Patent Application
20140289674
This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) of a Korean patent application filed on Mar. 21, 2013 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office and assigned Serial No. 10-2013-0030538, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for managing a shortcut menu of applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent development of multimedia techniques and services, a variety of terminals, such as smart phones and the like, have been in wide use. Such terminals have a variety of applications stored therein and provide shortcut menus of various applications on a background screen for user's convenience. These shortcut menus are typically provided in the form of icons. To satisfy a user's needs and improve the performance of a terminal, a large number of applications are stored in the terminal, and also shortcut menus displayed on a background screen of the terminal are increasing.
A user who installs and uses a variety of applications may not recognize if any specific application, from among the variety of applications installed on the terminal, is stored in the terminal. Further, the user may not know if any application is frequently used or not. Accordingly, after identifying information on each application one by one, the user should individually delete shortcut menus of the applications. Otherwise, many shortcut menus are displayed on a background screen, resulting in a poor user experience.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.
Aspects of the present invention are to address at least the above-mentioned problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described below. Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention is to provide a scheme in which a user facilitates the management of shortcut menus of applications.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method of managing shortcut menus of applications in an electronic device is provided. The method includes determining whether an event for an application is generated, calculating accumulation points for the application based on a type of the event that is generated when the event is generated, and applying a first visual effect to a shortcut menu of the application based on the accumulation points.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, an apparatus for managing shortcut menus of applications in an electronic device is provided. The apparatus includes a display unit displaying at least one shortcut menu of an application and a controller determining whether an event for an application is generated, calculating accumulation points for the application based on a type of the event that is generated when an event is generated, and applying a first visual effect to the shortcut menu of the application based on the calculated accumulation points.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is an advantage in that a user may easily identify applications that are frequently or infrequently used. Further, there is an advantage in that a user may easily delete applications which are infrequently used.
Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.
The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Throughout the drawings, it should be noted that like reference numbers are used to depict the same or similar elements, features, and structures.
The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of exemplary embodiments of the invention as defined by the claims and their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions may be omitted for clarity and conciseness.
The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the invention. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention is provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
It is to be understood that the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “a component surface” includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.
Hereinafter, the exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
An electronic device herein is any device, which may also be referred to as a portable terminal, a mobile terminal, a communication terminal, a portable communication terminal, or a portable mobile terminal. For example, an electronic device includes a smartphone, a portable phone, a game console, a TeleVision (TV), a display device, a head unit for a vehicle, a laptop computer, a tablet Personal Computer (PC), a Personal Media Player (PMP), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a navigator, an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) of a bank, and a Point Of Sale (POS) device of a shop. In the present invention, an electronic device is a flexible device or a flexible display device.
The following description will be given with the appreciation that a terminal is being used as an electronic device and some components are omitted or modified in the general configuration of the electronic device.
In step 101, a terminal determines whether an event is generated for an application. Where the event for the application is generated, the terminal proceeds to step 103. Here, the event of the application may be related to at least one of an execution, initialization, termination, and push notification of the application.
An event related to the execution and/or initialization of the application may be a case where a shortcut of an application displayed on a background screen or an application from an application list provided in a form of a separate menu is selected in order to execute the corresponding application, or may be a case where one application seeks to obtain information managed by another application and makes a request for authority to access another application. For example, the event related to the execution and/or initialization of the application may be a case where an application A requests that application B, which manages image files, shares information on the image files when application A performs an image transmission function.
On the other hand, in a case in which an event relating to the termination of the application is generated, a user requests the terminal to finish an operation of the application which is being used. At this time, an operated application may mean an application which is automatically operated during booting of the terminal and on a background, or which is operated according to a selection of a user.
Further, a case in which an event relating to a generation of a push notification of an application may be a case where a push message for a corresponding application arrives according to the settings of push notifications for the corresponding application. For example, if a service program corresponding to a certain application operates on or in a background, the notifying of the push may be a case where the corresponding service program transmits the push notification to the corresponding application.
In step 103, the terminal calculates accumulation points of a corresponding application based on a type of the generated event, and proceeds to step 105. That is, the terminal manages the accumulation points of each application based on usage of an application such as execution and termination of the application, a push notification, and the like. In other words, accumulation points of the corresponding application indicate a number of times an event, such as an execution, initialization, termination, and push notification of the corresponding application occur. In an exemplary embodiment, the terminal may give a predetermined number of points to each event and calculate the accumulation points for each application. According to the exemplary embodiment, a user may change the number of points given to each type of event.
As described above, the terminal adds or subtracts the predetermined point to/from each event so as to calculate the accumulation points for a corresponding application. For example, 1 point may be set for an event relating to the execution of the application and a push notification, and −1 point may be set for an event relating to the termination of the application. Accordingly, the terminal may add 1 accumulation point for the corresponding application when the event relating to the execution of the application and a push notification is generated, and may subtract 1 accumulation point for the corresponding application when the event relating to the termination of the application is generated.
