JPH064252A - Information display method and device therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To select an item whose position in hierarchical structure is already known with single operation by using a hierarchical menu and to improve the operability and response by displaying a lower hierarchy when the item selected in each hierarchy has the lower hierarchy or executing the selected item when the item has no lower hierarchy. CONSTITUTION:When the right button of a mouse 2 is pressed, the lower- hierarchical structure item at the position of a mouse pointer 19 is read out of a secondary storage device 6 and displayed as the 1st hierarchy of the hierarchical menu 18. When the mouse pointer 19 is moved onto an optional menu item in the display state, the menu item at the position of the mouse pointer 19 is emphasized and displayed. When the mouse pointer 19 is moved to the right in this state to exit from the menu area, the lower hierarchical item of the emphasized and displayed menu item is displayed as the 2nd layer of the hierarchical menu 18 read out of the secondary storage device 6.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information display method and device for displaying a hierarchical structure of information by a plurality of lists and displaying information corresponding to an item selected from a display screen of the hierarchical structure.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the principle of a conventional information display apparatus. Reference numeral 7 is an input section, 8 input determination section, 9 is an input processing section, 10 is a display content update processing section, and 12 is a display section. is there.
In addition, FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional hierarchical information display.
Reference numeral 3 is a hierarchical structure display portion, 14 is a first hierarchical display portion, 15 is a second hierarchical display portion, 16 is a third hierarchical display portion, and 17 is an item information display portion.

In the initial state, the items of the highest hierarchy are displayed in a list on the first hierarchy display section 14. When the user performs an operation of selecting an item in the first layer display unit 14, the input determination unit 8
Then, it is judged that the input is accompanied by the update of the content display. Next, lower layer items of the item selected by the display content update processing unit 10 are displayed on the second layer display unit 15, and item information corresponding to the selected item is displayed on the item information display unit 17.
Similarly, when an item in the second layer display unit 15 is selected, the lower layer item is displayed on the third layer display unit 16 and item information corresponding to the selected item is displayed on the item information display unit 17.

[0004]

In the conventional information display device as described above, even when it is desired to display only the item information corresponding to the item whose position in the hierarchical structure is known, the target item is displayed. The selection operation is required in all the layers up to all, and it is almost impossible to select the target item with one operation. Furthermore, each item is selected by the item information display unit 1.
Since this is accompanied by the update of 7, unnecessary display update will be performed. Therefore, there is a problem that operability and responsiveness are poor.

The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks, and provides an information display method and apparatus for improving operability and responsiveness without unnecessary display update when selecting a hierarchical menu. provide.

[0006]

In order to solve this problem, the information display method of the present invention is an information display method for displaying information linked to a hierarchical structure, in which items selected in each hierarchy are If the item has a lower layer, the lower layer is displayed, and if the item selected in each layer does not have the lower layer, the selected item is executed. Here, if the selected item does not have a lower layer and a lower layer is requested, the display returns to the display of the initial layer.

The information display method of the present invention is an information display device for displaying information linked to a hierarchical structure,
A detection unit that detects selection of an item on the display screen, a storage unit that stores information linked to a hierarchical structure, and if the item selected in each layer has a lower layer, the lower layer is displayed. However, when the selected item in each layer does not have a lower layer, the control means executes the selected item. Here, when the selected item does not have a lower hierarchy, the control means displays the initial hierarchy when the lower hierarchy is requested.

[0008]

In such a structure, it is possible to select an item whose position in the hierarchical structure is known by one operation and display the item display corresponding to the item without performing unnecessary display update. It is a thing.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of an information display device according to this embodiment. Reference numeral 7 is an input section, 8 input determination section, 9 is an input processing section,
Reference numeral 10 is a display content update processing unit, 11 is a hierarchical menu processing unit, and 12 is a display unit. Further, FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram of the information display device of the present embodiment, in which 1 is a keyboard and 2 is
Is a mouse and 3 is a display. 4 is a CPU
Controls the above-mentioned parts connected to the bus,
A main storage device 5 and a secondary storage device 6 are further connected to the CPU 4. The main storage device 5 is a left / right button flag 5 for controlling the display of the hierarchical menu from the display screen.
a, a mouse position coordinate storage unit 5b, and a secondary storage device 6
Has a menu storage unit 6a for storing the hierarchical menus to be displayed by linking the hierarchical menus corresponding to the connection state between layers.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the operation of this embodiment.
Reference numeral 3 is a hierarchical structure display portion, 14 is a first hierarchical display portion, 15 is a second hierarchical display portion, 16 is a third hierarchical display portion, 17 is an item information display portion, 18 is a hierarchical menu, and 19 is a mouse pointer. Further, FIG. 6 shows a processing flowchart at the time of selecting a hierarchical item in the present embodiment.

The operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 5A shows an initial screen, in which the items of the first layer are displayed in a list on the first layer display portion 14 of the hierarchical structure display portion 13. In FIG. 5A, when the user presses the left button of the mouse 2, the input determination unit 8 makes a step S11.
Is performed, the process proceeds to step S22, the lower hierarchical item of the selected item is read from the secondary storage device 6, and displayed on the second hierarchical display portion 15. Next, in step S51,
Item information corresponding to the selected item is read from the secondary storage device 6 and displayed on the item information display unit 17. Similarly, when an item is selected by moving the mouse pointer 19 to an arbitrary item in the second layer display portion 15 and pressing the left button of the mouse 2, the lower layer item of the selected item is the third layer item. Item information corresponding to the selected item is displayed on the hierarchical display unit 16 on the item information display unit 17.

When the right button of the mouse 2 is pressed in the state of FIG. 5A, the input judging section 8 makes a judgment in step S11, and the process proceeds to step S21, in which the lower hierarchy item of the item at the position of the mouse pointer 19 is entered. Is read from the secondary storage device 6 and displayed as the first hierarchy of the hierarchy menu 18. When the mouse pointer 19 is moved to an arbitrary menu item while the first hierarchy of the hierarchy menu 18 is displayed, the menu item at the position of the mouse pointer 19 is highlighted. When the mouse pointer 19 is moved to the right from this state to move out of the menu area, the lower hierarchy item of the highlighted menu item is read from the secondary storage device 6 and displayed as the second hierarchy of the hierarchy menu 18. This state is shown in FIG.

When the right button of the mouse 2 is released in the state of FIG. 5B, it is determined in step S31 that the menu item is selected, and in step S41 the selection state of the hierarchical structure display section 13 is changed. In this case, the item at the position of the mouse pointer 19 when the hierarchical menu 18 is displayed is selected on the first hierarchical display portion 14. The second layer display unit 15 and the third layer display unit 16 respectively have a layer menu 18 of FIG.
The items corresponding to the highlighted menu items in the first and second layers of are selected. Next, in step S51, item information corresponding to the item selected on the third layer display unit 16 is read from the secondary storage device 6 and displayed on the item information display unit 17. This state is shown in FIG.

From the state of FIG. 5B, the mouse pointer 1
When 9 is moved out of the area of the hierarchical menu 18 and the right button of the mouse 2 is released, it is determined in step S31 that the menu item is not selected, the process ends, and the state returns to the state of FIG.

The operation performed by the mouse 2 in this embodiment may be performed by key input from the keyboard 1.

In this embodiment, the case where there are three menu layers has been described. However, even when there are four or more menu layers, when the mouse pointer 19 is moved to the right to move out of the menu area, the next lower layer is displayed. The menu should be displayed. Further generalizing, even when the menu hierarchy is different for each menu, for example, when there is no subordinate menu, a buzzer is sounded to inform the user, so that the menu can be freely selected. In this case, if NO in step S31 of the flowchart in FIG. 6, it is determined whether or not there is a lower menu, and if there is, the process returns to step S21 to display the next lower menu.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0019]

According to the present invention, an item whose position in the hierarchical structure is known can be selected with a single operation using the hierarchical menu, and unnecessary display update can be avoided, so that operability and responsiveness are improved. Is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle configuration diagram of an information display device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram of the information display device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a principle configuration diagram of a conventional information display device.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional information display device.

FIG. 5 is an operation explanatory diagram of the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a processing flow of layer item selection according to the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Keyboard, 2 ... Mouse, 3 ... Display, 4 ...
CPU, 5 ... Main storage device, 5a ... Left / right button / flag,
5b ... Mouse position coordinate storage unit, 6 ... Secondary storage device, 6a
... Hierarchical menu storage section, 7 ... Input section, 8 ... Input determination section,
9 ... Input processing unit, 10 ... Display content update processing unit, 11 ... Hierarchical menu processing unit, 12 ... Display unit, 13 ... Hierarchical structure display unit, 14 ... First hierarchy display unit, 15 ... Second hierarchy display unit, 1
6 ... 3rd hierarchy display part, 17 ... Item information display part, 18 ... Hierarchy menu, 19 ... Mouse pointer

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Inventor Shinji Yamashita 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Masaaki Yamada 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Incorporated (72) Inventor Koichi Fence, 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An information display method for displaying information linked to a hierarchical structure, wherein when an item selected in each layer has a lower layer, the lower layer is displayed and each layer is displayed. An information display method, characterized in that, when the selected item does not have a lower hierarchy, the selected item is executed. 2. The information display method according to claim 1, wherein when the selected item does not have a lower hierarchy, if the lower hierarchy is requested, the display returns to the display of the initial hierarchy. 3. An information display device for displaying information linked to a hierarchical structure, comprising: detecting means for detecting selection of an item on a display screen; and storage means for storing information linked to the hierarchical structure. When the item selected in each layer has a lower layer, the lower layer is displayed, and when the item selected in each layer does not have a lower layer, the selected item is executed. An information display device comprising: 4. The control means, when the selected item does not have a lower hierarchy, requests the lower hierarchy,
The information display device according to claim 3, wherein an initial hierarchy is displayed.