JPS62189584A - Display controller for multiwindow - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To find at a glance a hidden window, etc., and to activate simply an inactive window by remaining a part of respective images, for example, the titles of respective windows and arranging and displaying respective images (window, etc.). CONSTITUTION:A window G is hidden at windows D-F. By shifting a mouse 10 and sending an operating signal to a CPU 12, a mouse cursor 23 is shifted to the position where windows D-G are not displayed on a CRT display 23, by a control signal from the CPU 12, next, a switch 10a is depressed, in the same way, the control signal is sent from the CPU 12 and a processing menu 25 is displayed onto the CRT display 23. Further, the while the switch 10a is operated, the mouse 10 is operated and the mouse cursor 24 is shifted to the arranging displaying and processing position in the processing menu 25. The CPU 12 is shifted to an arranging and displaying mode to arrange and display successively the windows D-G on the CRT display 23.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a multi-window control device that controls the display of a plurality of windows displayed on a display.

[Traditional technique]

Multi-window is a function that displays multiple images simultaneously on a display screen, and usually a cursor on the display screen is controlled by an operating device such as a mouse to display the necessary images. For example, as shown in FIG. 6(a), by pressing a switch provided on a mouse (not shown), various processing menus 2 are displayed on the CRT display 1, and as shown in FIG. 6(b), a cursor 3 is displayed. By moving the image (window) 4 to the desired menu (generation) position and releasing the above-mentioned switch, one image (window) 4 is displayed as shown in FIG. 4(C).

Furthermore, when displaying other windows on the same CRT display 1, the processing menu 2 is displayed as shown in FIG. By moving to and releasing the switch, a new window 5 is displayed in front of the above-mentioned window 4, as shown in FIG.

In this way, in the conventional multi-window control device,
When windows overlap, an overlamp process (superposition process) is performed in which the newly generated window is brought to the forefront.

This overlap processing is performed not only in the window generation processing described above, but also in the processing of enlarging, reducing, moving, etc. each window.

[Problems with conventional technology]

In the conventional multi-window control device as mentioned above,
For example, when window 6.7.8 is displayed on the CRT display 1 as shown in FIG. 8(a), if the process of displaying window 8 in the foreground as shown in FIG. 8(b) is performed, As shown in FIG. 6C, the window 6 becomes completely invisible. Such problems easily occur when creating windows and other processing, and it becomes impossible to tell what kind of windows exist on the display 1 just by looking at the display 1.

[Purpose of the invention]

In view of the above conventional drawbacks, the present invention prevents a window from being completely hidden by another window with a simple operation, and makes it possible to easily know what kind of window is displayed on the display. The purpose is to provide a multi-window control device.

[Key points of the invention]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is characterized in that an organizing means is provided for organizing and displaying windows, and a plurality of windows stored in the first storage means are displayed while being shifted on the screen. shall be.

Furthermore, if the window cannot be displayed by shifting it, the rise of the window is reduced to fit the screen.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram of the multi-window control device of this embodiment. In the figure, a mouse 10 is configured to be movable, and is provided with a switch 10a. Mouse 10 movement data and switch 10
The operation signal of a is sent to the CPU 12 via the mouse control device 11.
Output to.

Furthermore, operation signals when character keys or function keys (not shown) of the keyboard section 13 are operated are outputted to the CPU 12 via the keyboard control section 14 .

In addition to operation signals from the mouse 10 and keyboard 13, graphic window display data and window control data are input to the CPU 12 via an input/output (Ilo) interface (not shown). The CPU 12 operates according to the built-in program, and uses the keyboard 13 and I10.
Window display data input from the interface is output to the window memory 15, and window control data is output to the window management table 16. The window memory 15 stores all input window display data. Further, the window management table 16 stores data in areas described in detail later in accordance with the contents of input window control data.

In addition, the overlap control device 17 is driven in accordance with a control signal from the CPU 12, retrieves data such as the display position of each window from the window management table 16, and generates screen control data for displaying on a CRT display 23, which will be described later. create.

For example, when there is one window displayed on the CRT display 23, the screen is divided into six rectangular areas 81 to S6 as shown in Figure 2+8), and each rectangular area 81 to S6 is divided into six rectangular areas. The coordinates of the area, the coordinates of the logical (not on the actual screen) area, the data of the title display area provided in each window, etc. are created. In addition, if the windows overlap, move the screen from 5L to 3L as shown in rb> in the same figure.
2 of 12 (divided into solid rectangular areas, each rectangular area 81
- At each step S12, the coordinates of the area similar to those described above, the coordinates of the logical area, the data of the title display area provided in each window, etc. are created.

