Attribute-enhanced scroll bar system and method

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A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention generally relates to computer displays and methods of operating computer displays and, more particularly, to displays including a data display region used to display a portion of a stored data file, and a scroll bar display region used to display a scroll bar and to display locations of significant data attributes within the stored data file.

Presently, scroll bars occupy a scroll bar display region or window and allocate a long rectangle of pixels, typically called a shaft, to represent the extent of a stored data file, for example a document. Such scroll bars provide one car, which is a colored or shaded sub-rectangle located within the shaft, and which corresponds to the portion of the data file which is presently being displayed in a data display region or field of the display screen. When the car is moved through the shaft, the data display field is updated to display the data file contents corresponding to the new position of the car. Thus, ordinary scroll bars indicate a single feature of the display, i.e., which portion of the data file is presently being displayed. Other than the relative length of the entire data file, represented by the relative sizes of the shaft and car, no other file-specific information is displayed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention significantly extends the function of scroll bars by superimposing a map of the positions of significant attributes within a stored data file in the scroll bar field of the display screen, while simultaneously highlighting those significant attributes in the visible portion of the data file. The attribute maps are displayed in addition to the scroll bar. The significant attribute maps are displayed in the scroll bar field by putting appropriate regions of the scroll bar shaft in a contrasting color or shade, which serves to draw a user's attention.

With the attribute enhanced scroll bar of the present invention, a user can determine the distribution of significant attributes in the space defined by the stored data file, and can determine the existence of significant data attributes outside of the visible portion of the data file presently being displayed in the data display field of the screen.

Examples of significant data attributes include words or phrases within a document, and information about the time of character input, time of editing, an indication of the document author, or any other document specific information. In addition, the attribute-enhanced scroll bar of the present invention can be displayed independent of the underlying data file, and will serve to recall attributes of the file, the state of the task for which the file exists, and will allow the file to be easily opened to a desired place.

As a result, significant task-specific attributes of the data file being displayed are visually indexed against a scroll bar, which allows users to navigate easily through the file.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a display screen with an attribute-enhanced scroll bar according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a display screen with two attribute-enhanced scroll bars according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a more detailed illustration of an attribute-enhanced scroll bar according to the present invention wherein different attributes are simultaneously displayed;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of the invention; and

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a computer system illustrating use of the attribute-enhanced scroll bar of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 1, a computer display screen is shown illustrating an embodiment of the present invention. Display screen 11 is divided into several display fields or windows 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Display field 12 is used to display a selected portion of a stored data file, for example, a document. The file used for illustrative purposes in FIG. 1 is a computer program. Display fields 14 and 15 can be used, for example, to display identifying data relating to the data file being displayed, type fonts, and format data such as margins, tabs, and the like.

Display field 13 is an attribute-enhanced scroll bar according to the present invention. Display field 13 includes a substantially rectangular region, or shaft 16, and a shaded rectangular region, or car 17. The length of shaft 16 is representative of the length of the data file, a portion of which is displayed in field 12. The position of car 17 within shaft 16 is indicative of the position of the portion of the data file displayed in field 12 relative to the entire length of the data file. Thus, in FIG. 1, the spatial relationship between and relative sizes of shaft 16 and car 17 indicate that the portion of the data file displayed in display field 12 is the fourth page of a 13-page document. In addition, the size of car 17 relative to shaft 16 is indicative of the length of the page displayed in field 12 relative to the length of the entire data file.

Also displayed in shaft 16 are attribute maps including indicia 18 and 19. Attribute indicia 18 and 19 indicate the position of significant attributes within the data file represented by shaft 16. In FIG. 1, three attribute maps are displayed within shaft 16. The first attribute map is empty, and no indicia therefor are included in shaft 16. The second attribute map includes indicia 18, and in the illustration of FIG. 1, indicates the locations of the character string "ist" within the data file represented by shaft 16. Also displayed is a third attribute map which includes single indicium 19. In the example of FIG. 1, the third attribute map indicates the location of the lines within the data file represented by shaft 16 which were changed since the last time the data file was saved.

In addition to displaying attribute maps within shaft 16, the individual attributes are simultaneously highlighted within the portion of the data file displayed in field 12. In the example of FIG. 1, the character string "ist" occurs three times in the portion displayed in field 12, the occurrences of which correspond to the three indicia 18 contained within car 17. The vertical positions of indicia 18 within car 17 correspond to the vertical positions of the character strings highlighted in the portion of the data file displayed in field 12.

Included in display field 15 is a data field identifying the three scroll maps appearing in shaft 16.

It should be emphasized that more or less than three scroll maps can be included within shaft 16, and that different types of indicia can be used to indicate the location of the mapped data attributes. For example, different shades or colors can be used within a scroll map to identify different types of data within a given map. Then, if a stored document is authored by several different authors, the indicia in a corresponding attribute map could have a different color, or gray shade, assigned to each different author. Another example would be to assign different gray shades or colors to different times of editorial revisions of the data file. Portions of the data file recently added or edited would result in indicia of one shade or color while editorial editions or revisions of later vintage would bear different shades or colors throughout the spectrum.

