JPH07210700A - Multiwindow display system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To input characters and graphics by taking into account the entire picture while observing the reduced display window. CONSTITUTION:The superimpose on the same frame memory is detected (410) by specifying the position 406, size 407, and transparency attribute 416 of a window specifying the display screen information by controlling a control 401 of a pointing device. The sumperimposed part is mixed and displayed (411) and the translucent superimpose display of the window is performed and the result is displayed on a display (415) through frame memory (412, 413, and 414).

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a window display system for a computer such as a personal computer having a display device such as a display.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When the screen information of a computer is displayed using a window system, the screen may be enlarged and displayed. At this time, the window may not be able to display only part of the screen information because there is no resolution for displaying the entire screen on the display. Therefore, the screen information is reduced and displayed,
It was being displayed in another window.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned prior art, since the display has no resolution, the window can display only part of the screen information. However, when performing an input operation such as writing in a window, it may be desired to check the state of the entire screen, and the screen may be reduced and displayed in a window on the display. At this time, it was impossible to simultaneously see the window used for writing and the window of the reduced display screen for seeing the whole other than arranging so that the two windows do not overlap.

On the other hand, when the windows are displayed in a superimposed manner, the lower window is hidden by the upper window, and unless the window is selected and displayed, the displayed contents are unknown.

An object of the present invention is to solve such a conventional problem and simultaneously display a reduced display window of the entire display screen information and a part of the display screen information for handwriting input on the display, and input writing etc. It is to provide a display means for viewing a reduced display of the result while performing an operation.

[0006]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a multi-window display system having the following means of the present invention is constructed.

(1) A display for displaying output and a computer for generating display screen information that can be displayed on the display are provided, and reduced display information is displayed in a window from the display screen information and the display screen information is displayed. A multi-window display method, characterized in that when a part of the above is read out and displayed on the display as a window, the overlapping portion of the two windows is displayed semi-transparently.

(2) A multi-window display method characterized in that at least one of the two or more windows to be superimposed and displayed is given transparency.

(3) A multi-window display method characterized in that the transparency of a semi-transparent superimposed display window can be changed.

[0010]

According to the multi-window display method for performing semi-transparent superimposition display according to the present invention, even if only a part of the entire display screen information window for input to be displayed on the display can be displayed, semi-transparent superimposition It is possible to display a screen that is reduced in size. For this reason, it becomes possible to input characters, figures, etc. considering the proportions of the entire screen while looking at the reduced display window.

[0011]

1 is a block diagram of a display device and a computer system for implementing the present invention, FIG. 2 is a front view showing an example of the display configuration of the display of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a means for changing the transparency of superimposed display. 4 is a front view showing an example of a window display of a reduced screen of display screen information, FIG. 5 is a front view showing an example of a window display of a part of the display screen information, and FIG. 6 is a reduction of the display screen information. A front view showing an example of a semi-transparent superimposed display of a window display of a screen and a window display of a part of display screen information, FIG. 7 is a front view showing an example of display before selecting a window, and FIG. 8 shows a window selected. FIG. 9 is a front view showing an example of the subsequent display, FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a translucent superimposed display process of a plurality of windows, FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a translucent display changing operation, and FIG. 11 is a process window identification. It is a flow chart of.

In FIG. 1, 1010 is a display for displaying windows and operation interfaces, 1020 is a pointing device for selecting operation interfaces and windows, 1100 is a computer, 1110 is a memory for holding display screen information to be displayed on the display,
Reference numeral 1111 denotes an auxiliary storage device that holds all display screen information, 1120 a frame memory that holds data for displaying an image on a display, 1130 that selects display screen information, performs window display control, and interprets an input event. An information processing device 1140 for performing processing is a D / A converter for displaying data in the frame memory on a display.

The display 1010 is a computer 1000.
A part or all of at least one display screen information stored in the internal memory 1110 is displayed. The input of the pointing device 1020 is performed by the information processing device 11
The operation content is interpreted and displayed or processed by 30.

Here, a method of realizing the semitransparent superimposed display when the window display of at least one display screen information is performed will be described with reference to FIG.