The screen control data created in this way is output from the overlap control bag f17 to the display control memory 18.

The above-mentioned control data is sequentially written into the display control memory 18, and when one screen's worth of control data is written, this one screen's worth of control data is output to the window display device 19.

The window display device 19 outputs control data for each rectangular area divided as described above to the bit mover 20 for each area. The bit mover 20 extracts window display data from the window memory 15 for each rectangular area and outputs it to the display memory 21. When the focus mover 20 outputs display data for each divided rectangular area (display data for one screen) to the display memory 21, the display control device 2
2 sends one screen worth of display data written in the display memory 21 to the CRT display 23.

The CRT display 23 displays one or more windows according to input display data.

On the other hand, the above-mentioned window management table 16 is shown in FIG.
) It consists of management table areas as shown in (). Further, a management table area having this configuration is provided for each window stored in the window memory 15 described above. This management table includes window width, window height, screen X coordinate, screen X coordinate, font size, pinch between characters, next window pointer and previous window when multiple windows are displayed. pointer, first subwindow, last subwindow, parent window pointer, title bar data (title
), active title bar (atbp), and inactive title bar (dtbp) data are written. For example, if we compare the width of the window to the line spacing in the above content with the specific position on the display, window A (w
The width of inA) is indicated by bpw, the height of window A is indicated by bph, the X coordinate of window A08 point on the screen is indicated by pbx, and the X coordinate of point a on the screen is indicated by bpy. , the size of characters S, b' in window A is indicated by csize, and the interval between characters S, b' is indicated by pitch.

Also, specify each window (parent window 5vinA) up to the last subwindow of the next pitch point.
-win C) The data of the window located after the next window is written in the pointer area of the next window.

For example, if windows A-B→C are displayed in this order as shown in FIG. The data (pointer position) is written and the pointer area (f
Address data (pointer position !i,) of window C is written in p). Further, since there is no window after window C, the pointer area of the window next to window C becomes NILL.

On the other hand, in the pointer area (bP) of the previous window, contrary to the above, the data of the window located before that window is written. For example, if windows A-B-C are displayed in this order as described above, the pointer area (bp) of the window in front of window B will be displayed as shown in (c). The data of window B is written in the pointer area (bp) of the window before window C. Also, since there is no window in front of window A,
The previous window's pointer area to the window is nil (
In addition, the first subwindow area (swsp) of the parent window (CRT), which uses the entire screen of the CRT display 23 as one window, contains the CRT display 2
The data of the foreground window displayed on 3 is written. On the other hand, data for the last window displayed on the CRT display 23 is written in the area of the last subwindow of the parent window (CRT).

For example, according to the example in the same figure (bl) as described above, the address data of window A is written in the first sub-window area (swsp), and the address data of window C is written in the last sub-window area (swap). is written.

Further, the address data of the parent window (CRT) is written in the pointer area (parent) of the parent window of windows A to C.

The operation of the multi-window control device of this embodiment having the above configuration will be described below.

First, it is assumed that windows D-G (however, window G is hidden by windows D-F) are displayed on the CRT display 23, as shown in FIG. 4 (al).Such a state In this case, not only is it unclear what the title of window D is, but also the title of window F is almost hidden and cannot be clearly seen.

From this display state, first move the mouse 10 mentioned above and click
By sending an operation signal to PUI 2, CPU1
2, the mouse cursor 24 is moved to a position on the CRT display 23 where windows D to G are not displayed. Next, the switch 10a is operated (pressed) to send out a control signal from the CPU 12, as shown in the figure.
The processing menu 25 is displayed on the CRT display 23 as shown in b). Furthermore, the mouse 10 is operated while operating the switch 10a, and the mouse cursor 24 is moved to the position of the organizing display process in the process menu 25. Then, select the organize display process in the process menu 25 and release the switch 10a.

