JPH11353084A - Computer system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To move a window while reducing useless movement of a mouse cursor and to obtain a GUI excellent in operability by providing a window control means for moving the window corresponding to an instruction while a moving instruction continues. SOLUTION: In a desktop area 400 before moving the window, since a user edits a document displayed in a window part 403, the mouse cursor 404 is present inside the window part 403 (7A). In the desktop area 400 after moving the window, the window 401 plotted by a dotted line shows the window before movement and the window 401 plotted by a solid line shows the window after the movement (7B). When the user clicks the right button of a mouse at an optional position inside the window part 403 to move, drags the window 401 and drops the window 401 at a place to move to, the window 401 is displayed at the position and the movement is completed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an improved graphical user interface (hereinafter, referred to as "GUI") in a windowed computer system, and more particularly to an efficient windowing of a windowed application program. The present invention relates to a computer system capable of moving.

[0002] The present invention is executed by a computer system 101 as shown in FIG. Further, the present invention is generally realized by software and is described in a programming language such as C language, C ++, or the like.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the advent of windowed computer systems, the operability of computer systems has been dramatically improved. In a windowed computer system, generally, a plurality of windows can be opened on a display (hereinafter, referred to as a “desktop” unless otherwise specified). However, because the display area of the desktop is limited, a plurality of windows are usually displayed on the desktop in an overlapping manner. In this case, since the overlapping portion is opaque, the user cannot see the overlapping portion of the lower window (the window with the lower display priority).
Therefore, when a document (window b) of another application is newly opened and edited while a document (window a) of a certain application is being edited, it is necessary to move the windows on the desktop so that the windows do not overlap. May occur. Regarding such a technique of moving a window, the applicant discloses the following three prior arts (FIGS. 4 to 6).

The first prior art, shown in FIG. 4, is a widely used windowed application program. Referring to the figure, the user instructs the activation of the program and the desktop 400
It can be seen above that the window 401 of the program is open. Here, for simplicity,
The window 401 includes two parts, a title bar 402 and a window part 403 which is the other part. Therefore, in this specification, a window unit 403 includes a window area (including a scroll bar) of a document to be edited, a toolbar area in which commands are displayed as icons, and a menu for displaying a pull-down menu when selected. It includes a bar area and, if applicable, a status bar, ruler, and the like.

[0005] In FIG.
Since the document displayed at 03 is being edited, the mouse cursor 404 is usually within the window 403. The mouse cursor 404 is for moving the desktop area 400 by a mouse operation by the user. In other words, during document editing, the mouse cursor 404 is often located in the window 403 because icons or the like arranged on the menu bar or the toolbar are selected with the mouse cursor, and the editing location in the document is specified with the mouse cursor. is there.

Although not shown, the cursor appearing in the window 403 of the edited document is a mouse cursor 4
04, the window section 40 is operated by a keyboard operation.
There is a block cursor that moves within 3 (not within desktop area 400). Therefore, in general, the position of the mouse cursor 404 does not match the position of the block cursor, but only when the user clicks the mouse in the window 403, the position of the mouse cursor 404 matches the position of the block cursor.

When moving a window according to the first prior art, first, a user operates a mouse to move a mouse cursor 404 from a window portion 403, which is an editing position, onto a title bar 402. Next, the user clicks the left mouse button on title bar 402 to lock window 402. This lock allows the window to move with the mouse cursor. When the user operates the mouse to move the mouse cursor 404 while holding down the left button (drag operation), the window 401 displays the mouse cursor 404
Move in accordance with the movement locus of. When the user releases his / her finger from the left button, the window 401 is dropped at that position, and the movement of the window ends. For this reason, the user must always move the mouse cursor 404 located at the edit location in the window section 403 onto the title bar 402, and the movement of the window is inferior in operability, and the user's thinking about document editing. Had the disadvantage of being interrupted.

To improve the operability, 198
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 63 published on December 2, 2008 in Japan
There is a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. FIG. 5 shows the main points of the second prior art. When moving a window according to the second prior art, the user must use the mouse cursor 404.
Is placed on the window 401 (which may be the title bar 402 or the window section 403), and the mouse may be clicked at that position (D1). Then, window 4
01 moves so that its center C coincides with the position D1 of the clicked mouse cursor.

