Patent Application
20050144568
This application is related to the commonly owned co-pending U.S. patent applications entitled “System and Method for Viewing Information Underlying Lists and Other Contexts,” Attorney Docket No. 23452-530, and “Method and Apparatus for Setting Attributes and Initiating Actions Through Gestures,” Attorney Docket No. 23452-531, each filed herewith and incorporated by reference in its entirety.
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for navigating and/or indicating related items in a list of items.
Systems for presenting a list of items, such as email messages, are generally well known. Typically, only a small portion of text associated with these items is displayed in the list itself. If a user wishes to view more information, the user must select one of the items to display additional information in a separate area.
Often times, messages may be related, but appear scattered as separated items, making it difficult for a user to follow a complete discussion. