Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-30
2001-07-24
Bayerl, Raymond J. (Department: 2173)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000, C345S215000, C345S215000, C705S401000, C705S410000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06266055
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention pertains to a user interface for a postage meter or other mailing equipment, and more particularly to a screen control architecture directed to facilitating the customizing of menus and other elements of a user interface displayed on a video display of a postage meter or other mailing equipment.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
To provide a means of communicating to a user the full functionality of a microprocessor-based postage meter or other kinds of mailing equipment, it is known in the art to provide a user interface, including a menu system, on a video display provided with the mailing equipment. But in the prior art, the user interface for a mailing apparatus, including menus, and also the function calls associated with different menu selections, are embedded in a control program for the postage meter, i.e., in the machine language instructions that control the mailing apparatus. This arrangement has the advantage of, usually, requiring less memory to hold a user interface and associated function calls. It also has the feature of nearly guaranteeing that a non-programmer, such as a general user, will not alter a user interface.
The change-resistant feature of a user interface is, today, in some situations, a disadvantage. Today, mailing equipment that is the same in functionality is sold worldwide; the user interface for the mailing equipment must therefore be adapted, or customized, to the language and culture associated with each market and also adapted to conform to the postal system requirements of each market. With the arrangement of the prior art, the control program must therefore often be changed for different markets.
Any change to a computer program, including the control program of a mailing equipment, has risk, time and cost associated with the change. There is risk in that even small changes to a computer program can have unforeseen consequences. There is time and cost in that a change must be made by relatively sophisticated programmers. After a change, there is inventory cost in keeping and maintaining both the original and the changed versions for each country, i.e. in providing configuration management, this cost being relatively high because relatively sophisticated programmers must perform the configuration management.
What is needed is a way of altering a user interface without changing the control program itself, i.e., the coded machine instructions, but instead changing only the input data for the control program. A change along these lines would be to provide as input data to the control program the text to be displayed as part of the user interface. Then the text could be easily translated, depending on the market for the mailing equipment.
But in fully responding to the risk and cost of altering a control program, providing a user translation of the text of a user interface is often not enough. A menu system, and a user interface generally, makes use of various assumptions about how people will respond to an interface screen; and how people respond can vary dramatically from culture to culture, to the point where, for some markets, some assumptions about a user interface are simply incorrect, and the user interface does not work for that market.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved control system that provides for a flexible and adaptable user interface, while mitigating the disadvantages discussed above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention seeks to provide a control system that produces a user interface, including its overall look and feel, based only on information that is not coded as part of the control program, but instead provided as input data. Such an arrangement would allow changes to be made to a user interface of a mailing apparatus without involving control program re-coding, and thus avoid much of the risk and cost associated with customizing or adapting a mailing apparatus to a new market requiring changes in its user interface because of differences either in culture or in national postal regulation, compared to already established markets.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a customizable user interface for a mailing apparatus, comprising: a control program that is responsive to external input data and includes instructions for execution of all functions of the mailing apparatus, and instructions for painting a screen of the customizable user interface in response to the external input data, which specifies the screen, and including functions required to check and respond to an improper response to the customizable user interface. The external input data provides all specifications needed to distinguish one screen from another, and specifications needed to distinguish an action by the mailing apparatus in connection with use of a screen by a user, or in connection with an event to be communicated by the customizable user interface to the user.
In a particular embodiment of the present invention, the external input data comprises: a screen tree component, including, for each screen, an identification of a function to perform before displaying a screen (a pre function), an identification of a function to call after displaying a screen, and before calling a pre function for another screen (a post function), at least one keypress response specification, and optionally, at least one event response specification; and a screen language component, including fixed text data, field data (i.e. data provided at run-time either by a user or by the control program), table text data, and key map data.
All of the look and feel of a user interface for a mailing apparatus is thereby provided as input data to a user interface control program, allowing changes to be made to both the look and feel of the user interface without having to change the coded user interface control program.
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Patent Application Entitled Mailing Machine Including An Embedded Control System Having A Screen Control Architecture (Docket No. E-712), Patent Serial No. 09/065,373, Filed Apr. 23, 1998.
Arsenault Robert G.
Jacobson Gary S.
Kirschner Wesley A.
Lanin Daniel
McNeal Sharon A.
Bayerl Raymond J.
Chaclas Angelo N.
Melton Michael E.
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Thai Cuong T.
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