JPH07199900A - Window system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To simplify scroll operation of a user for retrieving a disk on a window picture by moving display information in the window picture in the oblique specific direction according to a scroll instruction in the oblique specific direction. CONSTITUTION:A picture control part controlling the window picture is constituted of a scroll icon control part 1, a window control part 2 and a picture display part 3, and a scroll icon detection part 11 in the scroll icon control part 1 detects a direction where a scroll icon is depressed, and a co-ordinate calculation part 12 calculates a co-ordinate position when the scroll icon is moved in the picture, and performs the retrieval, etc., of the movable area of the icon. Further, a data coordinate calculation part 21 in the window control part calculates a data co-ordinate for scrolling the data displayed in an application in the specific direction. Then, the display information in the window picture is moved in the oblique specified direction according to the scroll instruction in the oblique specific direction.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a window system for displaying windows on a display screen, and more particularly to a window system suitable for a system for displaying a plurality of window screens.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, scrolling of a window system is performed by using a window moving instruction means called a scroll bar. Two scroll bars are provided to instruct the movement in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction. Therefore, the window can only be scrolled vertically or horizontally. The vertical scroll bar is fixedly installed at the right end of the display screen on the window screen, and the horizontal scroll bar is fixedly installed at the lower end of the display screen.

[0003]

In such a window system, it is possible to display a plurality of windows. In this case, however, the display windows overlap due to the size of the display screens, and the windows at the lower position are displayed. Overlapping areas are hidden. In order to display the hidden part in the window, the information located in the hidden part is scrolled vertically and horizontally to the visible part. In particular, in order to move the window diagonally to display the hidden portion, the user has to make good use of the up / down scroll and the left / right scroll, and the operation is troublesome.

Further, by displaying the vertical scroll bar on the display screen, the display area such as a text area in the Windows screen that can be actually used for an application is narrowed, so that the display screen cannot be effectively utilized.

Therefore, in view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to provide a window system capable of simplifying a user's scroll operation for searching data on a window screen.

[0006]

In order to achieve such an object, the invention of claim 1 provides an instruction means for instructing scrolling in a diagonal specific direction, and display information on a window screen according to the instruction. And display control means for moving in a diagonal specific direction.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the diagonal specific direction is
It is characterized in that it can be variably set in any direction, including horizontal and vertical directions.

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, by scrolling the display information on the window screen in a diagonal specific direction,
The number of left and right scroll operations is reduced to one.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the direction of the oblique scroll is made variable, thereby increasing the degree of freedom of search.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram functionally showing the system configuration of the embodiment of the present invention.

The screen control unit for controlling the window screen in FIG. 1 comprises a scroll icon management unit 1, a window management unit 2 and a screen display unit 3. In the figure,
Reference numeral 11 denotes a scroll icon detection unit that detects the pressing direction of the scroll icon. Reference numeral 2 denotes a coordinate calculation unit that calculates a coordinate position when the scroll icon is moved within the screen and searches for a movable area of the icon.
Reference numeral 21 is a data coordinate calculation unit for scrolling the data displayed in the application in a designated direction. Reference numeral 3 denotes a screen display unit for displaying icons and windows on the display and inputting requests for icons and windows.

A circuit configuration for realizing such a functional system is shown in FIG.

The following circuits are connected to the common bus 105. The central processing unit (CPU) 100 controls the system based on the system program stored in the system memory 101. The display control program according to the present invention is also stored in the ROM 101.

The work memory 102 stores a calculation result of the CPU 100 and input / output data. C from the keyboard
Numerical information, character information, and control information used for the operation instruction to the PU 100 and the calculation of the CPU 100 are input.

A pointing device 104 such as a mouse is connected to a common bus via a keyboard 103. Normally, when the user moves the pointing device on the desk, the CPU 100 executes display control for moving the cursor on the display screen of the display 105A in accordance with the moving direction and the moving amount.

The video memory 105 stores the image to be displayed on the display screen of the display 105A. The image of the video memory 105 is sent to the display unit 105 at regular intervals,
Displayed on the display screen. As will be described later, the CPU 100 executes the control program of FIG. 5 according to the present invention to realize the functions of the moving direction detection unit 11, the coordinate calculation unit 12, and the data coordinate calculation unit 21 of FIG. The display 105A also functions as the screen display unit 3.

In this embodiment, an icon (graphic) for indicating the moving direction of the window is displayed on the display screen of the display 105A, and the icon (hereinafter referred to as a scroll icon) can be operated by the pointing device 104. By giving an instruction, the CPU 100 is informed of the moving direction of the window.

A display example of the scroll icon is shown in FIG.
Shown in B. Image information for creating this icon graphic is stored in advance on a hard disk (not shown) in FIG.

The display control operation according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.

In advance, the user uses the pointing device 1
It is assumed that the CPU 04 is informed of the use of the scroll icon A of FIG. 3 by the instruction of 04 and the parameter indicating the scroll icon of A is set as the use icon on the work memory 102.

