WO2001067220A1

WO2001067220A1 - Desktop managing system and method using virtual polyhedron

Info

Publication number: WO2001067220A1
Application number: PCT/JP2000/001258
Authority: WO
Inventors: Kentaro Konishi; Tatsuya Okahara
Original assignee: Scale Inc.
Priority date: 1998-09-10
Filing date: 2000-03-03
Publication date: 2001-09-13
Also published as: JP2000089886A

Abstract

A desktop managing system and method using a virtual polyhedron for improving the efficiency of the desktop space and the operability of the desktop of a computer system having a desktop interface of window type, characterized in that the system comprises at least one tool means displayed on the screen of a desktop so as to control a predetermined application program executed by the computer, input means for operating a pointer for implementing the tool means on the screen of the desktop, and a virtual polyhedron having one or more faces on which the tool means are displayed, and in that the virtual polyhedron is rotated, as necessary, by using the input means so as to select desired tool means.

Description

Specification

Field of the Invention Desktop management system and method using virtual polyhedron

The present invention relates to a system for managing a window type desktop 'interface, and more particularly to a system for effectively utilizing a desktop space by using a virtual polyhedron and improving desktop operability. Background of the Invention

With multi-window desktop interfaces, such as the Macintosh operating system by Apple and the Windows operating system by Microsoft, when multiple windows are opened at the same time, the screen fills up. There is a tendency. High-performance application programs often use multiple toolboxes on the screen at the same time due to the high performance and complexity of their functions. Screen area is eroded. On the other hand, if a large-screen display is used to secure a larger screen area for actual work, the moving distance of the pointer (force) using a pointing device such as a mouse becomes longer, and work efficiency decreases. .

In order to solve these problems, various utilities have been proposed to shorten the travel distance in the evening. For example, the Macintosh operating system provides a launcher to manage installed application programs, and an Apple menu to manage running applications. . In the Windows operating system, the installed application is managed by the start button, and the application Program can be managed. In addition, many applications have tool tools that have icons for commands and shortcuts for each application.

(Microsoft MS—Word, Excel, etc.).

However, these management utilities and the like merely manage applications and tools statically, and only call applications and tools. In other words, tools cannot be used as they are on the management utility.

In addition, the launcher, etc., stores the alias or short cut of each application, and therefore occupies the desktop space as a result. —In other words, as the number of registered applications increases, the occupied area increases and the work area is eroded, and the travel distance in the evening becomes longer and the operability decreases. Object and Summary of the Invention

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to increase the efficiency of desktop space and improve the operability of a desktop in a computer system having a window-type desktop interface.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a computer desktop management system having a window type desktop interface includes:

At least one tool means displayed on the screen of the desktop to control a predetermined abrication program to be executed during the viewing;

An input means for operating a tool for executing tool means on the desktop screen, and a virtual polyhedron having one or more surfaces displayed on the screen of the desktop and including a display of the tool means.

Rotate the virtual polyhedron as required by the input means and select the desired tool means It is characterized by being able to do it.

Furthermore, the desktop management system is characterized in that it has means for controlling commands directly through the centralized tool.

Also, when the virtual polyhedron, which is one form of the aggregating means, rotates, the user can recognize the rotation of the virtual polyhedron by interposing an animation that can recognize the progress of the rotation. .

Another feature is that when multiple application programs are used in a multitasking operating system, the components of the tools integrated in the aggregation means can be switched according to the switching of applications and programs. .

