This invention relates generally to an easy-to-use method and structure for quickly positioning the mouse cursor on a personal computer and, more particularly, to a touch-pad device for mouse control which can quickly and easily move the cursor without the cursor having to be between the original location and the new moved-to location.
Many laptop computers are now being shipped with touchpad devices along with wide-screen or large resolution displays. To move the mouse cursor from one corner of the screen to another, or indeed from one remote location to another, requires multiple finger strokes across the touchpad surface. The underlying assumption behind these types of computers, such as the ThinkPad T60p by Lenovo, is that there is a touchpad device on the system which receives input from the user based on user settable pressure and movement applied to its surface. The input from the user is translated to movement and positioning of the mouse cursor. The touchpad device described above is a standard touchpad, such as the device which can be found on a Lenovo ThinkPad T60p computer, which is incorporated herein by reference. Configuring the amount of pressure required to activate the touchpad device is already a common configuration for standard touchpad devices of the type disclosed in the T60p ThinkPad. Typically, the pressure settings are “low”, “medium” and “high”, although other schemes can be used. The supporting device driver software for the touchpad device provides a graphical user interface which allows the user to set the pressure sensitivity of the touchpad device.
The basis for this application is an easier-to-use method and computer system for quickly positioning the mouse cursor on the screen of a personal computer which uses a touch pad device for mouse control. A method of and structure for causing a mouse cursor in a computer system to jump from one point on a screen to another point on said screen optimally without being in between on the screen, and wherein a mouse cursor is displayed on said screen, and a touchpad is operatively connected to said screen, comprises the steps of: associating a coordinate system on said touchpad with a coordinate system on said screen to generate locations on said screen corresponding to given locations on said touchpad; setting of pressure for a valid response from said touchpad to said screen at each coordinate location on the touchpad; setting the time for a valid response from said touchpad to said screen; and determining a single point with reference to a finger on said touchpad and, thus, an associated point on said screen for the movement of the mouse cursor to said associated point responsive to said set pressure and said set time on a given location on said touchpad.
Referring now to the drawings, and for the present to
To implement this program, the touchpad device 12 driver software would associate a coordinate (x, y) system on the surface of the screen 16 to the surface of the touchpad device 12. The device driver software for the touchpad device will map the touchpad surface to the current screen resolution each time a “jump” is triggered. This allows for the user to alter their screen resolution at any time without affecting the accuracy of the “jump”. For instance, the upper left corner of the touchpad surface would be referred to as (0, 0). The lower right corner would be referred to as (100, 100). The x, y coordinates of the touchpad 12 surface could then be considered percentage representations of the display screen's resolution. For instance, if the display is 1280 pixels by 1024 pixels, then a point at 50, 50 (center of the touchpad 12) on the surface of the touchpad would translate to 640 pixels, 512 pixels on the display screen 16. In this case, the code is the circuitry contained in the computer 10.
Due to the size of the human finger and the resolution of the touchpad device, when a user presses on a point of the touchpad surface, there will be multiple points which register with the touchpad device. These points will roughly represent a circle. The device driver software of the touchpad device optimally takes the minimum and maximum coordinate combinations and generates an average value for each coordinate. For example, if the minimum set of coordinates were (4, 3) and the maximum set of coordinates were (7, 4), then the resulting point would be (5.5, 3.5). This point can then be converted to a point within the resolution of the display device.
When the user presses on a point of the touchpad surface, he/she will have to apply a certain amount of pressure and hold that pressure for a certain amount of time before the touchpad driver will interpret the action as a request to jump the mouse pointer to a new position. Since this pressure is already a function of the touchpad 12, this pressure can be the pressure needed to actuate the cursor. Preferably, however, the level of pressure required and the hold time can be configurable settings which the user can customize through the operating system's interface to the driver software of the touchpad device 12. The end user will be provided a configuration utility which can be accessed by the normal means for the operating system he/she is using (e.g. in the Control Panel for Microsoft operating systems). This configuration utility will allow the end user to specify the amount of pressure required for the touchpad device to register it as a request for a jump. The user will also be able to specify the duration for which the pressure must be held in order to trigger the jump. Normally, the user will want to set the pressure to a “high” (as described above with respect to the level on ThinkPad T60p) and the time at about one second; however, a user is free to choose any selectable pressure or time. It is to be understood that these selected pressures and times are minimum pressures and times, requiring the finger to provide at least the pressure and time selected. This will cause the mouse cursor to jump from its original position to the desired position optimally without being in any position in between. Also, once the cursor has jumped, the program will reset itself for the next jump.
Turning now specifically to
The user then touches a location on the touchpad to which the cursor is to be moved and holds it with the required pressure and the required amount of time 38. When a user touches the touchpad 12 as in step 38, the program derives a single coordinate point 40. The program then translates this coordinate value from step 40 to a point on the screen where the cursor is set 42, and moves the cursor to this position 44. After step 44, the program resets ready for the next jump 46.
The foregoing description of various aspects of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and obviously, many modifications and variations are possible. Such modifications and variations that may be apparent to a person skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the invention as defined by the accompanying claims.