Therefore, in the second prior art, the window can be moved only by clicking the mouse without moving the mouse cursor to the title bar, so that the operability is good if it is limited to one movement operation. The user's thinking is rarely interrupted. However, the position of D1 is
Since the point is within 01, the moving distance of the window by one moving operation is small. Therefore, when the user wants to move the window greatly, the above-described moving operation is performed many times, which deteriorates the operability and interrupts the user's thinking.

[0010] A third prior art relates to moving a window on a Unix operating system (OS) (Unix is a registered trademark of X / Open Company Limited). As an example of this OS, an OS for WS
So, let's say Solaris (Solaris
ROS and Linux) as the OS for PC. The following functions are realized by the OS (refer to “Introduction to Linux” /
Koyama et al. / Toppan / 1996 / ISBN4-8
101-8955-4). The point of this prior art is
Shown in the figure. When moving the window according to the third prior art, first, the user moves the mouse cursor 404 in the window unit 403 to the desktop area 400 outside the window 401, and clicks the right mouse button on the area. click. Then, a pop-up menu 405 including a command group for the window 401 is displayed near the position of the mouse cursor. When the user selects the command “Move” in the pop-up menu 405, the mode of the OS is changed to “Move mode”. “Move mode” refers to a mode that allows the user to move a window by operating a mouse or scroll keys on a keyboard. Thereafter, the user moves the mouse cursor 40 to a point in the window 401.
Returning to step 4, when the right mouse button is clicked and a drag & drop operation is performed, the window 401 moves to the position where the window 401 is dropped. Therefore, in order to change the mode, the user must always operate the mouse to move the mouse cursor 404 from inside the window 401 at the edit position to outside the window, and then return the mouse cursor 404 to the inside of the window 401. There is a drawback that the performance is poor and the user's thinking is interrupted by the operation.

[0011]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a window moving operation, and an object of the present invention is to provide an improved GUI with improved operability in order to solve these problems of the prior art. More specifically, an object of the present invention is to provide a GUI with good operability by reducing unnecessary movement of a mouse cursor and enabling window movement.

[0012]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer system in which a windowed program operates, a determining unit for determining the occurrence of an event of an instruction to move the window in a window unit, Window control means for moving the window in accordance with the movement instruction while the movement instruction continues in response to the occurrence of the event.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in a computer system in which a windowed program operates, a menu for displaying a menu including a command for moving a window in the vicinity of the designated point in response to a menu display instruction in the window. It comprises display means and window control means for moving a window in accordance with the movement instruction while the movement instruction of the window is continued when a movement command is selected from the menu.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium storing a windowed program that operates on an OS, the program comprising:
Program code means for requesting the OS to monitor the occurrence of a window movement instruction event in the window unit; and, when receiving a message indicating that the event has occurred, moving the window according to the movement instruction while the movement instruction continues. Program code means.

Further, according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer readable storage medium storing a windowed program operating on an OS, wherein the program is provided with a first event of a menu display instruction in the window. Program code means for requesting monitoring of occurrence,
Program code means for displaying a menu including a move command of the window near the designated point when receiving a message indicating that the first event has occurred;
Program code means for requesting monitoring of occurrence of a second event which is a selection of a movement command from the menu;
When the message indicating that the second event has occurred is received, the program code means moves the window in accordance with the movement instruction while the movement instruction continues.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
This will be described with reference to FIG. 7 and FIGS. 7 to 14. The present invention is executed by a computer system 101 as shown in FIG. The computer system is, for example, a personal computer (PC), a workstation (W
S) is a palm-sized computer having a notebook computer and a stylus pen as main input means. Further, the present invention is generally realized by software and is described in a programming language such as C language, C ++, or the like. In the following embodiments, a case will be described in which the present invention is implemented by software. In this specification, the term "software" refers to software that implements the present invention. In this case, when actually programming the software, reference should be made to the document “Interface” (March 1994, GQ Publishing Company). By this reference, this document forms a part of the present specification. Note that this document includes W in C language or C ++.
Introduces general programming techniques for Windows application programs (Windows
ws is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation).

The computer system 101 is composed of a number of components as shown in FIG. When the user receives an application program (hereinafter referred to as “A
When the “P” or “program” is started, the program is loaded from the storage device 205 (such as a hard disk drive) to the memory 204, and the window of the program is displayed on the display device 203 (CRT display,
(Such as a liquid crystal display). PC keyboard,
An input device 202 typified by a mouse receives a command from a user, and the CPU 201 executes the command and displays an execution result on the display device 203. The connection interface between these components is a known interface such as a bus. The peripheral device 206 includes a unit that reads information stored in a portable storage medium such as a floppy disk drive or a CD-ROM drive.