In step 105, the terminal applies a visual effect to the shortcut menu of the corresponding application based on the calculated accumulation points. The visual effect may be an increase or decrease in an opacity of the shortcut menu of the corresponding application, may be displaying of an image to correspond to the shortcut menu of the corresponding application, or may be any similar and/or suitable visual effect applied and/or corresponding to the shortcut menu. The visual effect will be described with reference to
Referring to
For example, as shown in
As shown in
According to another exemplary embodiment, the decrease in the opacity and the application of the predetermined image may be achieved with relation to only the shortcut menus of the designated number of applications. That is, they may be achieved only for the shortcut menus of some applications having the low use frequency. According to the present exemplary embodiment, as described above with reference to
On the other hand, the shortcut menus of the applications may be disposed in a folder, and the folder may be displayed on the background screen. In a case where the shortcut menus of the applications to which the visual effect is applied are disposed in a corresponding folder, a visual effect should also be applied to the corresponding folder so that the terminal informs the user that the application to which the visual effect is applied, i.e. the shortcut menu of the application having a low or high use frequency, is in the corresponding folder. This will be described with reference to
For example,
According to the another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, only the numbers of the shortcut menus of the applications which have the use frequency ranking in a predetermined order, from among the applications having a higher number of accumulation points than the reference point, may be displayed. Alternatively, only the numbers of the shortcut menus of the applications, which have the use frequency ranking in a predetermined order, from among the applications having a lower number of accumulation points than the reference point, may be displayed. According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, instead of displaying the numbers of the applications having the low or high use frequency, an image which informs the user that the applications are disposed in the corresponding folder and that overlaps the corresponding folder image may be displayed.
The shortcut menus of the applications of which the opacity, i.e. the use frequency, is lowered may be deleted, or removed from, or not shown in the background screen for a user's convenience. A method of deleting the shortcut menus of the applications may be described with reference to
As shown in
According to the present exemplary embodiment, when the user selects the shortcut menu of the application having the lower opacity than the predetermined value, then the terminal may display the information on the corresponding application, and may then automatically delete the shortcut menu of the corresponding application. According to another exemplary embodiment, when the user selects the shortcut menu of the application having the lower opacity than the predetermined value, the terminal may also immediately delete the shortcut menu of the corresponding application.
In the calculation of the accumulation points for each application, an operation time through which each application operates may be reflected in the accumulation points for the corresponding application. The operation time may be a period of time from an execution start event of the application to an execution finish or termination event of the application. At this time, the terminal may give more points to the corresponding application as the operation time becomes longer, and may calculate the accumulation points. For example, the terminal adds 1 point when the application operates for an hour, and 2 points when the application operates for two hours, so as to calculate the accumulation points for the corresponding application.
The method of managing a shortcut menu of an application in a terminal according to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention has been described with reference to
Referring to
The controller 510 determines whether an event, such as an execution, initialization, termination, and push notification, for an application is generated, and calculates accumulation points for the corresponding application based on a type of the event when the event is generated. Then, the controller 510 applies a first visual effect to a shortcut menu of the corresponding application based on the calculated accumulation points. Here, the type of the event may include at least one of an execution, initialization, and push notification of the application.
During the calculation of the accumulation points for each application, the controller 510 may increase the accumulation points for the corresponding application by a predetermined value if the event relates to the execution of the application or the generation of a push notification, and may decrease the accumulation points for the corresponding application if the event relates to the termination of the application.
The controller 510 reduces opacity of the shortcut menu of the corresponding application if the application has a low number of accumulation points, so as to provide the first visual effect. At this time, when the user selects the shortcut menu of which the opacity is lowered by the predetermined value, the controller 510 displays information on the application corresponding to the shortcut menu, and displays a message asking whether the corresponding shortcut menu will be deleted. When a request for the deletion of the shortcut menu is made, then the controller deletes the corresponding shortcut menu and arranges the remaining shortcut menus.
The controller 510 determines a ranking of the applications based on the accumulation points, makes a predetermined image overlap on the shortcut menu of the applications according to the determined ranking, and displays the shortcut menu overlapped with the predetermined image, so as to apply the first visual effect. In a case where the application to which the first visual effect is applied is disposed in a folder, then the controller 510 applies a second visual effect to an image of the folder.
The controller 510 makes at least one of an image for notifying that the shortcut menu to which the first visual effect is applied is present in the corresponding folder, and an image for notifying the number of the shortcut menus to which the first visual effect is applied from among the shortcut menus disposed in the corresponding folder. Additionally, the controller 510 overlaps the image of the corresponding folder, and displays the overlapped image of the corresponding folder so as to provide the second visual effect. The controller 510 calculates an operation time from a start, or execution, to a finish, or termination, of an application, and counts accumulation points for the corresponding application in consideration of the operation time. At this time, the controller 510 may give more points as the operation time becomes longer.
The display unit 520 displays at least one shortcut menu of the application. Further, the display unit 520 applies a predetermined visual effect to the shortcut menu of each application, and displays the shortcut menu, under a control of the controller 510.
The input unit 530 is used to receive inputs for an execution and a termination of an application from the user. Further, the input unit 530 receives inputs for various settings, such as a setting for a push notification, for an application from the user. Input information is transmitted to the controller 510.
The memory 540 stores the applications, the visual images for the shortcut menus of the applications, i.e. icons, and any other similar and/or suitable information to be displayed on the display unit or used in the operations of the exemplary embodiments described above. Further, the memory 540 stores settings and images with relation to various kinds of visual effects to be applied to the shortcut menus of the applications.
It will be appreciated that exemplary embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in the form of hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. In a case where exemplary embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in software, the software may be executed by one or more processors using various operating systems or platforms. In addition, the software may be programmed by using any one of a variety of suitable programming languages, and also may be compiled into assembly codes or intermediate codes which can be carried out in a framework or a virtual machine.
Furthermore, exemplary embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by a processor-readable and/or computer-readable non-volatile storage medium, for example a memory, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random-Access Memory (RAM), a floppy disc, a hard disc, a compact disc, an optical disc, a magnetic tape, or any other similar and/or suitable non-volatile storage medium that is suitable for storing a program or programs including instructions for implementing the exemplary embodiments of the present invention.
While the 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 invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2013-0030538 | Mar 2013 | KR | national |
