Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Graphic manipulation
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-08
2003-06-17
Bella, Matthew C. (Department: 2676)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Graphic manipulation
C345S215000, C455S566000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06580436
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to terminal devices for mobile communication and screen display methods performed by such devices and, more specifically, to a terminal device for mobile communication to carry out data communications with an external server through a digital network and to appropriately scroll a display element such as a character and image on a display screen included in the device, and a screen display method performed by such device.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, with the widespread use of the Internet, documents written in description language such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) have been exchanged. As well known, such description language allows free arrangement of a plurality of display elements such as characters and images composing a document.
The HTML is standardized by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and standardization of HTML Ver. 4.0 has been complete. The details on the HTML are disclosed in http://www.w3c.org/.
In general, a document written in such description language is displayed or scrolled by using a document processing software called Web browser. Such Web browser is also incorporated in personal portable terminals such as PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) having communication functions and cellular phones to allow wireless access to the Internet. Therefore, irrespective of wired or wireless, Internet access has become active for a wide variety of purposes such as exchanging electronic mails.
The display screen of the personal portable terminals is so small for the purpose of portability that only a limited number of display elements can be displayed. Further, the resolution of the display screen varies according to models. Therefore, to display elements that cannot be displayed on a single screen in such portable terminals, the screen is scrolled a line or page to sequentially display those-elements. Therefore, how the scrolled screen is viewable on a limited size of the display screen becomes very important.
For scrolling, a technique of scrolling and displaying a screen based on the size of characters is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 10-187136 (1998-187136), although this publication is not specifically for personal portable terminals.
The technique disclosed in this publication relates to a document processing device that displays a document with a plurality of characters of different sizes mixed in one line on a display screen for editing and creating. To achieve such device, the document processing device includes at least a cursor to be displayed for specifying a position (line) of a desired character displayed on the display screen, a move instructing unit instructing movement one line upward or downward from the line where the cursor is located, and a scroll unit scrolling up or down the display screen according to an amount of movement based on the height of the character if the character to be displayed after cursor movement is supposed to be displayed across a boundary of the display screen. With these components, the technique disclosed in the publication allows scrolling so that the displayed characters will not be interrupted on the boundary of the display screen.
As described above, the display screen of the personal portable terminal is so small that display elements that can be displayed at a time are limited. On the other hand, a plurality of display element of different types can be freely arranged on HTML documents. Furthermore, these elements on HTML documents can be set so as to be selected by users (such as “execute” and “send”).
However, free arrangement of display elements greatly increases the possibility of causing a problem that some of the display elements might be displayed across the boundary of the display screen when the display screen is scrolled up or down a line or page. Therefore, the number of display elements that can be recognized in their entirety is reduced, thereby disadvantageously inhibiting recognizable display elements from being displayed on a single screen. Another disadvantage is that users may have to select a selectable display element without recognizing it in its entirety.
The above problems cannot be solved even with the technique disclosed in the above publication as long as a plurality of display elements of different types can be freely arranged.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a terminal device for mobile communication that, when scrolling a display screen of a document which a plurality of display elements of different types are mixed, searches for a display element that is supposed to be displayed across the boundary of a display screen and appropriately corrects the amount of scrolling so that the display element is not across the boundary, and a screen display method performed by such device. Therefore, it is possible to increase the number of display elements that can be recognized in their entirety by users on the display screen, select a selectable display element while being recognized in its entirety by the users, and further provide more recognizable information to the user.
The present invention has the following features to solve the object above.
A first aspect of the present invention is directed to a terminal device for mobile communication enabling data communication with an external server through a digital network and displaying a document composed of display elements of different types such as characters and images. The terminal device comprises a reception unit operable to receive a scroll instruction for scrolling a display screen from a user, a basic amount determination unit, responsive to the scroll instruction from the reception unit, operable to determine a basic moving amount according to the scroll instruction, a display element information holding unit operable to hold information required for displaying the display elements composing the document, a display element searching unit operable to search the display elements for a reference display element that is supposed to be displayed across a boundary of the display screen if the display screen is scrolled based on the basic moving amount determined by the basic-amount determination unit, by using the information held by the display element information holding unit, an offset determination unit, operable to calculate an offset moving amount based on the reference display element found by the display element searching unit, a calculation unit operable to calculate an actual moving amount from the basic moving amount determined by the basic amount determination unit and the offset moving amount calculated by the offset determination unit, and a display processing unit operable to scroll the display screen according to the actual moving amount calculated by the calculation unit.
As described above, in the first aspect, when a document composed of display elements of different types is scrolled on the display screen, the display element that is supposed to be displayed across the boundary of the screen is searched, and the scrolling amount is corrected so that the display element should not be displayed across the boundary. Therefore, it is possible to in crease the number of display elements that can be recognized in their entirety by users on the display screen, select a selectable display element while being recognized in its entirety by the users, and further provide more recognizable information in the users.
According to a second aspect, further to the first aspect discussed above, the offset determination unit previously has priority information indicating priorities of the-display elements that are possibly referred to. If the display element searching unit finds a plurality of display elements that are possibly referred to, the offset determination unit calculates the offset moving amount based on one of the plurality of display elements that is determined as the reference display element according to the priority information.
As described above, in the se
Hishida Toshihiro
Ishigaki Junji
Kawano Masakazu
Shin Hidehiko
Bella Matthew C.
Blackman A
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
Wenderoth , Lind & Ponack, L.L.P.
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