KR20030076563A - Method, system and computer program for managing views at a computer display - Google Patents

Abstract

The view management system includes a computer display 14 that provides a concealable view bar with pane split control 42, 46, 48 and a list of off views 44. Through the selection of specific control of the pane splitting controls 42, 46, and 48, the system user can configure the display 14 to show the device of any number of tiled views. By simply selecting one of the open views in the list 44 that appears in the view bar, the user can assign that view to the pane that currently has focus. The contents of the pane pair can be easily exchanged by the click-drag-drop operation sequence using the cursor control pointing device 32.

Description

METHOD, SYSTEM AND COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR MANAGING VIEWS AT A COMPUTER DISPLAY}

In the past, computer systems, standalone or part of a network, were relatively simple, low-function devices that could run only a single application at any given time. The display or console used for the monitor system operation provided the user with only a single display or view of the system operation. As individual systems and networks become increasingly complex and allow multiple tasks to be performed concurrently, system users have begun to require more than one view of the operations or tasks performed. The simple approach of dedicating the console to each of the different views has obvious drawbacks in terms of usability, space, and cost. As a result, an almost universal approach has been to develop systems and monitors in which multiple views can exist at any given time.

The two main approaches to multiple views present on the console are cascading and tiling of windows or panes. For the purposes of this description, the two terms "window" and "pain" can be considered to mean the same thing, that is, a view that occupies a display screen smaller than the whole but still shows an important part of a particular view. Where the panes are cascaded, only the top pane is displayed completely visual on the display screen. The remaining panes are "stacked" behind the top pane and are usually visually represented only by the title bar and perhaps one horizontal edge. By simply selecting the title bar or any other visually visible portion of the pane on the stack, the user brings any pane of the stack up.

The tiled views do not overlap one another, but instead occupy laterally or longitudinally separated panes on the display screen. Tiling allows the user to see more information about each depicted view without having to perform the type selection step of the view required for the cascaded view.

Known tiling techniques have disadvantages, including the lack of flexibility. Some techniques limit the user to a simple, fixed tiling device, such as two side-by-side panes or two above-and-below panes. There is no luck for a user who wants to have a view that exceeds the fixed number of panes available in such a system. Other techniques take an all-or-nothing approach and install tiles for all open views. Only if the number of open views is small is all or none approach satisfactory. As the number of open views increases, the size of each tile will necessarily be smaller, reducing the amount of useful information presented to the user.

US Pat. No. 5,880,725-Southgate attempts to overcome some of the problems of the prior art in a computer user interface where a screen can have both an overlapped window area and a tiled window area. If the view should be shown in the window area to be tiled, then if necessary, the view fits into the available space by reducing the view to the minimum allowable size. This patent discloses that the view can be described as a “best fit” approach in which the view is moved into available screen space. This approach may be more flexible in creating the displayed view, but may result in significantly smaller pens than the panes required by the system user.

One well-known operating system enables a user to subdivide the display screen into frames that are variously divided laterally or vertically. This operating system is flexible in that it allows the user to define the total number and configuration of frames required, but they are considerably less flexible as to the steps that must be performed in loading data into the various frames. In order to load the contents of a particular file into a particular panel, a link to the file must be established and a file name entered. This relatively cumbersome process must be repeated for every single frame in the display.

Other known systems use a fixed number of panes, but allow the user to change the pane's devices relative to each other using drag-and-drop operations. Because the number of panes is fixed, the system lacks the desired flexibility.

Summary of the Invention

Accordingly, according to a first aspect, the present invention provides a method of adjusting the appearance of a view on a display having a work area comprising at least one view pane, the method comprising: a) one of the view panes of the work area; Designating a view pane as a focus view pane, b) invoking a view bar containing a set of pane splitting controls and a list of open views, and c) selecting one of the pane splitting controls. In response, dividing the focus view pane into two panes, the contents of the focus view pane being assigned to the first pane of the two panes, and d) selecting one of the open views from the list that appears in the view bar. In response, assigning the selected view to a second of the two panes.

Accordingly, according to a second aspect, the present invention provides a system for adjusting the display of a view, comprising: a) a display having a work area comprising at least one view pane designated as a focus view pane, and b) a pane. A display control subsystem for creating a view bar having a split control and a list of open views, and c) dividing the focus view pane into two panes according to the selected pane splitting control, the first pane of the two panes. Pane control logic responsive to selection of one of the pane splitting controls to assign the contents of the focus view pane, and d) selection of one of the views in the list of views to assign the selected view to the second of the two panes. It includes view control logic that responds to.