Further, the present invention is characterized in that the aggregation means can be arranged at any place on the desktop. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a computer system constituting the present invention; FIG. 2a is a developed view of a real cube (hexahedron);

FIG. 2b is an expanded view of a virtual polyhedron according to the present invention;

FIG. 3a is an expanded view showing a rotation command input point of the virtual polyhedron according to the present invention;

FIG. 3b is a schematic diagram of a rotation animation of a virtual polyhedral cube according to the present invention;

FIG. 4a is an example of a Photoshop screen before applying the virtual polyhedron of the present invention;

FIG. 4B is an example of a screen obtained by applying the virtual polyhedron of the present invention to the screen of FIG. 3A. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a specific example in which a plurality of toolboxes are assigned to the virtual polyhedral cube of the present invention;

Fig. 6a is an example of the screen configuration when the main tool is set as the active surface; Fig. 6b is a developed view showing the relationship between the active surface (main tool surface) and other surfaces in the virtual polyhedron of the present invention. is there ;

Fig. 7a is an example of the screen configuration when the color tool is used as the active surface; Fig. 7b is a developed view showing the relationship between the active surface (color tool surface) and other surfaces in the virtual polyhedron of the present invention. Is;

Fig. 8a is an example of the screen configuration when the layer-one tool is set as the active surface; Fig. 8b shows the relationship between the active surface (layer-tool surface) and other surfaces in the virtual polyhedron of the present invention. It is a development view;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a specific example in which a virtual polyhedron is prepared for each of an operating system and a plurality of application programs;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the process of user customization; FIG. 11a is a schematic diagram of an application selection menu;

FIG. Lib is a schematic diagram of the tool selection menu. Example

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a schematic diagram of a computer system constituting the present invention. The computer system 10 has a main unit 11 for a convenience store, a display device 12, and input means 13. The computer system has a desktop 20 with a window type interface. The input means 13 controls the bus terminal 21 on the desktop. It has a virtual polyhedron 22 that aggregates files through the bushing 21. Referring to FIG. 2, an example of the expanded virtual polyhedron 22 is shown.

Although an existing cube is a hexahedron (FIG. 2a), the virtual polyhedron in the present invention has a virtually polyhedral structure, and thus can be an infinite cube. For example, it may be a dodecahedron as shown in FIG. 2b.

Referring to FIG. 3, there is shown a means for switching each face of the virtual polyhedron of the present invention. FIG. 3A is a developed view of a virtual polyhedron having six surfaces A to F. The cube 22 can be rotated by moving the mouse 21 with a pointing device and clicking on the specified area 31 (upper, lower, left, and right) on each side of the cube (actually no arrows are displayed). . For example, if you click the area 31 on the left end of the surface A, you can switch to the surface B. In this way, by clicking the predetermined area in the upper, lower, left and right directions, a desired surface can be arbitrarily selected, and the tool can be arbitrarily used. Further, the input device is not limited to the pointing device, and the virtual polyhedron can be rotated using the keyboard by setting a shortcut command corresponding to clicking the predetermined area.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, when switching each surface of the virtual polyhedron, an animation that can recognize the progress of rotation of the cube can be interposed. Referring to FIG. 3b, an animation that can recognize the progress of rotation is shown. This makes it possible to clearly image the switching of the application program.

Referring to FIG. 4, one embodiment using the virtual polyhedron is shown. Specifically, this example shows the case where the Adobe Photoshop photo application / program / P hot 0 shop is used on the Macintosh operating system. Fig. 4a shows an example of a conventional P hotoshop screen. FIG. 4B is an example of a screen in which the virtual polyhedron of the present invention is applied to the screen. Conventionally, as shown in Fig. 4a, the main work screen (car Window), one basic toolbox on the left side of the screen, and four other special toolboxes such as layers and color adjustment on the right side of the screen. As described above, if each tool box is widely arranged on the entire screen, it is difficult to secure a wide area of an actual operation screen. Furthermore, since the location where the pointer is moved differs for each desired functional tool, the moving distance of the pointing device becomes extremely long. When the virtual polyhedron of the present invention is used, toolboxes can be put together in one place as shown in FIG. 4b. By combining the toolboxes in one location, the destination of the pointer is always concentrated in one location, improving desktop operability. Furthermore, since the toolboxes are not distributed and arranged, the work space is enlarged and the desktop space can be used effectively. Referring to FIG. 5, a specific example of storing a toolbox in a virtual polyhedron according to the present invention is shown. This example is applied to the launch of the Adobe Photoshop photo application program "Photoshop". The initial screens are "Main Tool" 51, "Navigator" 52, " Display 5 types of toolboxes, “Color Tool” 5 3, “Action Tool” 5 4 and “Layer Tool” 5 5. Since these tool boxes have tools that are frequently used, users often use all of these simple tools by arranging them on the screen at all times. In order to store all of these five types of toolboxes, a virtual polyhedron with five faces is assumed, and each toolbox is assigned to each face (see Fig. 5b).

