JPH10207628A - Information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce misoperation by exactly operating cursor positioning by informing a user of the position of an arbitrary constituting element with touch from a pointing device in addition to sight at the time of the operation of an application program operating on a window system, and to provide a smooth operational environment by simultaneously discriminating data by informing the user of a data attribute which is not displayed on a screen with touch. SOLUTION: The attribute or kind of the constituting element of an application program and a touch stimulus to be generated by an operation generating part 11 of a mouse 10 when a cursor is positioned on the constituting element having the attribute or kind are made correspond to each other and stored in an RAM 3. Then, when the cursor is positioned on the constituting element, control for allowing the operation generating part 11 to generate the touch stimulus stored in the RAM 3 corresponding to the attribute or kind of the constituting element is operated by a CPU 1, and the operation generation part 11 is allowed to generate the touch stimulus according to the control of the CPU 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus compatible with a window system, and more particularly, to an application program (hereinafter, referred to as an "application program") operating on a window system.
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus capable of providing a suitable man-machine interface when a large number of cursor operations such as a window application program are required.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a window system, a cursor is moved by using a pointing device for inputting a coordinate position on a screen, and the cursor is set to a selection target on the screen necessary for executing a program or editing a screen. Operation is required.

[0003] The main thing of this pointing device is a mouse, which moves a cursor on a screen and inputs position coordinates by rolling on a plane.

FIG. 6 shows a schematic configuration of a conventional information processing apparatus using the above-mentioned mouse as an input device.

[0005] 1 is a microcircuited CPU, 2 is an O
ROM storing fixed information such as S, 3 RAM storing variable information, 4 an auxiliary storage device such as a floppy disk device or a hard disk device, 5 a display control unit (CRTC), 6 a display device, Reference numeral 7 denotes an input / output interface for connecting peripheral devices, 8 denotes a system bus, 9 denotes a keyboard as a main input device, and 10 denotes a mouse as an auxiliary input device.

In the conventional information processing apparatus, the user moves the mouse 10 to move the cursor displayed on the display device 6, and visually confirms that the target position has been correctly adjusted.

[0007] In the window application program, most of the operations of realizing functions, inputting components and data, and editing are performed by operating a mouse.

Further, in a window application program, since a plurality of attributes can be added to data in particular, most of the attribute values are not displayed on the screen.

It is necessary to open a dedicated window to refer to and edit attribute values.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 6-202801 discloses a pointing device technology that includes a tactile stimulus generator and allows a target such as an icon to be confirmed by tactile sensation.

[0011]

In particular, when there are a plurality of windows on the screen or the size of the windows is small, the user must stare at the screen of the display device in order to adjust the cursor to a target position. No. In particular, in the window application program, since the components and data to be selected are displayed in a smaller size, the operation of aligning the cursor becomes more difficult. Failure to accurately position the cursor on the selection often results in erroneous operation.

[0012] Further, the presence or absence of an attribute added to data and the attribute value are not displayed on the screen of the same window and cannot be immediately discriminated.

Incidentally, depending on the technology described in the above publication,
In conjunction with the window application program, the pointing device cannot determine the position of any component or the attribute of data.

The present invention reduces the burden of constantly staring at the screen of the display device of the user in the operation of the window application program, thereby reducing erroneous operations. The purpose is to make it easy to confirm the presence or absence.

[0015]

According to the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus having a display and a pointing device for designating a position of a cursor on the display. Attribute and type in an application program running on the processing device and tactile stimulus to be generated by the pointing device when the cursor is positioned on a component having or being the attribute are stored in association with each other. And a control for causing the pointing device to generate a tactile stimulus stored in the storage unit in association with the attribute or type of the component when the cursor is positioned on the component. Control means for performing, and the touching device touches the pointing device in accordance with the control of the control means. And the stimulus generating means touch that generates intense,
Can be provided.

[0016]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS According to the present invention, in operation of a window application program, a pointing device becomes a two-way device, and a coordinate input operation, a data input operation, and an edit operation of a user can be performed more accurately and smoothly.

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

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

1 is a microcircuited CPU, 2 is an O
ROM storing fixed information such as S, 3 RAM storing variable information, 4 an auxiliary storage device such as a floppy disk device or a hard disk device, 5 a display control unit (CRTC), 6 a display device, Reference numeral 7 denotes an input / output interface for connecting peripheral devices, 8 denotes a system bus, 9 denotes a keyboard as a main input device, and 10 denotes a mouse as an auxiliary input device.

Here, reference numeral 11 denotes an operation generating unit incorporated in the mouse 10, and the operation generating unit 11 causes several kinds of operations in accordance with a control signal given from the CPU 1 via the input / output interface 7.

Regarding the interlocking of the information processing apparatus configured as described above and the window application program,
A general spreadsheet program will be described as an example.

