METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING SCREENS IN A PORTABLE TERMINAL
A method of managing screens of a portable terminal includes: requesting a movement of an icon; displaying summary information corresponding to each of the screens in response to the request; requesting a movement and a rearrangement of the icon in relation to one piece of summary information among the displayed summary information; and moving the icon to and rearranging the icon on a screen corresponding to the summary information in relation to which the movement and the rearrangement of the icon is requested.
This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/849,663 filed on Mar. 25, 2013 which claims the priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) to Korean Patent Application Serial No. 10-2012-0030623, which was filed in the Korean Intellectual Property Office on Mar. 26, 2012, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
BACKGROUND 1. Field of the InventionThe present invention relates generally to a portable terminal, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for managing screens of a portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related ArtCurrently, portable terminals such as smart phones provide various functions such as those of a multimedia player, an electronic book reader, a text editor, and a game console.
In operation, various functions of portable terminals are provided by arranging icons in the background (i.e., wall paper) for quickly selecting and executing a particular function. As applications downloaded from numerous sources, such as the Android Market or App Store, by a user increase, the number of icons arranged on the screen also has increased.
Due to limited display area in the portable terminals, it is impossible to arrange all icons in one screen. Therefore, portable terminals provide a plurality of screens, on each of which different icons are arranged.
However, as the number of icons arranged on the screen increases, it becomes difficult to manage icons and screens where icons are arranged.
Though it may be easy to manage icons and screens in case of devices, such as a desktop computer, including convenient input units such as a keyboard and a mouse, it is difficult to manage icons and screens in portable terminals for which it is not easy to use a keyboard or a mouse. For example, a portable terminal provides plural screens, switching between which is performed using touching and dragging the screens. To move an icon arranged on a particular screen to another screen, it is required to first touch the icon and then keep on dragging the icon toward said another screen, which causes inconvenience during operation.
Accordingly, it is necessary to propose an invention which enables convenient managing of screens and icons arranged on the screens even in a portable terminal.
SUMMARYAccordingly, an aspect of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for conveniently managing screens and icons arranged on the screens in a portable terminal, by which a user can easily change the sequence of arranged screens and easily move icons arranged on the screens.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a method of managing screens of a portable terminal includes: displaying summary information showing a plurality of summary icons corresponding to each of the screens in response to a request to move a particular icon; moving the particular icon to one of the plurality of summary icons; and moving the particular icon to the one of the plurality of summary icons corresponding to a desired screen.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a screen management apparatus for a portable terminal includes: a display for displaying a plurality of screens in which icons can be arranged; and a controller for displaying summary information showing a plurality of summary icons corresponding to each of the screens in response to a request to move a particular icon, moving the particular icon to one of the plurality of summary icons; and moving the particular icon to the one of the plurality of summary icons corresponding to a desired screen.
A method and an apparatus according to the present invention enable convenient managing of screens and icons arranged on the screens in a portable terminal. By the method and the apparatus, a user can easily change the sequence of arranged screens and easily move icons arranged on the screens.
The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention will be more apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Hereinafter, various embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Hereinafter, a configuration of the portable terminal will be described with reference to
A wireless transceiver 23 includes a radio frequency (RF) unit and a modem. The RF unit includes an RF transmitter for up-converting and amplifying the frequency of a transmitted signal, and an RF receiver for low-noise amplifying a received signal and down-converting the frequency of the received signal. The modem includes a transmitter for encoding and modulating signals to be transmitted and a receiver for demodulating and decoding signals received from the RF unit.
An audio processor 25 may form a codec, which includes a data codec and an audio codec. The data codec processes data packets, and the audio codec processes audio signals such as voices and multimedia files. The audio processor converts digital audio signals received from the modem into analog signals using the audio codec and plays the same or converts analog audio signals generated from a microphone into digital audio signals using the audio codec and transmits the same to the modem. The codec may be provided additionally or included in a controller 10.
A key input unit 27 may include a touch pad or functional keys used to input numbers and letters and function keys. When a display unit 50 is embodied as a capacitive or resistive touch screen display, the display unit 50 may partially replace the key inputting function of the key input unit 27.
A memory 30 may include program memories and data memories. The program memory may store programs for controlling general operations of the portable terminal. The memory 30 may further include an external memory such as a compact flash (CF) card, a secure digital (SD) card, a micro-SD card, a mini-SD card, an extreme digital (xD) card, or a memory stick. Also, the memory 30 may include a disk such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state disk (SSD).