The software can be stored in the portable storage medium 102 shown in FIG. 1 and can be distributed in a market. The portable storage medium 102 includes, for example, a floppy disk, a CD-ROM, and an MO. The software is stored in one or more portable storage media 102 according to the storage capacity. In this case, when execution of this software is instructed, the software is read by the peripheral device 206, loaded into the memory 204, and executed by the computer system 101.

Further, the present software can be stored in the storage device 104 which is physically separated from the computer system 101. This storage device 104
Is, for example, the hard disk drive of the server of the Internet provider. Computer system 102
Is connected to the storage device 104 via the network 103, and the software is downloaded via the network 103 and stored in the hard disk drive 205 of the computer system 101. in this case,
When the execution of this software is instructed, the software is loaded from the hard disk drive 205 to the memory 204 and executed in the computer system 101.

Next, a GUI of this software will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. FIG. The objects referred to by the numbers in these figures indicate the same objects as the objects referred to by the same numbers in FIGS. 4 to 6.
FIG. 7 shows a first GUI of the software. Seventh
A shows the state of the desktop area 400 before the window is moved. Referring to FIG.
Since the document displayed at 03 is being edited, the mouse cursor 404 is within the window 403.

FIG. 7B shows the state of the desktop area 400 after the window has been moved. In the figure, a window 401 drawn by a dotted line indicates a window before movement, and a window 401 drawn by a solid line indicates a window after movement. The user clicks the right mouse button at an arbitrary position in the window unit 403 to be moved, drags the window 401, and drops the window 401 at a position to be moved. Then, the window 401 is displayed at that position, and the movement is completed.

Where the user right-clicks,
The place where the dragging of the window is started may be any place as long as it is inside the window unit 403. Therefore, since the mouse cursor 404 is often located in the window section 403 being edited, the user can move the window without moving the mouse cursor 404, thereby improving operability.

FIG. 8 shows a second GUI of the software.
Is shown. FIG. 8A shows the state of the desktop area 400 before the window is moved. In FIG.
The mouse cursor 404 is in the window 401 because the document displayed in the window 401 is being edited. When moving the window 401, the user right-clicks on the position of the mouse cursor 404 in the window 401. Then, a pop-up menu 405 including a command group for the window 401 is displayed near the position as shown in FIG. When the user selects “Move” from the command group, the mode of the window 401 is changed to “Move” mode.

FIG. 8B shows the state of desktop area 400 after the window has been moved. In the figure, a window 401 drawn by a dotted line indicates a window before movement.
A window 401 drawn by a solid line indicates the window after the movement. After changing the mode, the user further clicks the right mouse button in the window 401, drags the window 401, and moves the window 4 to a desired position.
Drop 01. Then, the window 401 is displayed at the dropped position as shown in FIG. 8A, and the movement is completed.

Here, it has been described that after the mode is changed, the window is moved by a drag and drop operation. However, the window may be moved by a simple mouse movement or a scroll key operation of a PC keyboard. Therefore,
The user can shift to the “Move mode” of the window 401 by right-clicking in the window 401.
It is not necessary to temporarily move the cursor mouse 404 out of the window 401, and the operability related to the movement of the window can be improved.

Next, there are two types of software, one in which the OS is implemented alone, and the other in which the OS and the application program are implemented jointly. If the latter is described, the former realization method will be apparent to those skilled in the art, so the latter case will be described here, and the description of the former will be omitted.
Prior to the description of the software, control of a general window in a windowed application program, that is, the flow of messages will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 shows a state in which windows of the program A and the program B are open in the desktop area 400 on the OS 302. As shown at 301,
The user operates the mouse or keyboard to instruct the window of the program A to move. O
The device driver in S302 receives the instruction and sends it to the message queue (MQ) of the program A. The message queue is provided for each program as shown in FIG.

When a specific event is requested to be monitored by the program A, the monitoring manager monitors the occurrence of the specific event. If the specific event appears in the message queue of the program A, the fact and necessary information are notified. The message including the message is transmitted to the program A. The specific event includes an instruction to move the window of the program A, an instruction to drag and drop the window, and an instruction to display a pop-up menu.

The message loop in the application A keeps looping until a specific message is received, and a predetermined process is performed only after receiving the specific message. If the predetermined process is related to window control, a window procedure on the AP side is executed, and the predetermined process is performed in cooperation with a window manager on the OS side. In this specification, the window procedure includes not only the window procedure itself but also a procedure called from the window procedure.

