Consumers appreciate ease of use in their electronic devices. They also appreciate cost effective electronic devices. Designers and manufacturers may, therefore, endeavor to create or build electronic devices directed toward one or more of these objectives.
The following detailed description references the drawings, wherein:
An input device, such as a mouse, may include one or more input embers (e.g., buttons that allow an end-user to interact with a user interface of a computer program. The ability to scroll within the user interface via the input device is desirable. Some input devices may utilize a wheel adjacent one or more of the input members that allows such scrolling within the user interface through its rotation. Rotation of this wheel, however, requires an end-user to remove his or her finger from one of the input devices to the wheel which, at least some end-users, may find objectionable because they must look away from the user interface to do so. For such end-users, this is often compounded because they must look away again when removing their finger from the wheel back to the input ember or input members of the input device.
Such scrolling wheels may also add to the cost and complexity of the design and/or manufacture of input devices. Decreasing such cost and/or complexity can be beneficial to consumers. An input device 10 directed to addressing one or more of these objectives is shown in
As used herein, the terms “non-transitory storage medium” and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium” are defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, any media that can contain, store, or maintain programs, information, and data. Non-transitory storage medium and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium may include any one of many physical media such as, for example, electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, or semiconductor media. More specific examples of suitable non-transitory storage medium and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium include, but are not limited to, a magnetic computer diskette such as floppy diskettes or hard drives, magnetic tape, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), a flash drive, a compact disc (CD), or a digital video disk (DVD).
As used herein, the term “processor” is defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, an instruction execution system such as a computer/processor based system, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a computing device, or a hardware and/or software system that can fetch or obtain the logic from a non-transitory storage medium or a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and execute the instructions contained therein. “Processor” can also include any controller, state-machine, microprocessor, cloud-based utility, service or feature, or any other analogue, digital and/or mechanical implementation thereof.
As used herein, “computer program” is defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, instructions to perform a task with a processor and may include software applications for tasks such as a word-processing, accounting, finance, and presentations. As used herein, “operating system” is defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, software that manages computing device or processor hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs such as recognizing commands from input devices, sending output to one or more display screens, managing files and directories on hard drives and controlling peripheral devices. As used herein, “user interface” is defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, graphical, textual and auditory information a computer program and/or operating system presents to an end-user, as well as the control sequences (such as keystrokes of a keyboard or movements and selections of an input device) the user employs to enter data into and/or control the computer program or operating system.
As used herein, “input device” (e.g., a mouse) is defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, an apparatus that provides data and/or control signals to a user interface. Input devices may include one or more input members (e.g., buttons, piezo-electric devices, light emitting diodes (LEDs), etc.) that may be actuated by an end-user to provide such data and/or control signals in the form of commands. An input device may also include a tracking member (e.g., a light emitting diode (LED) or ball) that is responsive to movement of the input device by an end-user.
As used herein, “scroll” and “scrolling” are defined as including, but not necessarily being limited to, sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically (e.g., up or down), horizontally (e.g., left or right), and/or diagonally. “Scrolling” does not change the layout of the text, images or video, but moves an end-user's view across what is apparently a larger image that may not be wholly seen.
Referring again to
As can also be seen in
As can additionally be seen in
Input device 10 is coupled to user interface 30, as indicated by double-headed arrow 36, by wire (e.g., USB connection) or wirelessly (e.g., Bluetooth) so that movements of housing 12, which are detected by tracking device 20 and converted into signals, are transmitted to user interface 30. When first and second input members 16 and 18 are both actuated (e.g., pressed-down) during these movements of housing 12, they result in scroll commands within user interface 30 of computer program 32. These scroll commands may be horizontal (e.g., left and right), as indicated by double-headed arrow 38, based upon corresponding horizontal movement of housing vertical (e.g., up and down), as indicated by double-headed arrow 40, based upon corresponding vertical movement of housing and/or diagonal, as indicated by double-headed arrows 42 and 44, based upon corresponding diagonal movement of housing 12.
As can still further be seen in
Non-transitory storage medium 28 may include additional instructions that, when executed by processor 14, cause processor 14 to reconfigure one or more of the scroll commands based on end-user input so that one or more different scroll commands are generated in user-interface 30 of computer program 32 based upon movement of housing 12. That is, an end-user may reconfigure input device 10 so that, when first and second input members 16 and 18 are actuated (e.g., pressing of buttons), and housing 12 is moved in a particular direction (e.g., right), the direction of scroll in user interface 30 does not directly correspond (e.g., left instead). This reconfiguration can be changed back at any time, should the end-user so desire. As noted above, it can also be selectively applied to one or more of the scroll directions.
An example of a flow chart 56 relating to input device 10 is shown in
An example of a method of scrolling 68 in user interface 30 of computer program 32 via input device 10 having first input ember 16 and second input member 18 is shown in
An example of an additional element of method 68 is shown in
Although several examples have been described and illustrated in detail, it is to be clearly understood that the same are intended by way of illustration and example only. These examples are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form or to the exemplary embodiments disclosed. Modifications and variations may well be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The spirit and scope of the present invention are to be limited only by the terms of the following claims.
Additionally, reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean one and only one, unless explicitly so stated, but rather means one or more. Moreover, no element or component is intended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether the element or component is explicitly recited in the following claims.