Accordingly, according to a third aspect, the present invention, when executed on a computer, causes the computer to a) assign a view pane to a work area of the computer display with a focus view pane, b) a view bar on the computer display, the view bar being Includes a set of pane split controls and a list of open views, c) in response to the selection of one of the pane split controls, splits the focus view pane into two panes and the contents of the focus view pane are A computer program for assigning to the first pane of the panes and d) in response to the selection of the open view from the list appearing in the view bar, assigns the selected view to the second pane of the two panes.

Thus, the present invention can be implemented in a way to overcome the listed disadvantages of the prior art and to adjust the appearance of a view on a display having a work area comprising at least one view pane. The display always contains at least one view pane that is designated as the active or focus view pane. A user who wants to increase the number of views on the display calls a view bar that contains a set of pane splitting controls and a list of open views. In response to one selection of the pane split control, the view pane having the focus view is split into two panes, and the contents of the focus view pane are allocated to the first pane of the two panes. The user controls the contents of another view pane by selecting one of the open views from the list that appears in the view bar. The selected view is assigned to another pane of the view pane.

The present invention relates to a computer system, and more particularly to a method, system and program product for managing views in a computer system display.

Preferred embodiments of the invention from the following detailed description can be more readily identified by reference to the accompanying drawings by way of example only.

1 is a schematic diagram of a workstation or computer system console in which the present invention may be implemented.

2 is a schematic diagram of main components of a computer system console.

3 is an initial or default appearance of a work area of a display of a computer system console.

4 is a working area diagram when the view bar that is normally hidden along the right edge of the area is revealed or called into the view.

5 is a work area diagram as soon as the pane-split console and the desired view are selected.

6 is a working area diagram following completion of the pane-splitting and view selection.

7 is a work area diagram used to illustrate how views can be exchanged efficiently among existing panes.

8 is a work area diagram following a view exchange operation.

9 is a flowchart of the method steps performed in installing a new view pane and assigning views to the original and new panes.

10 is a flowchart of a method step performed in performing a view exchange operation.

While preferred embodiments of the invention will be described below, it should be noted that the invention can be implemented in a variety of different forms, such as for special purpose hardware or a combination of hardware and software. A typical combination of hardware and software is a general purpose computer using a computer program that, as soon as it is loaded and executed, causes the system to perform the method steps described below. The software may be preloaded into a general purpose computer system or separately available as a computer program product that, when loaded into the computer system, causes the system to perform the method steps.

The term "computer program" in this context refers to a set of instructions intended to cause a system having information processing capabilities to perform a particular function either directly or after conversion to another language and / or duplication into different data forms. Means any expression of any language, code or notation.

Referring to FIG. 1, the present invention is a method for managing a view in a computer system 10 that includes a system device 12 and a monitor or display 14. The computer user can configure the panes for showing the individual views in the work area 16 of the display 14, assign them to the desired panes, and exchange the views in a series of simple and intuitive actions. have.

Figure 2 illustrates the main physical components of a general purpose computer system that, when properly programmed, may implement the present invention. The computer system includes a central processing unit (CPU) subsystem 20 having a processor, support registers, cache, and logic circuitry. The computer system further includes a random access memory 22, a hard drive 24 and an optical drive 26, such as a CD-R, CD-RW or DVD drive. Where the present invention is implemented as a computer program, a system operator is typically available first on removable magnetic or optical media for installation on hard drive 24. As soon as the initial installation is complete, the program can be transferred from the hard drive 24 into the random access memory 22 as needed. Alternatively, the program may be loaded into the random access memory 22 directly from the optical medium loaded in the optical drive 26 as needed. The computer system further includes a system input / output (I / O) adapter 28 that supports connection to standard system components such as keyboard 30, pointing device 32, and video display 34. Finally, the computer system may further include a network interface card 36 that provides an interface to other networked devices.

First of all, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described by reference to a change in display appearance in the course of the use of the present invention, and then to a flowchart showing the method steps performed in making the change. Referring first to FIG. 3, the initial or default appearance of the display includes a single view VIEW 1 that occupies the entire work area of the display. In its default appearance, the view bar, which will be described in more detail below, is considered to be hidden along the right edge of the display. When hidden, the view bar is represented by a thin strip of pixels 38 and may include pictographs or icons representing the view.