In this embodiment, the software is:
It is implemented in the message loop and window procedure of FIG. FIG. 9 shows an operation flow of the OS and the software. In the figure, the left side shows the operation flow on the OS side, and the right side shows this software, that is, A
4 shows an operation flow on the P side.

Step 901 In the computer system 101, when the activation of the software is instructed, the software requests the OS to monitor the occurrence of a specific event. in this case,
The specific event is an event that is right-clicked in a window of the software.

Step 902 The monitoring manager of the OS monitors at a predetermined interval whether or not the event is in the message queue for the software. For example, the predetermined interval is 1 ms,
1s can be set. The monitoring manager continues monitoring until the event occurs. The flow of event monitoring by the monitoring manager is described in detail in FIG.

Step 903 When the user right-clicks in the window of the software, the device driver of the OS sends a message indicating the occurrence of the event to a message queue for the software. The monitoring manager sends a message indicating the occurrence of the event to the software.

Step 904 Upon receiving the message, the message loop in the software executes the contents described in the window procedure. Specifically, the window is moved in accordance with the drag and drop operation of the mouse operated by the user. The processing of the software corresponding to the event will be described in detail in the description of FIG.

FIG. 10 shows a flow of monitoring a specific event by the monitoring manager on the OS side. Step 1001 The monitoring manager detects the current position of the mouse cursor sequentially notified from the device drive.

Step 1002 The monitoring manager determines whether the position of the mouse cursor is within the window of the software. If the position of the mouse cursor is outside the window, the process returns to step 1001, and if it is inside the window, the process proceeds to step 1003.

The coordinates of the window are managed in the OS, in the application program, or in both the OS and the application program by the parameters shown in FIG. 13 in the OS. In FIG. 13, the origin is the coordinates of the upper left corner of the desktop 400, and the management parameters are the coordinates Xa, Ya of the upper left corner of the window, the height nHigh of the window, the width nWidth of the window,
Pr indicating the upper / lower relationship when windows are displayed in layers
iority and other parameters. Therefore, the monitoring manager makes the above determination by comparing these parameters with the coordinates of the mouse cursor.

Step 1003 The monitoring manager determines whether or not a right click has been performed at that position. The determination is made based on a message notified from the device driver. If it is not a right click, the process returns to step 1001. If it is a right click, the process proceeds to step 1004.

Step 1004 The monitoring manager recognizes the occurrence of the specific event based on the judgment results of steps 1002 and 1003. The monitoring manager notifies the occurrence of a specific event to a message loop of the software. FIG. 11 shows a flow of processing corresponding to an event of this software, and this flow corresponds to the first GUI described in FIG.

Step 1101 The message loop in the software receives from the monitoring manager a message indicating that the requested specific event has occurred. Step 1101 and Step 1
The "A" between 102 is optionally
It shows that the flow in the figure can be inserted.

Step 1102 The message loop invokes a window procedure. The window procedure sends a message to the effect that the window 401 is locked at the current position of the mouse cursor to the window manager of the OS. Thus, the window 401 of the software can be moved by a drag operation.

Step 1103 The window procedure moves the window 401 on the desktop area 400 along the trajectory of the mouse cursor by the drag operation in cooperation with the window manager in the OS. For example, the window manager in the OS sequentially notifies the window procedure that the window is being dragged during the drag operation, and the window procedure sends a message to the window manager in the OS to maintain the lock of the window during that time. Send to. The window manager in the OS keeps moving the window based on the message of the window procedure.

Step 1104 Upon receiving a message from the device driver that a drop operation event has occurred, the window manager in the OS transmits the message to the window procedure. The window procedure will unlock the window at the current mouse cursor position.
Request to window manager in OS. The window manager in the OS unlocks the window at the current position of the mouse cursor. As a result, a window is displayed on the desktop at the dropped position, and the movement of the window ends (FIG. 7B).

FIG. 12 shows the flow of processing corresponding to the event of the software, which is inserted at the position "A" in the flow of FIG. Corresponds to the second GUI described in. In this case, the events requested to be monitored in step 901 in FIG. 9 are an event for displaying a pop-up menu (first event) and an event indicating that a command is selected from the pop-up menu (second event).