In addition, as illustrated in FIG. 2, more than one scroll bar field can be included, for example, a vertical scroll bar field including shaft 16 and car 17, and a horizontal scroll bar field including shaft 16a and car 17a. As in FIG. 1, the position of car 17 relative to shaft 16 indicates the vertical position within the data file of the portion displayed in field 12, and the vertical positions of the indicia of the attribute maps within shaft 16 indicate the vertical location of the relevant data attributes within the displayed file. Similarly, the position of car 17a within shaft 16a indicates the horizontal position within the data file of the portion displayed in field 12, and the horizontal positions of the indicia of the attribute maps within shaft 16a indicate the horizontal location of the relevant attributes within the displayed file.

FIG. 3 illustrates an enhanced scroll bar according to the present invention including four attribute maps. Shaft 16 includes car 17 and they function together as described above. The first attribute map includes indicia 23, the second attribute map includes indicia 24, the third attribute map includes indicia 26 and 26a, and the fourth attribute map includes indicia 27. As above, the positions of the respective indicia along shaft 16 are indicative of the positions of the relevant attributes within the data file represented by the length of shaft 16. As shown, the colors or shades used for the indicia can change from map to map, as illustrated by indicia 23, 24 and 26, and the colors or shades of the indicia can change within a single map, as illustrated by indicia 26 and 26a. In addition, the shape of the indicia can change as is illustrated by the rectangular shapes of indicia 23, 24 and 26, and the line-shape of indicia 27. Line-shaped indicia 27 can be used, for example, to indicate the separations between different sections or chapters of a document. Thus, the different shapes, sizes, shades and/or colors of the attribute indicia can be used to distinguish different attribute maps, or to distinguish attributes within the same map, or both.

FIG. 3 illustrates how a significant amount of information can be obtained about a data file by viewing the featural representation of the data file offered by the enhanced scroll bar alone.

FIG. 4 shows the flow diagram of the present invention. Initially, at the beginning of the process indicated by start block 31, the elevator shaft or shafts for the scroll bar field are drawn on the screen in block 32. Then, in decision block 33, it is determined whether any scroll maps remain to be formatted and displayed. If so, the number of the scroll map is determined in block 34, and the intervals (i.e., start point and end point) of the desired attribute within the relevant scroll map are determined and plotted in the loop including decision block 36 and operation blocks 37 and 38.

In decision block 36, it is determined whether any intervals remain to be plotted in the particular map under consideration. If so, operation block 37 determines the next interval within the map, and block 38 plots that interval on the shaft.

When decision block 36 determines that the last response until internal within a particular map has been plotted, control is returned to decision block 33 where it is determined whether additional scroll maps remain to be plotted.

Once all scroll maps have been plotted, control is transferred to block 39 where the car or cars are drawn within the shaft. The procedure is then terminated.

Referring to FIG. 5, to use the attribute enhanced scroll bar of the present invention, a computer system, which includes a central processing unit (CPU) 40, first loads the enhanced scroll bar algorithm of the present invention into memory 41 from program storage medium 42. The enhanced scroll bar algorithm is diagrammed in FIG. 4, and is shown in detail in the program listing below. Program storage medium 42 can be any machine readable storage medium such as, for example, a floppy or hard magnetic or optical disk, or a programmable read-only memory. Display 11, including data display field 12 and scroll bar field 13, is connected in a known manner through display control bus 43, display interface 44 and internal data/address bus 46 to CPU 40.

The computer system can be any suitable computer and hardware display, preferably capable of displaying bit mapped graphics. In the preferred embodiment, the Symbolics 3600-family computers in the Genera software environment are used. These work stations are publicly available from the Symbolics Corporation.

However, it will be understood that the particular hardware used can be of any type. Virtually any work station in the computer marketplace which bundles software for windowbased interfaces, or which has independent vendors of such software, would be acceptable. For example, acceptable alternatives include computer systems manufactured by IBM, all IBM PC compatibles, Apple Macintosh, Microsoft, NeXt, DEC, Sun Microsystems, and others.

The enhanced scroll bar routine of the present invention is shown in the program listing that follows. The program is written in LISP language for the Symbolics 3600-family computers in the Genera software environment. Versions for other computers are readily producible by practitioners skilled in the art.

The foregoing description of the invention has been directed to a particular preferred embodiment for purposes of explanation and illustration- It will be apparent, however, to those skilled in this art that many modifications, additions and deletions may be made without departing from the essence of the invention. It is the applicants' intention in the following claims to cover all equivalent modifications and variations as fall within the scope of the invention. ##SPC1##

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