When the organized display process is selected in this manner, the CPU 12 shifts to an organized display mode in which the windows DG on the CRT display 23 are sequentially organized and displayed. Figure 5 shows
It is a flowchart showing the processing of the CPU 12 in this organized display mode. In the same figure, for the purpose of explaining the flow, CR
Set the upper left corner of the screen of the T-display 23 as the base point of the coordinate system (
0, 0), the right direction is the positive direction of X, and the direction down is the positive direction of y.

First, the CPU 12 takes in the data written in the last subwindow (sw a p) of the parent management table (CRT) into the pointer (p) in the CPU 12 (
Step 5TI). The data written in the management table (CRT) area is the management table for window G, as in the case shown in FIG. 3(C) described above. Therefore, the CPU 12 selects the management table for window G in the window management table 16 as the last window.

Next, initial coordinates (X, Y), screen width W, and screen height H for displaying a window on the CRT display 23 are initialized (step 5T2). With this setting, the initial position of the pointer is X = 0, Y = (5iz
e+pitch).

Next, the CPU 12 selects the window G selected as described above.
To the management table of screen X coordinate data (bpx)
, Y coordinate data (bpy) are output, and the starting point g of the rearmost window G is set as shown in FIG. 4(d) (step 5T3). The data sent to the management table of window G at this time is the X and Y data set above. Therefore, the X coordinate of window G (bp
x) is 0, and the Y coordinate (bpy) is C5ize+pi
It is tch. 'Next, CPU 2 stores the previous window's pointer area (b) in the window G's management table.
Extract the data of p) and select window F. Then, the window F to display the pointer positions iX, Y next
is updated to the starting point f (step 5T4).

The position of this starting point f is obtained by adding C5ize to the X coordinate of the starting point g, and adding c5ize+pitch width to the Y coordinate.

Next, check whether the coordinates of the right edge of window G do not exceed the width (W) of the CRT display (step 5T5),
If it exceeds (W<bpy+bph), the width of the window G° is corrected (step 5T6). Similarly, check the bottom edge of window G (step 5T7)
When I was climbing over the height of the CRT (H<bpy +b
ph) The window height H) is corrected (step 5T8).

Next, the pointer of the window before window G (bp
) is NILL (step 5T9), and since window F exists in this embodiment, the pointer is set to the address of the front window management table F (step 5T9).
TIO). Similarly for window F, step ST
Substitute the values for X and Y in step 3, and then proceed to step 5T in the same way.
4-3T5→...→5TIO is repeated for the number of windows to be displayed on the CRT display 23. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4(d), the starting points f, e, and d of windows F, E, and D are sequentially designated, and data necessary for organized display is written into the window management table. When data is written in the required area of the window management table in this manner, the data in the window management table 16 is sent to the overlap control device 17 described above. The data sent to the overlap control word W17 is displayed on the CRT display 23 by the window display device 19, focus mover 20, etc. by dividing the screen as described above, as shown in FIG.

Note that if the title bar has an icon or menu, the title bar of each window is displayed so that the icon or menu of the desired window can be easily operated.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained in detail above, according to the present invention, each image (window, etc.) is displayed in an organized manner while leaving a part of each image, such as the title of each window, so that hidden windows, etc. can be seen at a glance, and hidden windows, etc. can be seen at a glance. You can easily activate an active window. Furthermore, since a large area remains on the display where no window is displayed, it becomes easier to display and operate the window menu, and the efficiency of window use is significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of the multi-window control device of this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a division method of overlap control within the multi-window control device of this embodiment, and FIG. 3(a) , (b), and (C) are block diagrams of the window management table. Figure 3 Tb) and (C) are block diagrams for explaining the window management table. Figure 4 is the multi-window of this embodiment. A block diagram explaining the operation of the control device, FIG. 5 is a flowchart for the multi-window control device of this embodiment, and FIGS. 6, 7, and 8 explain the operation of the conventional multi-window control device. FIG. 12...CPU. 15... Window memory, 16... Window management table. Patent Applicant: Casio Computer Co., Ltd. Window #V17 Socket Kewindra Furnace = i Graph 2 Figure 4 Figure 5

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A first storage means that stores data of a plurality of images to be displayed on a display, a second storage means that stores control data of the plurality of image data, and control data of the second storage means. organizing and creating means for creating control data to be displayed on the display while leaving at least a part of each image; 1. A multi-window display control device, comprising a display control means for displaying a display on a multi-window display. (2) The multi-window display control device according to claim 1, wherein a part of the remaining image is a window title.