Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Utility Patent
1998-04-01
2001-01-02
Alam, Hosain T. (Department: 2771)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000
Utility Patent
active
06169984
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to User Interface (UI) controls, and in particular, to User Interface controls that facilitate global navigation of components in a window environment directly from printable keyboard character input.
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 typically have a visual aspect to them and are organized as objects called components. One example of the many different component types is a list box. When a list box is selected from its list box identifier on a display screen, the list box appears containing one or more further selectable list elements such as file names, folder names, or feature names. Each list element is also considered a component.
There are two common User Interface controls available to a user for searching and selecting components in a window environment. One of the User Interface controls is a free-style directional selection device such as a mouse. A second of the User Interface controls is keyboard input navigation. It is the User Interface control for keyboard input navigation among components that is the topic of this document.
Keyboard input navigation means that the user can input characters and/or control key combinations from a keyboard to navigate among various components whose mnemonic key matches the key or keys input by the user. It is common for a component's mnemonic key to be a single underlined character of the component's name and the underlined character is not necessarily the first character of the component name. However, one problem with mnemonic keys is that they create significant visual clutter on a display screen. Another problem with mnemonic key matching is that it is increasingly difficult to assign unique mnemonic keys for large numbers of sibling components and/or their component contents.
One solution to part, but not all, of the above identified problems is a keyboard input navigation technique called a hybrid incremental type search. See the above identified U.S. Patent titled “Method And System For Combining Prefix and First Character Searching Of A List” for details of an existing hybrid incremental type search. The existing hybrid incremental type search is a combination of a prefix search and a list search. A prefix search allows a user to enter one or more prefix characters that are used to search for a component name whose first few characters match the prefix characters entered by the user so far. However, one difficulty with the prefix searches alone is that the user needs to know the exact prefix of the desired list element to achieve an exact match without having to use directional keys to manually finish locating the desired component.
A list search, also known as a first character search, allows a user to sequentially search through a set of components to find the next component that matches the most recent character that was input by the user. For example, the user can repeatedly enter the letter “H” to locate successive components that begin with the letter “H”. Although the user does not need to know the exact spelling of a component using the list search technique, using the list search alone can take a long time to traverse a long list of component names that each begin with the same letter.
The existing hybrid incremental search method combines the desirable attributes of the prefix search and the list search to facilitate additional flexibility in a User Interface window control. The existing hybrid incremental search saves the user input characters in an input buffer and attempts to match one or more of the input characters to a component in the same manner as previously disclosed in the prefix search. However, if each of the input characters is the same, then the prefix search searches for a component whose first character matches one of the input characters. If the first character of only one component matches, then that component is selected. Alternatively, if the first character of more than one component matches an input character, then which of the components to select is determined by which component is in closest proximity to a predetermined reference position among the entire set of components. A predetermined reference position might be the first component of the entire set for example.
Another problem with the existing hybrid incremental type search is that it does not address the visual clutter problem of underlined characters to identify mnemonic keys in part because only local level type search controls exist. Still another problem with the existing hybrid incremental type search is that the scope of the search is limited to components that have implemented their own type search control.
For these reasons, there exists an ongoing need for a global mechanism for direct keyboard navigation across multiple component generations. A system of this type has heretofore not been known prior to the invention as disclosed below.
SOLUTION
The above identified problems are solved and an advancement is achieved in the field of User Interface controls for keyboard input navigation due to the global incremental type search navigation system of the present invention. The global incremental type search navigation system of the present invention is an extension of the existing hybrid incremental type search technology. The extension beyond the existing hybrid incremental type search technology includes, but is not limited to, navigation based on only printable keyboard character input, and global navigation across multiple hierarchical levels of components based on a designated User Interface scope within a component family hierarchy.
The global incremental type search navigation system of the present invention collects a user's keyboard input characters in an input buffer as each character is typed. A recursive search is then initiated down through all generations of each child component from an active parent component, and then up through all generations of the active parent component's parents subject to the designated scope, until a component is found whose display name begins with the assembled prefix characters. The user need only type printable characters for this global search to occur, and the user need only input the minimum number of characters that are necessary to uniquely identify the desired component. This technique facilitates a broader scope of a component search that not only includes the immediate active window components but the entire set of window components supported by a User Interface subject to a designated scope. This technique also eliminates the visual clutter produced by marking a mnemonic key character in each component.
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patent: 4916656 (1990-04-01), Sasaki
patent: 4937745 (1990-06-01), Carmon
patent: 5312478 (1994-05-01), Reed et al.
patent: 5548703 (1996-08-01), Berry et al.
patent: 5692173 (1997-11-01), Chew
patent: 5796404 (1998-08-01), Gentner
patent: 5877766 (1999-03-01), Bates et al.
patent: 6072485 (2000-06-01), Barnes et al.
Alam Hosain T.
Colbert Ella
Klarquist Sparkman Campbell & Leigh & Whinston, LLP
Microsoft Corporation
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