Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1998-04-01
2001-06-19
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, C345S182000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06249284
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to User Interface (UI) controls, and in particular, to UI navigation controls in layout managers that facilitate directional navigation among containers, and components within containers, on a display screen.
Problem
User Interface controls, in the context of this document, are the mechanisms or processes that facilitate operational aspects of User Interface features that are available to a user. User Interface features commonly have a visual aspect to them and are organized hierarchically as objects called components, containers, and viewers.
In early UI navigation controls for computing systems, a viewer was the controlling interface between a user's display screen and an application program or other dialog. For example, a programmer designing an application program would create a screen display that included a plurality of data entry fields each linked together in a predefined sequential order. A user would enter data in one data entry field at a time while the viewer control automatically moved the cursor to each successive data entry field as each prior data entry field was satisfied. The user could go forward to a next data entry field by pressing the TAB key. The user could also back up to an earlier data entry field by pressing the SHIFT-TAB key combination to step back one data entry field at a time until the cursor arrived at the earlier data entry field.
However, one problem with the early viewer controls was that they only allowed sequential stepwise forward and backward movement among data entry fields in a given display screen. Further, little or no control was allowed for forward or backward movement among pages of display screens. In addition, each application was required to implement and manage the layout and navigation of components on its own without assistance from other applications. For these and other reasons, existing viewer controls were and are undesirable as users demand more and more flexible UI navigation controls.
One improvement over the undesirable sequential stepwise viewer control is he use of layout managers. Layout managers can compartmentalize elements of a display screen into containers, and components within containers, so that an individual container can have its own viewer controls while the layout manager facilitates control of the position and size of individual containers and components within a container. However, even with the use of layout managers, directional navigation remains up to individual applications to implement and maintain.
For these reasons, there exists an ongoing need for a more flexible and uniform system of directional navigation among containers and components within containers. A system of this type has heretofore not been known prior to the invention as disclosed below.
Solution
The problems identified above are solved and an advancement is achieved in the field of UI navigation controls due to the directional navigation system in layout managers of the present invention. The directional navigation system includes a navigator implementation in each layout manager that is separate from the containers and/or components to which each layout manager is assigned. Components at the container and/or component level need only be responsible for the tasks of receiving and identifying user generated directional navigation input and of assigning a new input focus to a next component at the direction of an assigned layout manager. The navigator portion of each layout manager is responsible for the tasks of processing the directional navigation input by searching for the next nearest component that can take input focus in response to the user generated directional navigation input. Multiple layout managers are called upon to identify the next nearest component that can take input focus in the event that the magnitude and/or direction of a requested input focus change is beyond the scope of the set of components to which any one layout manager has responsibility.
Implementing the directional navigation controls at the layout manager level frees individual containers and/or components from the burden of navigation implementation details. For purposes of the present discussion, a container is a component that includes other lower level components. The relationships between components and containers are further detailed in the text accompanying FIG.
2
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The directional navigation system in layout managers facilitates navigation among containers and among components within containers based on a uniform set of directional navigation indicators. The directional navigation indicators are events that include, but are not limited to, the directional arrow keys, page up and page down keys, and the home and end keys. For example, in the context of an electronic form the present invention would facilitate user directed input focus movement in an incremental stepwise manner among individual data entry fields within a form, in addition to jumping to the beginning or end of a form, or from one form page to the next, all in a random user dictated manner.
An active component of a UI is said to have input focus if it is the display object that is presently set to receive user generated input at a given moment. An active component responds to keyboard input events by determining whether the event represents data or directional navigation instructions. If the event is one of a set of predefined directional navigation indicators, then the event is passed to the component's layout manager for processing. The navigator portion of the responsible layout manager processes the directional navigation indicator by finding the next nearest component that can take input focus as dictated by the magnitude and direction of the directional navigation indicator.
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Bayerl Raymond J.
Joseph Thomas J
Klarquist Sparkman Campbell & Leigh & Whinston, LLP
Microsoft Corporation
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