By invoking or invoking the view bar, preferably by moving the cursor over strip 38, the user changes the appearance of the working area of the display. In one embodiment of the present invention, as soon as the presence of a cursor on strip 38 is detected, the view bar automatically expands or reveals. In another embodiment, the view bar remains hidden until the user performs a selection operation, such as clicking on one of the buttons on the cursor control device, usually a mouse.

4 shows the working area immediately after the view bar is exposed using one of the methods described above. The view bar combines a first button pair 46 for splitting pane-split control, in particular one view pane already in the work area into two longitudinally spaced panes, and one view pane already in the work area. And a second button pair 42 for dividing into lateral spacing panes. The pane-split control is only valid for the panes that sometimes have focus or for active panes called focus panes or focus view panes. In the case of Figure 4, VIEW 1 is the only pane and by default the focus view pane.

The pane-split control determines more than whether the focus view pane is split horizontally or longitudinally. Depending on which of the two buttons in the set was pressed, the control specifies whether the newly created pane will be located to the right or left (or top or bottom) of the existing pane. In particular, referring to FIG. 4, it can be seen that in the transverse pane-dividing control 42 a right-facing triangle is selected. As a result of this selection, a second view pane VIEW 2 may be created in the work area to the right of the existing VIEW 1. It remains assigned to the campaign originally included in VIEW 1. The contents of the new view pane (VIEW 2) are selected by the system user from the list 44 of open views in the view bar. FIG. 6 shows the working area of the display that will follow the cursor empasis of the particular view, VIEW 2, for the newly created pane.

6 shows a work area with VIEW 1 and VIEW 2 located in side by side relationship. In FIG. 6, the view bar returns to its hidden state. When the cursor is moved out of the view bar area, hiding of the view bar can occur automatically, depending on the purpose of the system implementer, an active deselect action such as a user clicking on one of the buttons on the cursor control unit. It may not occur until you perform some sort of. Note that Figure 6 shows that VIEW 2 is automatically selected as the focus pane because the system user who installs the pane for VIEW 2 probably thinks it was necessary to work with that view. If you want, making VIEW 1 the focus view is simply done by clicking on the title bar for that view.

Although only two panes are shown in FIG. 6, the user has the option of creating any number of additional views. For example, suppose that VIEW (2) remains the focus pane, by using one's pane splitting control and then selecting one of the open views in the resulting unoccupied pane's view bar list, the user selects that pane. You can choose to split the pane into two smaller species intervals. The smaller the pane, the clearer that they can present less information to the user and the process can be repeated any number of times, starting with any pane that has focus. The pane split control makes it easy to establish any desired screen configuration for the user. The list of visible views in the view bar makes it easy for the user to assign a particular view to any unoccupied pane.

If the user who created the tiling layout of the view determines that the layout is not what he or she wanted, the present invention simplifies relocating the view without changing the pane configuration for the user. Referring to FIG. 7, VIEW 2 and VIEW 3 are assigned to smaller panes, respectively, but VIEW 1 is assigned to larger panes. If the user specifies that VIEW 2 should be assigned to a larger pane, the view can be exchanged using a click-drag-drop operation. If the cursor is positioned over one of the views to be exchanged and one of the device buttons is pressed, the cursor is moved to any position within the other pane of the two panes to be exchanged. The release of the device button exchanges two views. 8 now shows the final results with VIEW 1 appearing in the lower left pane on the screen and VIEW 2 appearing in the larger pane.

The drawings constantly show the panes involved in the exchange, but this is not a requirement of the present invention. The two panes involved in the exchange can be completely separated from each other by one or more interfering panes. The view being exchanged is determined only by the position of the cursor when the device button is first pressed and then by the cursor position when the device button is released.

Turning back to FIG. 4 briefly, the view bar is shown with two additional controls 49 and 48 not described above. As described above, the view system can be implemented such that the view bar is automatically hidden (disappears) if the user moves the cursor from the view bar area. Under some conditions, the user may not want the view bar to disappear automatically. Control 49 is a "fixed" control, which, when selected, will lock the view bar into its visible state regardless of the current position of the cursor. As soon as the view bar is locked into the visible state, it may not be hidden until some positive action is taken to reset the fixed control. Examples of suitable positive behaviors would be to click on a fixed control again. Control 48 is a detach control that, when activated, causes the selected view to be "torn off", ie removed from the current pane and moved into its own separate window, and to other tiled panes. Can be moved independently.