The display unit 50 may be implemented with a liquid crystal display (LCD) or organic light emitting diodes (OLED) such as passive mode OLED (PMOLED) and active mode OLED (AMOLED). The display unit 50 may include a capacitive (or an electrostatic capacity type) touch screen or a resistive touch screen to operate as an input unit controlling the portable terminal, together with the key input unit 27.
The display unit 50 according to an embodiment of the present invention displays icons, which are used as shortcuts to quickly open or execute an application, a text, or a multimedia file, on a screen thereof. Especially, the screen may display widgets efficiently providing weather, news, or stock market information. Accordingly, the embodiment of the present invention for managing screens and icons arranged on the screens may be identically applied to the widgets so that it can be applied to moving of a widget from a specific screen to another screen.
The controller 10 controls overall operations of the portable terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention and may convert and control the operations of the portable terminal according to an input from a user via the key input unit 27, the display unit 50, or the like. When a movement of at least one of the icons arranged on one of a plurality of screens is requested, the controller 10 makes a control to display summary information corresponding to each of the screens. When a user requests to move and arrange an icon in relation to one piece of the displayed summary information, the controller 10 makes a control to move and arrange the icon to a screen corresponding to the summary information. Detailed operations of the controller 10 will be described later.
On the other hand, although devices which may be included in the portable terminal, such as a Bluetooth module, a camera module, a wireless fidelity (WiFi) module, an acceleration sensor, a proximity sensor, an earth magnetic field sensor, or a DMB receiver, are not shown in
In steps S201 and S202, when it is requested to move any one of icons displayed on a screen, the controller 10 makes a control to display summary information corresponding to each screen in response to the request of the user.
Referring to
In this case, the icon described in embodiments of the present invention indicates an image used for a shortcut to quickly execute or open an application, a text, a multimedia file, or the like. Also, icons 311, 312, 321, 331, 334, 341, and 342 shown in
Referring to
On the other hand, although the following description of the embodiment of the present invention is based on an assumption that at most four icons may be arranged on each screen, this assumption is just for convenience of description and illustrative purposes, thus the number of icons available to be arranged for each screen may vary with the specification of the display unit 50 and the configuration of the portable terminal.
According to above assumption, two icons may be additionally arranged on screen 1 shown in
To describe steps S201 and S202 based on the above description referring to
In this case, the summary information of each screen may be displayed in the form of an On-Screen Display (OSD) on a screen currently used by the user (e.g. a screen where an icon is requested to be moved to), instead of being independently displayed via the separate area of a screen.
Meanwhile, in the embodiment of the present invention, the summary information corresponding to each screen includes the number of icons which can be moved to a corresponding screen (i.e. which can be additionally arranged on the corresponding screen), and the arrangement sequence (display sequence) of the screen.
Referring to
Similarly, it is noted that summary information corresponding to screen 2 is indicated by reference numeral (or summary icon) 452, it has two icons which can be further moved or added to (arranged on) screen 2 shown in
Further, in the present embodiment, the displayed summary information corresponding to each screen may include an image of an icon (or icons) or the number of the icon (or icons) arranged on (or included in) a particular screen.
In steps S201 and S202 described above, by performing a long contact (by requesting a movement of) on an icon 342 desired to be moved while viewing screen 4 as shown in
Meanwhile, when summary information is displayed in an embodiment of the present invention, the summary information corresponding to a screen to which an icon cannot be moved may be displayed in a predetermined set color so that it can be distinguished from summary information corresponding to a screen to which an icon can be moved. For example, since four icons have already been arranged on screen 3 and it is thus impossible to move another icon to screen 3, the summary information 453 corresponding to screen 3 may be displayed in a red color so that it can be distinguished from other summary information.
Alternatively, when summary information is displayed in an embodiment of the present invention, display of summary information corresponding to a screen to which an icon cannot be moved may be omitted. As a result, it is possible to prevent display of unnecessary summary information (that is, summary information corresponding to a screen to which an icon cannot be moved).
In steps S203 and S204, when an icon is requested to be moved to and arranged on a screen corresponding to one piece of summary information among the displayed summary information, the controller 10 makes a control to move and arrange (rearrange) the icon to and on the screen corresponding to the one piece of summary information, in response to the request.
