when an item "screen division" in the menu is instructed, the divided display processing described below is performed. The processor 8 has a keyboard controller 11
The keyboard 11a is connected via the keyboard 11a, but the key data from the keyboard 11a can also be used for menu instructions, window processing, and other data input. That is, in the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 1, data can be input from the mouse 5 and the keyboard 11a.

The overlapping display and the split display operation according to the split display processing instruction from the mouse 5 or the keyboard 11a will be described below.

The window memory 12 stores the window display data created by the operation of the operator of the keyboard 11a and the mouse 5 described above, and the window management table 13 indicates the position where the window display data is displayed and the front-back display relationship of the windows. The window information to represent is stored.

The display data stored in the window memory 12 is display screen image data, and based on the window information stored in the window management table 13, for example, multi-window display is performed as shown in FIG. It The overlap control device 14 controls such display.

When the overlap display instruction signal is applied from the processor 8, the overlap control device 14 first refers to the window management table 13 to divide the display screen 7 in the display of each window, and which one of the divided areas is displayed. Display information indicating whether to display a window is stored in the display control memory 15.

{Management Table} FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of the window management table 13. This table is provided for each window, and the corresponding window width bpw (FIG. 4) and window height bph
(Fig. 4), X on the display screen in the upper left corner of the display window
Coordinates bpx and Y coordinates bpy, size of characters in window CSiZe, pitch between lines, pointer of next window, ie, starting address fp of window management table 13 at the rear, pointer bp of previous window, pointer of management table of first subwindow swsp, pointer of the last sub-window management table swe
p, parent window pointer parent, title bar data title, active title bar atb
p, inactive title bar dtbp are stored.

In the embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, a main window (parent window) can be provided with a plurality of sub-windows within the main window. The first sub-window A is pointed to by the pointer swsp of the management table of the first sub-window, and the head of the management table of sub-window B is pointed to by the pointer fp1 to the next window in sub-window A. Then, the head of the management table of the sub window C is designated by the pointer fp2 to the next window of the sub window B. Since the sub-window C is the final one, null (NULL; “00”) is stored in the pointer to the next window of this sub-window C, indicating that this sub-window C is the final one. On the contrary, these management tables correlate the connections from the rear by pointers bp3 and bp2 from the last subwindow swep of the parent window to the previous window in sequence. Null data is stored in the pointer bp1 to the frontmost window of the sub-window A. These store the relationship of the subwindow to the parent window.

In most cases, the parent window represents, for example, one screen. When a plurality of windows are further provided, the parent windows similarly relate the parent windows. At this time, a higher window management table 13 is provided.

In the sub-windows A, B and C, as shown in FIG. 2, a pointer "paren" to the parent window is displayed.
t is provided, and its pointers parent1, p
From parent2 and parent3, it is possible to know which parent window this subwindow belongs to.

{Overlapping display} Using the management tables of the subwindows A, B, and C described above, each area in the overlapping window display is divided, and which part of which window is displayed in that area. It is stored in the display control memory 15. And window display device 1
The stored data is continuously output by 6. Since the data is stored in the position of the display memory 10 corresponding to each area, the window display device 16 reads the area from the window memory 12 and also performs bit mover (Bit Move).
The moving process is performed at 17 and the result is stored in the display memory 10. The bit mover 17 is a circuit for instructing which position in the display memory 10 to store the read data. For example, the bit mover 17 is based on the information given by the X coordinate bpx of the screen and the Y coordinate bpy of the screen. Is a circuit for converting the storage address of. That is, there is no change in the content of the bit data corresponding to each display dot, and the address at which the data is stored changes with this bit mover 17.

{Division display} By the above-mentioned operation, the superposition display shown in FIG. 5 is made. On the other hand, when the screen division processing is designated (the mouse cursor 3 in FIG. 5 is moved to the “screen division” position shown in FIG. 6 and the button switch 5-1 is pressed), the processor 8 causes the division shown in FIG. Execute the displayed flowchart. First, the process ST1 of detecting the current parent window and obtaining the number of subwindows related to the parent window is executed.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart for obtaining the number of windows in the embodiment of the present invention. When this processing is executed, first, the register COUNT in the processor 8 is
Then, the process S1 for setting 1 to 1 is executed. Then, similarly, the head address of the parent management table is stored in the pointer P of the processor 8 (S2). Next, the content of the pointer swsp, which points to the first subwindow of the table designated by the pointer P, that is, the parent table, is null (NULL).
It is discriminated whether or not S3. In this determination S3, when the data is null (YES), there is only the parent window, so the value of the register COUNT is set to 0 by a process not shown, and then the process is terminated. If the data is not null data (NO), a subwindow exists, so the content of the pointer swsp that points to the first subwindow of the management table pointed to by the pointer P is stored in the pointer P (S4). By this processing, the start address of the management table of subwindow A is stored in the pointer.

