Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-26
2004-05-25
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
Reexamination Certificate
active
06741268
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a page information display method and apparatus, and in particular to a page information display method and apparatus for displaying electronic information in a unit of page of predetermined size.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, the information required for the work, study or life is provided from the origins of information to the reader, using media such as books, or periodical publications, e.g., newspaper or magazine. Also, the administrative or judicial information is provided in publications or documents.
In recent years, the Internet (Internetwork) has been well prepared to enable the computers for the government, company, college, and individual to be interconnected directly or via the telephone network. with the development of providing the information via the Internet, a variety of information is created as an ML page (e.g., HTML page or XML page) on the basis of make-up language, which allows this page (typically referred to as a home page) to be accessed using a computer. To provide the ML page, a large amount of documents are created in a PDF format, and can be downloaded from respective home pages. Just as the patent gazette is provided in CD-ROM, the important information may be publicized or circulated in the computer readable medium other than the Internet.
The information provided in a format viewable using a computer may include information contents from a wide variety of information sources covering data sheets of products manufactured by the company, the information of new products, documents created by the administration, pieces of legislation, the Supreme Court precedents, research results of the college laboratory, detailed information of lodgings in a certain region, news, weather forecasts, for example. These may be duplicately provided in other paper media such as newspaper columns, magazines, or catalogues, but simply provided through the Internet or in the computer readable medium. Most of the past information may be often difficult to obtain substantially in paper media.
As the information networks such as the Internet are prepared throughout the world in the future, more information will penetrate into the society increasingly. Thereby, it is apprehended that there occurs a personal difference in the amount or quality of necessary information between the user familiar with the computer and the user unfamiliar with the computer.
Means for operating the computer may be a graphical user interface (GUI, hereinafter referred to as a desktop metaphor) useful in most cases, which is metaphoric to the working environment of desk in the actual world. Through the user interface in the desktop metaphor, the working environment of desk is comically drawn to allow a file structure specific to the computer which is nonobjective and uneasy to understand to correspond with a file or folder present in the working environment of desk. Thus, the computer beginners can operate the computer intuitively. For example, to delete a file, the file indicated by an icon which is metaphoric to paper is drugged and dropped into a garbage box.
However, through use of the user interface of desktop metaphor, many people in the world may think that the simple operation of viewing electronic information in the computer is difficult. That is, through the user interface of desktop metaphor, it is required to view electronic information by instructing or operating indirectly a virtual device such as buttons drawn on the display of computer, a pop-up menu, or a slide bar, using an input device such as a mouse or keyboard for the computer,
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Object of the Invention
In the conventional example as described above, there was a drawback that viewing of information through the use of a computer was difficult. That is to say the operation scheme specific to the computer may take considerable time to master the operation. Thus, everyone can not easily make use of the electronic information provided by the computer. Accordingly, there is a personal difference in the quality and amount of information available between the users. If many people feel it difficult to use the computer, the information provider can not abolish the paper media for the information necessary to be conveyed to entirely transfer to the electronic information.
For example, it was reported that when a large company introduced a computer system to do all business contacts and settlements of accounts by abolishing the paper media, the preparatory period was set to two years, and one year or more was dedicated to an education period for new staff members to get accustomed to the computer, so that the company fully succeeded in computerization. Some colleges provide computer literacy courses to educate the basic usage of computer. Generally, in the study and training of new staff members in the companies or government offices, the computer operation is educated. They are taught about not only viewing of the information, but also input and origination of the information. However, for the people who never have used the computer at all, it is a difficult work only to view the information.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a user interface which is intuitive and easy to operate, rather than a desktop metaphor. Particularly, an information viewing device which has a simple appearance and enables the operation intended to view the electronic information is promising.
To cope with such a problem, a prior viewing device which is an improved desktop metaphor was disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-165595. This realizes the appearance of a book on the display portion, and relies on a method of visualizing the electronic information on the display portion by outputting the overlapped pages composed of a plurality of sentences dislocated slightly to the display portion. A heading symbolizing a set of sentences is appended with the content of sentences as a unit of set to improve the desktop metaphor. However, in this conventional example, the amount of information to be displayed increases in proportion to an increase in the number of pages. Therefore, it is often difficult to secure the display area sufficiently. Consequently, there is a problem that the viewing area is reduced to make viewing difficult.
A CRT or a liquid crystal display is becoming higher in resolution year after year. For example, if the resolution of about 150 dpi in A4 size is realized, it is possible to view the whole one face of newspaper in A4 size. If the display has substantially a resolution of facsimile, the newspaper or magazine is made readable in a size which is smaller than the actual size. In such a high-resolution display, the display of 1200×1600 dots can be made in A4 size. Therefore, the physical size becomes too small to be useful for the icon in the conventional operating system, giving an impression of something intricate to the user, possibly resulting in a user interface which is rather uneasy to understand.
Therefore, the development of a user interface in the next generation which can be intuitively used by the computer beginners as well is required. Then, it is desired to adopt a high-resolution display without changing the operation. In other words, it is desired to develop the user interface which is easy to master the operation and not dependent on the resolution.
It is an object of the present invention to resolve the inconveniences associated with the conventional example, and to provide a user interface for viewing the information which is easily understood by all people, irrespective of the computer experiences.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, the present invention adopts a user interface having a metaphor like a book, newspaper or magazine. To realize the metaphor of this book, the electronic information is allowed to view in a unit of page of predetermined size. That is, the electronic information is displayed in a unit of page of predetermined size in an information viewing area of
Bayerl Raymond J.
Foley & Lardner LLP
NEC Corporation
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