As shown in
In an embodiment of the present invention, moving an icon from one screen to another screen may be performed by moving the icon onto summary information corresponding to the desired screen (for example, dragging the icon to be located on the summary information). Referring to
When the user has made a touch input as indicated by reference numeral 460b in
In steps S205 and S206, when the displayed summary information has been rearranged by the user, the controller 10 makes a control to change the sequence in which the screens are arranged in accordance with the rearranged summary information.
The embodiment described above with reference to steps S203 and S204 relates to moving an icon from one screen to another screen. However, the embodiment of the present invention additionally provides a method of changing the arrangement sequence of screens through steps S205 and S206.
In other words, when the user has made a user input, such as a menu selection, a long contact on an icon, or the like, and summary information corresponding to each screen has been accordingly displayed, then the user can easily change the arrangement sequence (for example, display sequence) of the screens by using the displayed summary information.
This process will be described below in more detail with reference to
For example, when it is assumed that the user wants to change the arrangement sequence of screen 4 (the arrangement sequence is fourth) shown in
For example, when the user moves the summary information 554 corresponding to screen 4 to a location between the summary information 552 corresponding to screen 2 and the summary information 553 corresponding to screen 3 by dragging the summary information 554 as indicated by reference numeral 560c shown in
In other words, the sequence of screen 4 including the icon 541 of application 6 and the icon 542 of application 7 shown in
Similarly, when the user moves the summary information 554 as indicated by reference numeral 560a, the sequence of screen 4 is changed from the fourth to the first and the sequences of the previous screens 1, 2, and 3 are changed to the second, the third, and the fourth, respectively.
Also, when the user moves the summary information 554 as indicated by reference numeral 560b, the sequence of screen 4 is changed from the fourth to the second, and the sequences of the previous screens 2 and 3 are changed to the third and the fourth, respectively.
By the embodiment described above with reference to steps S205 and S206, in using a portable terminal including several screens where icons are arranged, the user may easily and selectively change the sequence of arranged screens to configure the portable terminal to be more user-friendly.
Meanwhile, although the embodiment has been described using icons, the embodiment may be identically applied to widgets providing functions similar to those of icons in such a way that a widget may be quickly moved to and displayed on a particular screen.
It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the embodiment described above provides an advantage of conveniently managing screens and icons arranged on the screens, which enables an easy change of the place in the sequence of a screen and an easy movement of an icon arranged on a screen.
The above-described methods according to the present invention can be implemented in hardware, firmware or via the execution of software or computer code that can be stored in a recording medium such as a CD ROM, an RAM, a floppy disk, a hard disk, or a magneto-optical disk or computer code downloaded over a network originally stored on a remote recording medium or a non-transitory machine readable medium and to be stored on a local recording medium, so that the methods described herein can be rendered in such software that is stored on the recording medium using a general purpose computer, or a special processor or in programmable or dedicated hardware, such as an ASIC or FPGA. As would be understood in the art, the computer, the processor, microprocessor controller or the programmable hardware include memory components, e.g., RANI, ROM, Flash, etc. that may store or receive software or computer code that when accessed and executed by the computer, processor or hardware implement the processing methods described herein. In addition, it would be recognized that when a general purpose computer accesses code for implementing the processing shown herein, the execution of the code transforms the general purpose computer into a special purpose computer for executing the processing shown herein.
While the present invention has been shown and described with reference to certain embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.
Claims
1-20. (canceled)
21. A portable communication device comprising:
- a touchscreen display;
- memory to store a plurality of home screens to be displayed in a first sequence; and
- a processor adapted to:
- present, via the touchscreen display, a first home screen of the plurality of home screens, the first home screen including one or more icons;
- receive, via the touchscreen display, a first user input with respect to at least one icon of the one or more icons;
- in response to the first user input, present, via the touchscreen display, a plurality of images in a second sequence based on the first sequence while the first home screen is displayed, the plurality of images including a first image indicative of the first home screen and a second image indicative of a second home screen of the plurality of home screens;
- receive, via the touchscreen display, a second user input to move the first image into the second image;
- change the second sequence based at least in part on the second user input, the changing of the second sequence including displaying the plurality of images in the changed second sequence via the touchscreen display; and
- change the first sequence based on the changed second sequence.
22. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- at least part of the presenting of the first home screen, refrain from displaying the second home screen via the touchscreen display.
23. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- perform the presenting of the plurality of images based on a determination that the first user input is maintained with respect to the one icon during a specified period of time.
24. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- as at least part of the presenting of the plurality of images, display the first image at a first position in the second sequence and the second image at a second position in the second sequence, the first position corresponding to a position of the first home screen in the first sequence, the second position corresponding to a position of the second home screen in the first sequence.
25. The portable communication device of claim 24, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- as at least part of the displaying of the plurality of images in the changed second sequence, display the first image at the first position and the second image at the second position.
26. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- perform the presenting of the plurality of images such that the plurality of images is displayed in a first area of the touchscreen display while the one or more icons is displayed in a second area of the touchscreen display.
27. The portable communication device of claim 26, wherein the first area is separated from the second area.
28. The portable communication device of claim 26, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- move the one or more icons in a specified direction opposite to the first area at least temporarily while the plurality of images are displayed in the first area.
29. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- as at least part of the presenting the plurality of images, present a specified indication on the first image while the first home screen is displayed.
30. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- identify a drag or flick input to move the first image to a specified area where the second image is displayed as at least part of the second user input.
31. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- as at least part of the receiving of the second user input, determine whether a direction of the second user input corresponds to a specified direction and identify a image corresponding to the specified direction among the plurality of images as the second image.
32. The portable communication device of claim 21, wherein the first image has a smaller size than the first home screen and the second image has a smaller size than the second home screen.
33. A portable communication device comprising:
- a touchscreen display;
- memory to store a plurality of home screens; and
- a processor adapted to:
- present, via the touchscreen display, one or more icons in a first home screen of the plurality of home screens;
- receive, via the touchscreen display, a first user input with respect to at least one icon of the one or more icons;
- while the one or more icons is displayed via a first area of the touchscreen display, present, via a second area of the touchscreen display, a plurality of images including a first image indicative of the first home screen and a second image indicative of a second home screen of the plurality of home screens based at least in part on the first user input such that the first image is displayed at a first position in the second area and the second image is displayed at a second position in the second area;
- receive, via the touchscreen display, a second user input to move from the first position to the second position; and
- based at least in part on the second user input, display, via the touchscreen display, the first image at the second position and the second image at the first position as at least part of the plurality of images displayed.
34. The portable communication device of claim 33, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- perform the presenting of the plurality of images based on a determination that the first user input is maintained with respect to the at least one icon during a specified period of time.
35. The portable communication device of claim 33, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- execute an application corresponding to the at least one icon based on a determination that the first user input is not maintained with respect to the at least one icon during a specified period of time.
36. The portable communication device of claim 33, wherein the first area is separated from the second area.
37. The portable communication device of claim 33, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- as at least part of the presenting of a plurality of images, move the one or more icons in an specified direction opposite to the first area at least temporarily while the plurality of images are displayed in the second area.
38. The portable communication device of claim 33, wherein the processor is adapted to:
- receive, via the touchscreen display, a third user input to move the at least one icon into the second image or a third image of the plurality of images while the plurality of images are displayed via the second area of the touchscreen display; and
- move the at least one icon from the first home screen to a corresponding one of the second home screen or a third home screen corresponding to the third image, based at least in part on the third user input.
39. The portable communication device of claim 33, wherein the first image has a smaller size than the first home screen and the second image has a smaller size than the second home screen.
40. Anon-transitory machine-readable storage device storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- presenting, via a touchscreen display operatively coupled with the one or more processors, a first home screen of a plurality of home screens, the first home screen including one or more icons;
- receiving, via the touchscreen display, a first user input with respect to at least one icon of the one or more icons;
- in response to the first user input, presenting, via the touchscreen display, a plurality of images in a second sequence based on the first sequence while the first home screen is displayed, the plurality of images including a first image indicative of the first home screen and a second image indicative of a second home screen of the plurality of home screens;
- receiving, via the touchscreen display, a second user input to move the first image into the second image;
- changing the second sequence based at least in part on the second user input, the changing of the second sequence including displaying the plurality of images in the changed second sequence via the touchscreen display; and
- changing the first sequence based on the changed second sequence.
Type: Application
Filed: Dec 12, 2017
Publication Date: Apr 12, 2018
Inventor: In-Kook PARK (Gyeongsangbuk-do)
Application Number: 15/838,904