Patent Application
20130139078
1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to electronic readers and page processing methods thereof, and particularly, to an electronic reader with a touch screen and a page processing method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Many electronic devices provide text display functions (hereinafter electronic readers), e.g., mobile phones, digital photo frames, and e-book readers, are capable of storing and displaying electronic documents for users to read. During reading, the user may wish to mark pages containing favorite and/or important contents for later/future reviewing. However, the user cannot add marks on each chosen pages and store them for quick retrieval in the future, which is a shortcoming.
Therefore, what is needed is an electronic reader and a page processing method thereof to alleviate the limitations described above.
The components in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale, the emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of an electronic reader and a page processing method thereof. Moreover, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding sections throughout the several views.
Referring to
The electronic reader 100 includes a storage unit 10, an input unit 20, and a processor 30. The storage unit 10 stores a number of electronic files.
The input unit 20 is configured for generating signals in response to user inputs. The input unit 20 includes a number of mechanical keys 21 and a touch screen 22. When depressed by the user, the mechanical key 21 generates signals such as operation signals for powering on/off the electronic reader and flipping pages etc. The touch screen 22 generates signals for opening an electronic file, adding earmarks on the displayed page, flipping pages and panning the displayed page etc., in response to the user's touches thereon.
The processor 30 includes a gesture identifying module 31, a page processing module 32, and a display control module 33.
After the electronic reader 100 is powered on and the touch screen 22 displays a page according to the user's operation, the user may touch the touch screen 22. The gesture identifying module 31 determines whether any touch on the touch screen 22 is an earmark gesture according to the signals from the touch screen 22, and, if it is, transmits the result to the page processing module 32. In the embodiment, when the user traces an “L” which begins at one of the vertexes of the four corners of the touch screen 22, and stops at one of the two boundary lines of the touch screen 22 which form the starting vertex, the gesture identifying module 31 determines that the touch operation is an earmark gesture. That is, an earmark gesture is a trace in the shape of an “L” having a starting point at one of the vertexes of the four corners of the touch screen 22 and an end point on one of the two boundary lines together forming the starting vertex.
In this embodiment, the end point of the trace “L” can be any point on one of the two boundary lines forming the starting vertex and close to the starting point.
The page processing module 32 is configured to process the displayed page on the touch screen 22 according to the transmission from the gesture identifying module 31. In the embodiment, the page processing module 32 adds an earmark on the displayed page when the gesture identifying module 31 determines that the touch operation of the user is in fact an earmark gesture. As shown in
The display control module 33 controls the display of the earmarked page (i.e., the page to which earmark added) on the touch screen 22. Thus, referring to
The electronic reader 100 further includes a buffer 40 configured for temporarily storing all earmarked pages.
Referring to
Referring to
In this embodiment, the touch screen 22 further generates other signals in response to the touches of the user. The gesture identifying module 31 further identifies the operations of the user according to the generated signals, and the display control module 33 further controls the touch screen 22 to display the content corresponding to the operations identified by the identifying module 31. For example, referring to
Referring to
In step S51, the display control module 33 displays a page of a selected file on the touch screen 22 in response to the user's operation.
In step S52, the touch screen 22 detects a touch on the displayed page, and generates a signal associated therewith.
In step S53, the gesture identifying module 31 determines whether the touch operation of the user is an earmark gesture according to the signal, if yes, the process goes to step S54, otherwise, the process goes back to step S52. In the embodiment, when the fingertip of the user traces the shape of the letter “L” on the screen, which begins at one of the vertexes of the four corners of the touch screen 22, and stops at one of the two boundary lines of the touch screen 22 which form the starting vertex, the gesture identifying module 31 determines that the touch operation is an earmark gesture. That is, an earmark gesture is an “L” traced on the touch screen 22 having a starting point at one of the vertexes of the four corners of the touch screen 22 and an ending point on one of the two boundary lines together forming the starting vertex.
In step S54, the page processing module 32 adds an earmark to the displayed page. In this embodiment, the earmark added by the page processing module 32 is represented by a triangle Z. The triangle Z looks like a folded corner of the displayed page. The triangle Z is shown on the page simulating a folded corner of a page. In another embodiment, the added earmark is a curved figure simulating a page flipping effect.
In step S55, the page processing module 32 stores the earmarked page in the buffer 40.
In step S56, the processor 30 determines when the selected file is closed, if yes, the process goes to step S57, the process remains in S52 until the selected file is closed.
In step S57, the gathering module 34 gathers all the earmarked pages stored in the buffer 40, generates an index file 340 containing the earmarked pages, and stores the index file 340 in the storage unit 10. In this embodiment, the gathering module 34 retrieves the page number of each earmarked page and retrieves portions of the content of each earmarked page according to a predetermined rule as hereinafter defined, repaginates the retrieved page numbers and the retrieved content according to the page number, generates an index file 340, and stores the index file 340 in the storage unit 10. The predetermined rule hereinbefore mentioned can be retrieving the first sentence/paragraph of each of the earmarked pages, or retrieving the contents of a predetermined number of lines of the earmarked pages, eg lines 2-3.
Although the present disclosure has been specifically described on the basis of the embodiments thereof, the disclosure is not to be construed as being limited thereto. Various changes or modifications may be made to the embodiments without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 201110380586.5 | Nov 2011 | CN | national |
