A method and apparatus for automatically changing the display in overlapping rectangular viewport areas of a display screen of a digital display apparatus and in which each viewport area is assigned a different priority level. The method includes the steps of (a) storing in a random access store indications of the position and size of each viewport area, together with an indication of the priority level of the viewport area and (b) constructing a first matrix of (2n+1).sup.2 elements, where n is...

A method of and system for implementing dynamic translucent windows in a graphical user interface. Each translucent window has associated therewith a foreground buffer and a background buffer. Whenever a translucent window is updated, the system, starting with the lowest z-order updated translucent window, combines the updated translucent window's foreground and background buffers into a translucent image. If the translucent image is in a clip region, the system displays the portion of the trans...

A 3D graphics system in which a pre-rendering stage is combined with a rendering stage. Any GUI window which is not completely displayed on-screen (because it extends past screen boundaries or is overlapped by other windows, etc.), is divided into at least two portions, e.g. rectangles, for scissoring operations. If a primitive appears at least partially in some rectangle, rendering setup data is calculated, then applied against each rectangle in which it appears for a scissoring operation, and ...

A method is provided for managing windows in a raster display. The method includes generating a first display map defining sequential picture element runs, each run having a common set of windows containing the picture elements of the run. The windows are arranged in a stacking order and include a topmost window which is drawn in the raster display, the other windows being covered by the topmost window. A window operation occurs when a window is added, deleted or moved, and when the window stack...

A recording medium retaining data for menu control, a menu control method and an apparatus are provided for creating a menu highly expressive and attractive to the viewer. When operation of a menu button is determined on a menu created with a moving picture with sound, the menu button turns into action highlighting and the color of the button changes into a highlight color. In order to emphasize action highlighting of the menu button, a specific short moving picture with a sound is automatically...

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 tra...

Rapid toggling of application windows to the forefront of a computer monitor. One or more queues are established by a user comprising indicia representative of a sequence of a plurality of open application windows. Sequential toggling among the windows of a given sequence is accomplished by actuating a mouse pointer positioned to the white space of any window within the given sequence.

A method of displaying graphical data on a display device of a computer system and a computer system employing the method. The method comprises the steps of: (1) forming a first window on the display device, the first window capable of displaying data associated with a first task executing on the computer system, the first window occluding a first portion of a total area of the display device, the first window being a currently active window and (2) forming a second window on the display device,...

A display arrangement system and method are disclosed for arranging repositionable graphical representations corresponding to a set of computer resources. The display arrangement system includes a layout that specifies a criterion for arranging the repositionable graphical representations. The criterion specifies at least one arrangement rule based upon the content of the computer resources. The display arrangement system also includes a graphical display arrange processor that arranges the repo...

Methods and systems for providing graphical user interfaces are described. overlaid, Information-bearing windows whose contents remain unchanged for a predetermined period of time become translucent. The translucency can be graduated so that, over time, if the window's contents remain unchanged, the window becomes more translucent. In addition to visual translucency, windows according to the present invention also have a manipulative translucent quality. Upon reaching a certain level of visual t...