Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-30
2001-07-24
dela Torre, Crescelle N. (Department: 2173)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C709S241000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06266056
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This application relates to a method and apparatus for a user interface control and, specifically, to a method and apparatus that allows for fast processing of reactive components in a user interface.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Systems that have embedded programs, such as certain information appliances and consumer products, often do not contain general purpose windowing software. In these systems, all graphics are generally done via calls to the built-in graphics routines, such as draw-line, draw rectangle, etc. In many conventional systems, graphics are drawn via interaction with the browser. Thus, if multiple applets are executing as different threads in the browser, they will experience a lack of concurrency when performing graphics operations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A described embodiment of the present invention implements a separate child context for each applet (or similar browser element). A described embodiment of the present invention provides one or more child contexts that correspond to elements in the HTML for a web page displayed by a browser. For example, each applet executed by the browser has a corresponding and separate child context. Each child context has an associated memory buffer. The browser also has a parent context, which each child context points to. When a graphic is displayed via a widget, the widget draws the graphic (such as a panel or a non-pressed button) in the child context of the applet and sets a “damage” flag in the child context. When the browser performs its main browser loop, it checks the status of the damaged flag for each element (including each applet). If the browser finds a damage flag that is set, this means that something was written into the child buffer and that the parent buffer needs updating. In this case, the browser “pulls” the information from the child buffer into the parent buffer, which is then used to update the display screen. Thus, several separate threads in the JVM can be executing concurrently and updating graphics elements without interfering with each other.
The invention extends the AGL (Applications graphics library) routines to include (at least) routines to set up, delete, read, and modify child contexts and to copy information from child contexts to parent contexts. The DWL (developer's widget library) routines are extended to include (at least) a parameter identifying the context currently being worked on. The browser has been extended to implement the functionality of checking the damage flag of the context for each applet and pulling information from a buffer of a child context into the buffer of the parent context.
Reactive components present special problems. Reactive components are defined as components that must display interactive behavior. For example, when a user clicks on a button on the display screen, the button is momentarily displayed as “pressed” and soon thereafter displayed as “released.” Such interactive behavior gives visual feedback to the user. Examples of reactive components include buttons, lists, choice bars, etc. present special problems. When a widget, for example, a button, needs to show interactive behavior (such as going up and down when pressed), this behavior must occur very rapidly—often too rapidly to necessarily be picked up by a main browser loop, which executes relatively infrequently. For example, in the described embodiment, the main browser loop executes approximately every 200 milliseconds (i.e., approximately five times per second). In contrast, a “down” button press followed by an “up” takes approximately 50 milliseconds. If the system were to wait for the browser loop, the button press would have to last much longer.
In accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the invention relates to a method of displaying a reactive graphics element, comprising: sending a reactive graphics event, by a browser to a virtual execution environment; providing a child context in the virtual execution environment, corresponding to a parent context in the browser, where the child context corresponds to a current applet being executing by the browser; writing, by the virtual execution environment, a first graphic into a buffer of the child context and a buffer of the parent context, in accordance with the reactive graphics event, which will be displayed on a display screen; waiting a predetermined amount of time; writing, by the virtual execution environment, a second graphic into the buffer of the child context and the buffer of the parent context, in accordance with the reactive graphics event, which will be displayed on a display screen; and returning execution control to the browser from the virtual execution environment.
A fuller understanding of the invention will become apparent and appreciated by referring to the following description and claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5548745 (1996-08-01), Egan et al.
patent: 5802530 (1998-12-01), Van Hoff
patent: 5916310 (1999-06-01), McCain
patent: 5922044 (1999-07-01), Banthia
Beyer Weaver & Thomas LLP
dela Torre Crescelle N.
Sun Microsystems Inc.
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