First, the user operates the operation generating unit 11 for each of the constituent elements and data attributes to be recognized by tactile sensation.
Are set as several types of operation mode assignments and selection target information that occurs.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a setting screen of the selection target information. In this case, the uplift 1 is set for the boundary line which is a constituent element (31), and the vibration 1 is set for the cell having an arithmetic expression as an attribute (32).

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of setting the selection target information.

First, a setting screen corresponding to the window application program is displayed (41). The operation mode for each component and data attribute is set on this setting screen (42). When the setting is completed, the relationship between the selected coordinate area to which the operation mode is assigned based on the setting content and the operation mode is stored as a selection target information file (43), and is simultaneously loaded on the memory (44). This completes the setting of the selection target information.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart schematically showing the operation of a general spreadsheet program.

First, when the spreadsheet program is started, the contents of the selection target information file are loaded on the memory (2).
1). For example, when changing an arbitrary line width displayed on the screen of the display device 6, the user uses the mouse 10
To move the cursor exactly on the boundary line of the relevant line, and move the mouse 10 while pressing the button until the desired line width is reached.

In this case, the area where the line boundary exists is the area to be selected. First, the coordinates of the cursor moving on the screen relative to the movement of the mouse 10 are detected (22), and it is determined whether or not the cursor is in the selection target area based on the selection target information (23).

If the cursor coordinates are in the selection target area, it is determined whether the operation generating unit 11 is in the operation mode set at the present time (24). In this case, it is determined whether or not the state is the uplift 1, and if not, the control signal is output to the mouse 10 via the input / output interface 7 (25). As a result, the portion of the motion generating unit 11 that touches the user's hand is in the state of the bulge 1 (26). When the operation generating unit 11 is in the state of the uplift 1, no control signal is output. As a result, when the user feels the state of the bulge 1 from his / her hand, it is possible to recognize that the cursor is present on the line boundary.

If the cursor coordinates are not in the selection target area, it is determined whether or not the operation generating section 11 is in the state of the uplift 1 (27). Output control signal to (2
8). As a result, the portion of the motion generating unit 11 that touches the user's hand is not raised (29). When the operation generating unit 11 is not in the state of the bulge 1, it does not generate a control signal. As a result, the user can recognize that the cursor is not on the line boundary by feeling that the portion touched by the hand is not in the state of the bump 1.

An area of a cell having data to which an arithmetic expression is added as an attribute is a selection target area. That is, when the cursor is positioned within an arbitrary cell area and the operation formula is included in the attribute added to the cell, it is determined that the cursor coordinates are in the selection target area (23).

If the motion generator 11 is not in the vibration 1 state at that time (24), a control signal is output to the mouse 10 via the input / output interface 7 (25). As a result, the portion of the motion generator 11 that touches the user's hand is in the state of the vibration 1 (26). When the motion generating unit 11 is in the state of the vibration 1, the control signal is not output (2
7).

As a result, the user can feel that the arithmetic expression is added as an attribute to the cell at the cursor position by feeling the vibration from the hand.

Next, the operation in the case of the document creation program will be described.

FIG. 5 shows an example of an operation setting in the case of a document creation program.

Here, bump 1 is set for the page delimiter (51). To move the page separator, the user positions the cursor exactly on the page separator and moves the mouse 10 while pressing the button. In this case, the area where the page break symbol exists is the selection target area, and the same operation as described above is performed. As a result, the user feels that the portion touched by the hand is in the state of the uplift 1, and the cursor is moved to the page break area. You can recognize that it is on the sign.

[0037]

As described above, in the operation of the window application program, the position of an arbitrary component can be determined by the three-dimensional feeling from the pointing device in addition to the visual sense, so that the cursor positioning can be performed accurately and the number of erroneous operations is reduced. . This reduces the eye strain caused by the operation as compared with the conventional one that relies solely on the vision, and helps the user with low vision or the visually impaired in operation. In addition, since any data attribute that is not displayed on the screen can be understood by touch,
Data can be immediately identified, and operations can be performed smoothly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic flowchart of the operation of the apparatus.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of an example of a selection target information setting screen of a spreadsheet program.

FIG. 4 is a setting flowchart of selection target information.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of an example of a selection target information setting screen of a spreadsheet program.

FIG. 6 is a schematic configuration diagram of a conventional information processing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

(1) CPU, (2) ROM, (3) RAM, (4) auxiliary storage device, (5) display control unit (CRTC), (6) display device, (7) input / output interface (I /
F), (8) system bus, (9) keyboard, (1
0) mouse, (11) motion generator

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An information processing apparatus having a display and a pointing device for designating a position of a cursor on the display, wherein: an attribute or a type of a component of an application program running on the information processing device; Storage means for storing a tactile stimulus to be generated by the pointing device when the cursor is positioned on a component having an attribute or a type, in association with each other, and when the cursor is positioned on the component A control unit for controlling the pointing device to generate a tactile stimulus stored in the storage unit in association with the attribute or type of the component, and the pointing device according to the control of the control unit. And a tactile stimulus generating means for generating the tactile stimulus in the device. Characteristic information processing device.