Figure 6 is an example of using the virtual polyhedron with the five toolboxes in Figure 5b. Referring to Figure 6a, one side of the cube with the square interface is active. The surface to which the "Main tool" 51 is assigned is active, and you can use the character input tool to enter characters and use the brush tool to draw freehand lines. As a result, Fig. 6a You can create freehand lines with the characters shown on the work screen. In this way, tools can be actively used, rather than just calling them.

Referring to Fig. 6b, the other four faces are assigned to this active face at the top, bottom, left and right. Next, call the color toolbox to change the color used. By clicking on the right area of the active face of the cube where the main tool is located, you can virtually rotate the cube and activate the face to which the color tool is assigned (Figure 7a). See). As shown in FIG. 7b, the surface that has actually become active is the surface on the left side of the surface on which the main pocket is virtually allocated.

Furthermore, the cube can be further rotated virtually by clicking on a predetermined area at the right end of the plane to which the currently active color tool box is assigned. Referring to Figure 8a, the face with the Layer 1 toolbox assigned is active. This active face is the face to the right of the face to which the main toolbox is assigned, as shown in Figure 8b. In the present embodiment, since the e-boxes are assigned only to the five surfaces, there is no surface corresponding to the back side of the surface of the main tube in the actual cube (hexahedron). However, in the virtual polyhedron, the surface corresponding to the back side can be omitted and the color control box surface and the layer tool box surface can be arranged adjacent to each other. Next, as many embodiments, a case will be described in which a plurality of application programs are simultaneously activated on a specific multitasking operating system and individual application programs are switched and used. On the multi-tasking operating system, a predetermined application / program can be executed in the background, and another application / program can be started and used. Leverage the features of this operating system Application, prepare a virtual polyhedron for each program,

• One-to-one correspondence between programs and virtual polyhedra. In this structure, the contents of the toolbox can be automatically assigned according to the switching of the application program by simply switching the application program. In addition to automatically associating the contents of the control box with the switching of the application program, the contents of the control box can be adapted to each application program by user customization. Can be done.

In general, if a user continues to use a particular multitasking operating system and a particular set of application programs, they will be differentiated between tools that are used frequently and tools that are rarely used. As specific examples, as the tools frequently used in the functions related to the operating system (here, the Macintosh operating system is assumed), "Japanese conversion function word registration menu", "Japanese conversion" Suppose "symbol display palette of function", "file search" and "designed clock". Application programs include “MS—World” (a word processor by Microsoft) “Soft”, “MS—Excel” (a spreadsheet software by Microsoft), and “Pho to shop” (a photo viewer by Adobe Systems). · Software) is installed. Figure 9 shows an example in which a virtual polyhedron is prepared for each of the operating system and each application program. Here, from the main screen 60 of the operating system, the MS-Word main screen 61, the MS-Exce 1 main screen 62, and then the Pho to sho P main screen 63 and the virtual polyhedron according to the switching of the application program. The assigned toolbox changes. Here, the contents of the toolbox of the virtual polyhedron of each application and program can be arbitrarily customized by the user. You can mize in the evening. For example, the character palette is assigned to a virtual polyhedron in the word processor MS-Word, which uses a lot of text input, but not to P hot 0 shop, which often handles images. For some users, it is also possible to assign a freeware designed clock to all virtual polyhedra. In this way, by enabling user customization, basically by preparing one virtual polyhedron according to the present invention, it is not necessary to open a new tool window every time an action is performed. Become.

