Abstract: A portable intelligent communications device is provided which includes a cellular telephone and a computer-controlled touch screen display. The touch screen display is a high-resolution graphics display which acts as a graphical user interface. Since the touch screen display is smaller in size than a standard laptop computer's display, the information boxes and menu selections are re-sized so as to fit on the smaller screen, however, each of the choices is made large enough in surface area so that a human finger can tactilely operate the touch screen display without the need of a more precise pointing device. Instead of using pull-down menus or drop down lists, the graphical user interface provides a selection list based upon virtual control buttons and virtual “image buttons” in which each image button is labeled to describe the option that can be selected by pressing that button.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method and system for viewing the contents of an application window that would otherwise be hidden. The method and system comprise displaying a plurality of application windows. The first application window of the plurality of application windows is the primary application window and a portion of another application window is being obscured by the primary application window. The method and system displays the primary application window at a variable degree of transparency based upon a user interaction. Through the use of the present invention a user can simultaneously view information from multiple applications where one or more windows are partially or wholly covering needed information in an underlying application. This will provide the user with the ability to quickly access needed information without having to undergo the time consuming process of resizing or rearranging desktop window configurations.

Abstract: An alternate display content controller provides a technique for controlling a video display separately from and in addition to the content displayed on the operating system monitor. Where the display is a computer monitor, the alternate display content controller interacts with the computer utility operating system and hardware drivers to control allocation of display space and create and control one or more parallel graphical user interfaces adjacent the operating system desktop. An alternate display content controller may be incorporated in either hardware or software. As software, an alternate display content controller may be an application running on the computer operating system, or may include an operating system kernel of varying complexity ranging from dependent on the utility operating system for hardware system services to a parallel system independent of the utility operating system and capable of supporting dedicated applications.

Abstract: A method of navigating in a graphical user interface is presented. This method is characterized in that it comprises the stages: of displaying graphical elements which can be selected using a cursor, of connecting at least two of said graphical elements using linear segments, a first and a second element being connected by a single link composed of one or more segments placed in series, of shifting the cursor from a first element to a second element, when the direction key of a control means (11) corresponding uniquely to the orientation of the segment connected at the point of departure from the first element is pressed, there being at most one segment having an orientation corresponding to a given direction key connected to a given element. The invention also relates to a device for implementing the method.

Abstract: A system and method for providing improved access to online help information is provided in a computer system. A component of Internet browser software is used to implement improved help which can take advantage of HTML links to information via the Internet. A navigational window pane and a HTML window pane are provided in a single window. A Hide/Show button allows the user to delete the navigational window pane or to simultaneously display it along with the HTML window pane. Once a user selects a topic in the navigational window pane, the corresponding content information is displayed in the HTML window pane. A help tab is embedded in a program to facilitate easy switching between help and the program. In addition, a help button is used to provide a context-sensitive embedded help window which tracks the user's activities. Calculations are performed for automatically sizing window panes in response to the Hide/Show button.

Abstract: A portable computing device or “information appliance” having terse user input (e.g., limit set of keys) is provided with a user interface for navigating user data. Application programs, which are provided for user operation of the device, are implemented as separate modules controlled by a module selector. The module selector serves as a user interface or shell representing the top-level or “home” display presented to a user. The module selector presents the user with selection icons for navigating to different applications or modules of functionality. The user interface implements a “single-click” style of button operation, so that users can associate each button with a particular task for a given program context. In addition to the single-click style, “click consistency” is imposed for each button.

Abstract: Developers and users of object oriented programs who are modifying such programs with alternate access through the interactive display interface to data in such programs, which the user or developer requires, but is not normally accessible through the display interface to the object oriented program which the user is modifying, e.g. adding function to. A basic computer controlled display system for adding function to an object oriented program which has means for storing the object oriented program is provided in combination with means for getting normally accessible data from the program. There is a user interactive display interface for displaying this normally accessible data. In addition, there are means for adding displayable function to said object oriented program requiring the access of data from said object oriented program other than said normally accessible data, together with an accessing object for accessing said other data from said object oriented program.