9 is a flowchart of the method steps performed during the process of installing a tiled screen configuration and assigning a view to each pane of the pane in that configuration. The initial step of 50 in the process is the creation of a default display consisting of a thin strip of pane representing a single view with focus and a hidden view bar. After the default display is generated, in step 52 the system monitors the position of the cursor. As soon as the cursor is detected as being over a hidden view bar, in step 54 the view bar is not revealed or hidden, and the system waits for one of the pane split controls to be selected. As soon as step 56 detects that one of the pane split controls has been selected, a view buffer for the display is set up for the two different panes that occupy the space originally allocated to the four panes. The new panes will be side-by-side or upside down, as well as which pane split control is selected.

In step 60, the data included in the view of the current focus pane is allocated to one of the two video buffers. That is, the assignment depends on which of the pane splitting controls were selected in setting up two new panes. The system then enters a standby state while it monitors the status and condition of the cursor to determine if one of the open views is selected in the list of views appearing in the view. In step 62, as soon as the selection of the open view is detected, in step 64 data for the selected view is loaded into the second of the two newly created panes. As mentioned above, how many times this process must be executed in order to achieve a tiled configuration of the display work area that he or she satisfies is entirely at the discretion of the system user.

10 is a flowchart of the steps performed in performing the view exchange operation described above. The initial step 70 of the process is to determine if a particular key or button has been pressed while the cursor is positioned over one of the existing panes. Then, as soon as a key or button press is detected, the system monitors the state of the cursor to determine if the same key or button is subsequently released after the cursor has been moved to a position above another pane of the existing pane. To start. If test 72 indicates that the key has been released over the second pane, the two affected views represent the exchange of data between the first pane and the second pane.

Claims (12)

A method of managing the appearance of a view on a display having a work area that includes at least one view pane, the method comprising: The method is a) designating one of the view panes as a focus view pane in a work area; b) invoking a view bar comprising a set of pane splitting controls and a list of open views; c) in response to selecting one of the pane splitting controls, dividing the focus view pane into two panes, the contents of the focus view pane being assigned to a first pane of the two panes; d) in response to selecting one of the open views from the list appearing in the view bar, assigning the selected view to a second one of the two panes; How to manage the appearance of the view. The method of claim 1, The view bar is usually hidden from view at one edge of the work area, and invoking the view bar is responsive to moving the cursor into a position that coincides with the edge of the work area. How to manage the appearance of the view. The method of claim 2, In response to a user input, fixing the view bar to the displayed state. How to manage the appearance of the view. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, In response to the user, select one of the view panes in the work area, Drag the contents of the selected view pane to another of the view panes in the work area, Exchanging content of the selected view pane with the other view pane; How to manage the appearance of a view. a) a display having a work area comprising at least one view pane designated as a focus view pane; b) a display control subsystem for creating a view bar having a pane split control and a list of open views; c) a pane control for dividing the focus view pane into two panes and allocating the contents of the focus view pane to the first one of the two panes in response to the selection of one of the pane splitting controls; Logic. d) pane control logic to assign the selected view to a second one of the two panes in response to selecting one of the views on the list of open views. System for managing the appearance of views. The method of claim 5, The view bar is usually hidden, and the display control subsystem controls the subsystem responsive to the presence of a display cursor in a predetermined area of the display to reveal the view bar. System for managing the appearance of views. The method of claim 6, The display control subsystem further includes logic to adjust the appearance of the view bar. System for managing the appearance of views. The method according to any one of claims 5 to 7, The display control subsystem further includes logic for changing the appearance of the work area, the logic including view swap logic for exchanging contents of two selected view panes in the work area. System for managing the appearance of views. When running on a computer, the computer a) designate the view pane of the working area of the computer display as the focus view pane, b) a view bar on the computer display, the view bar including a set of pane splitting controls and a list of open views; c) in response to selecting one of the pane splitting controls, dividing the focus view pane into two panes, wherein the contents of the focus pane are assigned to a first pane of the two panes, d) in response to selecting an open view from the list appearing in the view bar, assigning the selected view to a second of the two panes; Computer programs. The method of claim 9, The view bar is usually hidden from view at one edge of the work area, and the program product responds to the presence of a cursor at a predetermined area at the edge to reveal the view bar. Computer programs. The method of claim 10, The program product responds to user input to lock the view bar to its displayed state. Computer programs. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 11, Responsive to dragging the contents of the selected pane over a selection of one of the view panes and another view pane in the work area to exchange contents of the two panes. Computer programs.