Referring to FIG. 10, there is shown an example of a flowchart for performing the user customization. In step 1, launch the virtual polyhedron customization menu. The customization menu has an application selection menu (FIG. 11a) and a tool selection menu (FIG. 11b). In step 2, select an application program. Select the desired application program to which you want to add the tool from the application menu. In step 3, select a deployment tool. Select a predetermined tool to be added to the application 'program selected in step 2 from the tool selection menu. By repeating steps 2 and 3, multiple application programs can be selected. In step 4, determine the selected application's program and installation tools and finish.

The virtual polyhedron can be rotated by clicking on predetermined regions at the top, bottom, left and right ends of the active surface of the virtual polyhedron. By using this virtual rotation mechanism, it is possible to provide an interface that the user can easily recognize intuitively. A series of operations such as calling a tool and using a tool can all be completed within a cube.

Also, by storing many tools in one cube and centrally managing them, Desktop space can be used effectively.

Furthermore, by storing all tools in a cube, when using the toolbox, it becomes possible to use the toolbox by moving it to any place where the cube is placed, regardless of the tool used. The moving distance of the pointing device can be shortened, and the operability of the desktop can be improved.

Claims

The scope of the claims

1. Combination desktop management system with window type desktop interface

Operating at least one tool means displayed on the screen of the desktop so as to control a predetermined application program executed on the computer; and operating a tool executing the tool means on the desktop screen. Input means;

A virtual polyhedron displayed on a desktop screen and comprising one or more surfaces including a display of the tool means;

The virtual polyhedron can be rotated as required by the input means, and a desired tool can be selected.

A desktop management system characterized in that:

2. In a desktop management system with a window-type desktop interface,

At least one tool means displayed on a screen of the desktop for controlling a program executed by the computer;

Input means for operating a boyfriend to execute the tool means on the desktop display;

Aggregating means for aggregating tool means for controlling a plurality of commands for the program on the screen of the desktop,

Commands aggregated in the aggregation means can be directly executed by the operation of the boyne.

A desktop management system characterized in that:

3. When the virtual polyhedron, which is one form of the aggregation means, rotates, 3. The desktop management system according to claim 1, wherein the user can recognize the rotation of the virtual polyhedron by interposing a recognizable animation.

4. In the case where a plurality of programs are used in the multitasking operating system, the tool means integrated in the aggregating means can be switched according to the switching of the program. Desktop management system.

5. The desktop management system according to claim 1, wherein the aggregation means can be arranged at an arbitrary place on a screen of a desktop.

6. Combination with window type desktop interface In the method of managing desktop,

Setting at least one or more tool means for controlling a program to be executed by a computer, arranging the tool means in any plane on a virtual polyhedron having one or more planes,

The virtual polyhedron is rotated by the input means for operating a tool for executing the tool means on the desktop screen, the desired face of the virtual polyhedron is selected by the input means, and the virtual polyhedron is selected by the input means. Select the desired tool means contained in the desired plane of

A desktop management method, wherein a predetermined program is executed by the input means.

7. Combination with window type desktop interface In the method of managing desktop,

Set up at least one tool means to control programs executed by the computer

Consolidating the tool means into the consolidating means, A command for the program is directly executed by the input means via the integrated tool means, while the tool means is arranged in the aggregation means.

A desktop management method characterized in that:

8. The desktop management method according to claim 6, wherein when rotating the virtual polyhedron, an animation is interposed to allow a user to recognize the rotation of the virtual polyhedron. .

9. The multitasking method according to claim 6, wherein, when a plurality of programs are used in the operating system, the tool means integrated in the aggregating means can be switched according to the switching of the program. How to manage your desktop.

10. The desktop management method according to claim 6, wherein the aggregation unit can be arranged at an arbitrary location on a desktop.