Next, it is determined S5 whether or not the pointer fp to the next window designated by the table address newly stored in the pointer P is null data.

When it is not null data (NO), the process S that increments the content of the register COUNT (f1) and stores the pointer fp to the next window designated by the table address stored in the pointer P
Do 6. Then, the determination process S5 described above is performed again,
The processing S6 and the determination processing S5 are repeated until the pointer fp to the next window becomes null data. Since the pointer fp to the next window described above is null data (YES) in the management table of the final subwindow, this processing ends. When this process ends, the value of the register COUNT of the processor 8 becomes the number of subwindows. For example, in the case of the configuration shown in FIG. 3, the register C
The value of OUNT becomes "3".

Since the number of subwindows to be displayed is obtained by the above-mentioned processing ST1, processing ST2 for determining the division pattern is executed next.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the display screen 7 is vertically divided into two, and the two divided areas are further divided into the left and right directions.

First, the number of subwindows to be displayed, that is, the value Z of the register COUNT is divided by two. Let this quotient be the division number X in the upper row. That is, X = Z% 2 (1) In the equation (1),% is an integer value of the quotient when Z is divided by 2. Then, the lower division number is a value obtained by adding the correction value Y to the upper division number X. The correction value Y
Is a value that is 1 when the count value Z is odd and 0 when the count value Z is even. That is, Y = Z−2 · X (2)

FIGS. 10A to 10F are views for explaining the order of division and window display when the number of subwindows, that is, the value of Z is 2 to 7.

When there are two windows, windows W1 and W2 are vertically
Are assigned (FIG. 10 (a)). When there are three windows, the window W1 is assigned to the upper side and the windows W2 and W3 are assigned to the lower side (FIG. 10 (b)). Similarly, when there are four windows W1 and W2 in the upper row and windows W3 and W4 in the lower row (see FIG. 10).
(C)). When there are five windows W1, W2,
Windows W3, W4 and W5 are shown in the lower row (FIG. 10 (d)).
When there are six, windows W1, W2 and W3 are on the upper stage and windows W4, W5 and W6 are on the lower stage (FIG. 10 (e)). When there are seven windows, windows W1 to W3 are assigned to the upper row and windows W4 to W7 (FIG. 10 (f)) are assigned to the lower row.

In the process ST2, the display screen 7 is divided according to the value of the number of windows Z as described above, and is assigned to each window.

After this processing ST2, processing ST3 is executed in which the coordinates X and Y of each allocated and divided area are obtained and stored in the respective management tables. As a result, the value assigned to the corresponding area is stored in each management table. Of course, the sizes in the vertical and horizontal directions, that is, the window width bpw and the window height bph are also calculated at that time and stored in the management table.

When the above processing is completed, the processor 8 causes the overlap controller 14 to start the display processing. In the above-mentioned overlapping display, the area where each window overlaps is detected, and the area is divided and the overlapping display is performed. However, after the processing of FIG. 8 described above is completed, the respective active windows are not overlapped. The overlap control device 14 is simply divided and stores the display control data in the display control memory 15 for each area. When this is completed, the contents of the window memory 12 are changed by the bit mover 1 under the control of the window display device 16 as in the case of the superimposed display.
The position stored in the display memory 10 is controlled by 7 and stored in the display memory 10. As a result, split display as shown in FIG. 7 is performed on the display screen 7 via the display control device 9. Note that the active window is always designated first by the parent window, so that FIG.
The window W1 in (f) corresponds to this.

[0032]

According to the present invention, since the display screen is divided into a plurality of screen sections and a plurality of windows are arranged and displayed in each screen section, the display area of the display screen is used to the maximum extent. There is an advantage that the display data of each window can be displayed, the display data of each window can be checked at the same time in the most visible state, and the active window is displayed in a specific screen section, so that an operation such as editing can be immediately started.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a window management table.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a relationship between windows.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example for explaining a window management table.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display example of a multi-window according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a display example of a multi-window according to the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a display example of a multi-window according to the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of divided display.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart for obtaining the number of windows.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a split screen.

[Explanation of symbols]

 8 CPU 12 Window memory 13 Window management table 17-bit mover

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A window display control device for managing display positions and priorities of a plurality of windows, respectively, and displaying the plurality of windows on a display screen of a display according to the priority order. A unit that generates control information that divides the screen into a plurality of screen sections, and a plurality of windows that are arranged and displayed in each of the screen sections based on the generated control information, and the window that has the highest priority And a control means for displaying each of the screen sections on a specific screen section.