With this setting, the image of the scroll icon A is displayed at an arbitrary position in the video memory 105, for example, at a position corresponding to the position P3 on the display screen 200 of FIG.
Written by PU100. As a result, the display 105
Scroll icon A to the position of P3 on the display screen on A
Is displayed. Further, position information indicating the position of the icon A at this time is stored in the work memory 102.

In such a state, the user positions the cursor of the pointing device (mouse) 104 on the scroll icon in order to move the scroll icon A to a desired position, and operates (presses) the right button while the pointing device 104 main body is operated. Relative to
Release the right button operation (release the right button).

Conventionally, the CPU 100 which detects this operation is
The image of the icon A on the video memory 105 is moved according to the moving direction and the moving amount of the pointing device 104 using a well-known icon moving display procedure (S1 → S5 in FIG. 4). As a result, the scroll icon A is moved to the position P1 in FIG. 3, for example.

Next, the user uses the pointing device 10
4 is operated to position the cursor at a position indicating the specific direction of the scroll icon A, for example, the direction of the symbol Q1 in FIG. Then, click the left button of the pointing device multiple times. At this time, the CPU 100 operates as the coordinate calculation unit 12 and the movement direction detection unit 11 in FIG. 1, and monitors the position of the cursor and the presence or absence of a click (short-time operation) of the left button of the pointing device 104.
At this time, the icon display is controlled so as not to run off the display screen. When the click of the left button is detected (S1 in FIG. 5), the CPU 100 determines from the position information of the cursor at that time that it is the screen data scroll direction (direction Q1 in FIG. 3) designated by the user.

Thereafter, the CPU 100 counts the number of clicks (or click time) of the left button, and moves (obliquely scrolls) the display data in the window screen in the designated direction by the number of clicks (S3).

More specifically, the CPU 100 as the data coordinate calculation unit 21 of FIG. 1 calculates a new coordinate point from the current display data coordinate point, which is the base point of data display, based on the moving direction and the number of clicks. . The CPU 100 reads the information corresponding to the coordinate point from the work memory 102 or the like, converts it into an image, and writes it in the window screen portion of the video memory 105. As a result, it appears as if the display data is moving (scrolling) diagonally on the display screen.

As described above, in this embodiment, since the data in the window screen can be scrolled diagonally, the data that cannot be displayed on the window display screen,
For example, it becomes easy to search for a specific portion in a drawing image such as a figure, and it becomes easy to move a hidden portion of the overlapping window to a visible portion.

The conventional window screen is shown in FIG. 4 for comparison with the window screen of the present embodiment, but the window screen of the present embodiment has a data display area expanded only in the portion where the scroll bar is not displayed. .

In addition to this embodiment, the following example can be carried out.

(1) In this embodiment, the processing for scrolling the display data in the window diagonally has been described.

When a plurality of window screens are displayed, it is advisable to perform the above-mentioned diagonal scrolling process on the active or operable windows.

(2) In the above-described embodiment, the scroll icon is displayed so that the user can freely select the scroll direction of the data in the window. However, when the scroll direction is limited to a specific direction, As shown in FIG. 6, a scroll bar 300 for instructing diagonal movement on the display screen can be used. In order to realize this, as an example, by operating the left button of the pointing device, the scroll bar 300 and the scroll box 301 are displayed by the instruction of the CPU, and the scroll box 301 is moved by the instruction of the pointing device.

The CPU 100 is a scroll box 301.
The window data is diagonally scrolled according to the movement amount of.

Further, as shown in FIG. 6, if a scroll bar for instructing scrolling in the vertical and horizontal directions is also displayed as in the conventional case, the degree of freedom in the moving direction of data is increased.

(3) In this embodiment, the information image displayed corresponding to the diagonal scroll is displayed in the video memory 10 of FIG.
Although the example of writing in 5 is shown, when the video memory 105 has a capacity of one display screen or more, a method of changing the address range to be read as a display screen according to oblique scroll may be used.

[0036]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the invention, since the scroll display in the diagonal direction is possible, the user's operation is simplified and the data retrieval is facilitated.

According to the second aspect of the invention, the display information can be moved in any direction by a single type of indicating means.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional system configuration of the present embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a specific system configuration of the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a shape of a scroll icon.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing positions of scroll icons on a display screen.

5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the CPU 100 of FIG.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a display example of a scroll bar.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Scroll Icon Management Section 2 Window Management Section 3 Screen Display Section 11 Scroll Icon Detection Section 12 Coordinate Calculation Section 21 Data Coordinate Calculation Section

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A window comprising: instruction means for instructing scrolling in a diagonal specific direction; and display control means for moving display information on a window screen in the diagonal specific direction in response to the instruction. system. 2. The window system according to claim 1, wherein the oblique specific direction is variably set to any direction including a horizontal direction and a vertical direction.