Step 1201 In step 1101, the software has already received a message indicating that the first event has occurred. The window procedure calls for displaying the popup menu 405 at the position of the mouse cursor.
Request the window manager in S. Specifically, the definition of the pop-up menu 405 is described in the window procedure, and the window procedure sends this definition together with the request message to the window manager in the OS. The window manager in the OS displays a pop-up menu 405 at the position of the mouse cursor (FIG. 8A).

Step 1202 When the user selects a command from the pop-up menu 405 (when the second event occurs), the monitoring manager in the OS receives a message to that effect from the device driver and sends a message to that effect to the window procedure. I do. If the command is not a “Move” command, the window procedure proceeds to step 1203 and executes a process corresponding to the command.
Sent to window manager in OS. on the other hand,
If the transmission command is “Move”, the window procedure sets the window to “Move mode”. In this case, the process proceeds to step 1102. In this case,
The continuous movement instruction in step 1103 includes, in addition to the drag operation by the mouse, the movement operation by the mouse without the drag operation, the continuous depression of the scroll key for keeping the scroll key of the PC keyboard pressed, and the continuous execution of the scroll key. Any of the multiple presses of the scroll key that is pressed many times may be used.

In the above description, it has been described that a predetermined event occurs when the right mouse button is clicked.
Recognize events that occur when the left mouse button is clicked.
For other events, a left click may be used.
When the main input means is a stylus pen, such as a palm-sized computer, the window movement instruction or the menu display instruction can be a tap operation with the stylus pen in the window section.
The tap operation may be either a single tap or a double tap. In that case, the continuation of the instruction to move the window
A drag operation with a stylus pen can be performed.

As described above, in this embodiment, O
Although the case where the S and the application realize the present invention in cooperation with each other has been described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art according to the description in this specification that the present invention is realized by the OS alone. In the above embodiment, only the application program that implements the present invention can enjoy the benefits of the present invention.
It should be noted that, when implemented solely by S, all application programs can enjoy the benefits of the present invention. Note that even in this case, the application programs that enjoy the benefits of the present invention can be limited to those of the active window. In this case, the OS
Is the window display priority (priorit
The present invention is realized by determining which window is active based on the value of y).

[0048]

According to the present invention, the window can be moved without moving the mouse cursor, so that a GUI with good operability can be provided. Further, when the window is moved during document editing with the improvement of the operability, the time for interrupting the user's thinking is shortened, and the user's document editing efficiency can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a computer system on which the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 2 shows a hardware configuration of a computer system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows general window control in a windowed AP.

FIG. 4 shows a GUI of Prior Art 1.

FIG. 5 shows a prior art 2 GUI.

FIG. 6 shows a prior art 3 GUI.

FIG. 7 shows a first GUI of the software.

FIG. 8 shows a second GUI of the software.

FIG. 9 shows an operation flowchart of the OS and the software.

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of event monitoring by the monitoring manager.

FIG. 11 shows a first flowchart of processing for an event occurrence on the AP side.

FIG. 12 shows a second flowchart of a process for an event occurrence on the AP side.

FIG. 13 shows management parameters of window information.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A computer system in which a windowed program operates, a determining means for determining the occurrence of an event of an instruction to move the window in a window section, and a move instruction corresponding to the occurrence of the event. A window control means for moving the window in accordance with the movement instruction while continuing. 2. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the movement instruction is a mouse click, and the continuation of the movement instruction is a mouse drag instruction. 3. A computer system in which a windowed program operates, wherein, in response to a menu display instruction in a window, a menu display means for displaying a menu including a command to move the window near the designated point; A computer system comprising: a window control unit that moves a window in accordance with a moving instruction while a moving command is selected from a menu while the moving instruction of the window is continued. 4. The computer system according to claim 3, wherein the moving instruction of the window and the continuation of the moving instruction are moving instructions by a mouse. 5. A computer readable storage medium storing a windowed program that runs on an OS, wherein the program is a program for requesting the OS to monitor the occurrence of a window movement instruction event in the window. If you receive a code means and a message that the event has occurred,
And program code means for moving a window in accordance with the movement instruction while the movement instruction continues. 6. In a computer-readable storage medium storing a windowed program that runs on an OS, the program requests the OS to monitor the occurrence of a first event that is a menu display instruction in the window. Program code means for displaying a menu including a command for moving the window near the designated point when a message indicating that the first event has occurred is received; A program code means for requesting the OS to monitor the occurrence of the second event as a selection; and a program for moving a window according to the movement instruction while the movement instruction continues when a message indicating that the second event has occurred is received. Computer-readable means comprising: A removable storage medium.