When a screen operation is caused by the pointing device 1020, all screen information newly displayed on the display among the display screen information held in the auxiliary storage device 1111 is read into the memory 1110 (40
1, 402, 403). The information processing apparatus 1130 displays the display range and window of each display screen information on the display 1010.
Determine the position, size, and transparency when displaying on top (4
04,405,406,407,416). At this time, which window corresponds to the address position of the frame memory corresponding to the display position of the display is determined, and the memory 1
It is saved in 110 (408). Next, the information processing device 113
For 0, it is determined whether or not a plurality of windows are registered at the address position of the frame memory saved in the memory 1110 (409, 410). If a plurality of windows are registered, the mixture processing is performed according to the transparency of each window and then stored in the frame memory 1120 (411,
412). If multiple windows are not registered,
The information processing device 1130 stores the display screen information of each window in the frame memory 1120 corresponding to the display position of the display 1010 (413). Frame memory 11
The data stored in 20 is stored in the D / A converter 1140.
Is converted into a video signal by and displayed on the display 1010 (414, 415).

The method of the mixing process 411 will be described here. Now, if the two windows have the colors A and B independently and overlap each other, A
When the transparency of A is B and the transparency of B is B, the mixed color of the overlapping portion can be derived by the following formula 1.

[0017]

## EQU00001 ## Mixed color = A.times..alpha ./ (. Alpha. +. Beta.) + B.times. {1-.alpha ./ (. Alpha. +. Beta.)} (Equation 1) In this way, translucent superimposition when displaying at least one display screen information window Display can be realized.

FIG. 2 is a front view showing the screen structure of the display. The display 110 displays a scroll bar 120 which is a means for changing at least the transparency of the superimposed display by a video signal from a computer (not shown). To do.

FIG. 3 is a display example of the scroll bar 120. The slide portion 122 consisting of a gray area, the density can be displayed in percentage, and the slide can be made by inputting a pen in the indicated state.
It is composed of a scroll box 121 which can move on 122. In FIG. 3, the density is displayed on the gray area 122 instead of the transparency, and “100%” and “0%” displayed above and below the gray area 122 also represent the density. The display of the concentration can be derived by the following equation 2.

[0020]

[Equation 2] Density (%) = 100−Transparency (%) (Equation 2) Next, an embodiment in which a reduced screen of display screen information and a part of the display screen information are displayed in an overlapping manner. This will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 4 shows an example of display of display screen information.
Reference numeral 200 is a window for displaying a reduced screen of all display information, 210 is a character string display, and 220, 230, 240 are graphic displays. Further, 225 is a range in a part of the display screen information of the display screen information displayed in FIG. 5, and is shown by a rectangular frame for convenience of explanation. FIG. 5 is an example of a part of the display screen information display. 201 is a window for displaying a part of the display screen information corresponding to the rectangular frame 225 of FIG. 4, and the character string display 210 and the graphic display 220 of FIG. It consists of an enlarged character string display 211 and a graphic display 221.

FIG. 6 shows a window 200 for displaying the reduced screen of FIG. 4 and a window for displaying a part of the display information of FIG.

When the screens are switched and displayed, the display area of, for example, 225 is enlarged to the entire display screen information shown in FIG. 4, and a part of the display screen information shown in FIG. 6 is displayed. This window is displayed by superimposing it on the reduced screen window of the display screen information. At this time, the display screen information that is hidden by the overlapping of the windows appears if the display is simply superimposed. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, by providing transparency to the displayed window and performing semi-transparent display, the overlapping lower window can be seen.

As a result, a part of the display screen information 200 shown in FIG. 6 can be manually input and the entire display screen information can be referred to by using the window 201 for displaying the reduced screen. Even when inputting with an electronic pen on the part, handwriting of characters, numerical values, etc. can be done in a proportionate size.

This operation uses the whole information and the partial information of the same display screen information instead of the plurality of display screen information in FIG. 9, and the processing content thereof is the same as that described in FIG. .

As described above, the window of the reduced screen of one display screen information and the window of the partial screen of the display screen information can be displayed in a semitransparent overlapping manner. With this, when a part of the display screen information is enlarged and input, it is possible to refer to the entire display screen information, thereby enabling a well-balanced input operation while observing the whole state.

The operation of changing the semi-transparent display will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, a window whose transparency is to be changed is selected (441). This selection method will be described later with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. Next, by operating the scroll bar 120 in FIG. 2 (442)
Change the transparency of the selected window (443, 44
4). Now, here, the slide bar 121 shown in FIG. 3 is slid 122 using the pointing device 1020.
Change the transparency by moving within the range.

This operation includes the operation shown in FIG. 9 (40
This can be explained by executing the processing of transparency determination (416) again in 1). Note that the degree of transparency is determined by the display 1 operated by the pointing device 1020 using a general graphical user interface method.
The information processing apparatus 1130 interprets the position of the slide bar 121 displayed at 010.