Abstract: The present invention implements in a data processing environment, many of the attributes of paper Post-it® notes. The note program of the present invention need not be resident in an application program, and the notes of the present invention may be moved directly between windows or between regions without being saved in an intermediate memory, may be easily dispensed either from a note dispenser of a window or on a desktop, may overlap the boundary of a window, may be automatically saved, may be attached to a document within a window so that the note moves with the document, may overlap a boundary of a window, may be resized with the constraint that the note may not be resized off of a window, may be moved across a window boundary, and may be attached to an object, such as a character, a word, a sentence, or paragraph of a document.

Abstract: A drag-and-drop form displayed directly on a spreadsheet enables a user to drag-and-drop fields to create a PivotTable data display directly on the spreadsheet. Fields of data selected by a user are displayed within a field well (an array) included with a PivotTable Button Bar. The user can select a field with a mouse, drag the selected field over a desired region, and drop the field to insert it in the desired region. The drag-and-drop form identifies a page region, a row region, a column region, and a data region on the spreadsheet. If the data is of the OLAP type, the field well also includes icons indicating whether the fields in rows to the right of the icons are of the dimension type or the measure type. Since the PivotTable Button Bar is optionally displayed on the spreadsheet at all times, the user can readily add a selected field to one of the regions of the PivotTable data display by dragging and dropping the selected field.

Abstract: A system and method for customizing an interface, or the set of methods, of a business object by pre-defining a number of parameters and fields available to the methods of the business object using a visual customization tool is provided. The interface of the business object consists of the set of methods available to it. The interface is customized such that only the necessary methods, parameters and fields are made available for programming. The set of methods is displayed in a menu-driven format through a graphical user interface. The user selects the method to customize, and the set of parameters available to that method is displayed. Then the user selects the parameters that are intended to be used, and the fields available to those parameters are displayed. The user can preset certain static fields to constant values. After customization, the underlying code of the method is generated automatically and saved.

Abstract: A method and apparatus that allows the user to escape from unwanted Java modal dialog boxes displayed by an applet, even though the Java modal dialog box does not contain a user interface designed to cancel or remove the dialog box from the display. The described embodiment allows the user to use so-called “escape” keys to indicate that the Java modal dialog box should be removed and/or closed. In general, these escape keys have other purposes in addition to removing the Java modal dialog box. A first escape key is a “back” key. Although the back key is typically used within a web browser to return to a previously viewed web page, in dialog box mode, the effect of the back key is to remove the dialog box from the display (under certain circumstances, as discussed below). A second escape key in the described embodiment is the “goto” key.

Abstract: A computer based browsing computer program product, system and method arranges a set of information hosted on a computer into a book or a set of books, where each book includes a subset of the set of information, labels each book with a respective portion of the subset of the set of information, and selects a book from the set of books. Selecting the book from the set of books includes steps of displaying the respective portions of the books as a book document image that includes pages which correspond to the respective portions of the books, generating a command for moving through the pages, displaying an animated image of the pages of the book document being at least one of flipped, scrolled, slid and flashed images, and selecting the book when a selected one of the pages containing a selection portion of the book is earlier displayed.

Abstract: A system for producing presentations of computer application programs. The system also allows the inclusion of advertising, or other information, into a presentation. When the presentation is viewed online, the ads can be updated by a central ad server. This allows different ads to be inserted into the presentation, tailoring ads to the viewer, etc. When the presentation is viewed offline, default ads are kept in the presentation. Authoring software is used to create a sequence of screenshot images of an application program to be presented. Each screenshot is a slide in the presentation and is displayed for an interval of time during playback of the presentation. The authoring software also allows control of cursor movement animation to be played back during the presentation. Text description in the form of “bubble text,” “memo text,” “questions,” etc. can be specified along with the position, size and other properties of the text.

Abstract: An integrated trigger function display system and methodology for trigger definition development in a signal measurement system having a graphical user interface. The system contemporaneously displays one or more trigger function names and an associated trigger function descriptor describing a trigger function identified by the associated trigger function name. The trigger name is displayed in a trigger name display region of a display window that concurrently displays a plurality of trigger function names. The descriptor is displayed in a trigger descriptor region of the display window so as to be visually-associated by the operator. A trigger definition is comprised of one or more trigger functions. Each trigger function is a graphical representation of an one or more underlying trigger primitives. A trigger primitive is a computer program statement that is translated into a form suitable for controlling the signal measurement system.

Abstract: A computer system and method of operation thereof are provided that allow interactive navigation and exploration of spatial environments, both real and virtual. The computer system employs a data architecture comprising a network of nodes connected by branches. Each node in the network represents an intersection in the real environment that allows a user of the computer system to select which path to follow. Likewise, each branch in the network represents a path connecting physical intersections in the real environment. The network is constructed directly from a map of the target environment. Navigation data such as image frame sequences, intersections between paths, and other related information are associated with the elements of the network. This establishes a direct relationship between locations in the environment and the data which represent them.

Abstract: This invention has a scroll means for displaying GUI operation members consisting of calendar information on the computer screen, and moving the screen display field to a date position containing information corresponding to the date of the operated GUI operation member upon operation of one of the GUI operation members. The user can very easily see the information compared to a conventional scroll bar display, and can quickly observe corresponding information by only operating the GUI operation member of his or her desired date.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for performing a computer graphic character live in a manner homologous to a live puppetry performance. Character representation information is created and stored using a first computer. Performer movement information is received at the first computer from a manual input device that receives live manual manipulations and converts the manipulations into the performer movement information. Character motion information is created and stored based on combining the performer movement information with the character representation information. The character motion information is communicated in real time to a second computer. The second computer converts the character motion information into movements of a computer graphic character, which is displayed substantially synchronized to the live manual manipulations. Control objects define elements of the manual input device. Actuators define movable elements of the computer graphic character.

Abstract: A visual reference structure for a computer database for retrieval of information objects in the database, the reference structure is formed of discrete cell blocks that are assembled into a three dimensional structure having sixteen cubes containing one million cell blocks, seven plates containing one hundred thousand cell blocks, seven strings containing ten thousand cell blocks, seven cubes containing one thousand cell blocks, two plates containing one hundred cell blocks and a string of sixteen cell blocks, for a total of 16,777,216 cell blocks, the reference structure preferably providing locations for picoblocks which are bit cubes containing a maximum of 343 bits, and being displayable in the display of a computer.

Abstract: A computer program product for assisting a service person in managing an enterprise network is described, wherein a browser-based help desk window may be invoked by the service person at any user computer on the enterprise network that is equipped with a web browser. The browser-based help desk window is customizable to each service person, allowing the service person to embed a network visibility link on an application launch toolbar contained in the browser-based help desk window. The service person may then subsequently log into a help desk server from any user computer equipped with a browser, and then launch a browser-based network visibility session upon activation of the embedded network visibility link. The user is permitted to embed the network visibility link onto the application toolbar, and to perform other browser-based help desk window customization tasks, using simple menu selection and drag-and-drop commands.

Abstract: A user interface is disclosed for interactively exchanging service data between medical diagnostic systems and remote field service facilities. The interface provides a series of user-viewable pages for the display and input of service requests, service reports, messages, protocols, and so forth. The user interface may further include on-screen input devices, such as graphical buttons, for executing service requests, accessing service messages and reports, and so forth. The user interface is uniform over a variety of system modalities, including magnetic resonance imaging systems, computed tomography systems, x-ray systems, and so forth, facilitating the exchange of service data despite differences in the modality system configurations.