Next, a method of selecting a window to be operated will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. In FIG. 7, reference numerals 280 and 281 denote windows which are not targets of operation, and 28
Reference numeral 2 is an operation target window, and 301 is a cursor in a pointing state. Further, in FIG. 8, reference numeral 283 is an operation target window, and 284 is a non-operation target window. The cursor 301 is moved from the window 282 having a thick window frame indicating that the operation is currently performed to the window 281.
To move. Here, the pointing device 1020
By the selection operation of, the window 281 changes to the state of the window 283 having a thick window frame shown in FIG. 8, and the window 282 changes to the state of the window 284 of the normal frame shown in FIG. By this operation, the window to be operated can be selected. At this time, the transparency of the window to be operated on the computer side is lowered to enable input. The pointing device selection operation may be realized by, for example, pressing a button of a mouse, which is a standard input device of a personal computer, or a specific key of a keyboard on the pointing device.

This operation includes the operation shown in FIG. 9 (40
This can be explained by executing the processing of transparency determination (416) again in 1). It should be noted that the magnitude of transparency is set to a value that is arbitrarily determined in advance.

As described above, even when a plurality of windows are translucently superimposed, the computer dynamically controls so that the transparency becomes low when the display frame of the window is thick.
The currently enterable window can be identified.

Next, a method of identifying a window to be processed on the computer side when an input operation using the pointing device occurs will be described with reference to FIG. First, the cursor operation on the display is performed using the pointing device, and the cursor coordinate calculation at this time is performed (447). The window displayed on the display is calculated in the computer (448), the window with the lowest transparency is calculated from the windows corresponding to the cursor coordinate position (449), and the window to be input is determined (450). . As a result, the hand input is performed on a window with low transparency, that is, the window most visible to the user.

As described above, even if a plurality of windows are translucently superimposed, the computer dynamically controls so that the transparency becomes low when the display frame of the windows is thick.
The currently enterable window can be identified.

[0034]

According to the present invention, even if only a part of the whole display screen can be displayed by changing the range of display screen information displayed on the display, the whole screen can be reduced and displayed by superimposing it on the display screen. It becomes possible to see the state of the entire screen.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a display device and a computer system that realize the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view showing an example of the display configuration of the display according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a front view of a unit for changing the transparency of superimposed display.

FIG. 4 is a front view showing an example of a window display of a reduced screen of display screen information.

FIG. 5 is a front view showing an example of a window display of a part of display screen information.

FIG. 6 is a front view showing an example of a semi-transparent superimposed display of a reduced screen window display of display screen information and a partial window display of display screen information.

FIG. 7 is a front view showing an example of a display before selecting a window.

FIG. 8 is a front view showing an example of a display after selecting a window.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart for performing translucent superimposed display processing of a plurality of windows.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a translucent display change operation.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart for identifying a processing window.

[Explanation of reference numerals] 100 ... Display enclosure, 110, 1010 ... Display, 120 ... Scroll bar, 121 ... Scroll box, 122 ... Gray area, 200, 201, 2
80, 281, 282, 283, 284 ... Window,
210, 211 ... Character string display, 220, 221, 23
0,240 ... Graphic display, 301 ... Cursor, 1020 ...
Pointing device, 1100 ... Calculator, 1110
... memory, 1111 ... auxiliary storage device, 1120 ... frame memory, 1130 ... information processing device, 1140 ... D / A
converter.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Taizo Kinoshita 1-280 Higashi Koikekubo, Kokubunji City, Tokyo Inside Hitachi Central Research Laboratory

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A part of the display screen information is read out,
A multi-window display method, wherein a reduced screen of the display screen information is displayed semi-transparently on a part of the display screen information when the display screen is displayed on a display device. 2. When displaying one of the plurality of display screen information on a display device, at least one of the remaining display screen information of the plurality of display screen information is already displayed on the display device. A multi-window display method that is characterized by semi-transparent overlapping display with existing display screen information. 3. A multi-window display system according to claim 1, wherein the computer dynamically controls the transparency by selecting one of a plurality of translucently superimposed screens. 4. A multi-window display system according to claim 1, wherein a means for changing the transparency of the translucent superimposed display is displayed on a display device, and the user operates the means. 5. The multi-window display method according to claim 1, further comprising means for displaying on a display device a ratio of transparency of an inputtable screen of translucent superimposed display. 6. The multi-window display system according to claim 1, wherein a screen having a low transparency among the screens displayed in the semitransparent superimposed manner is an input target.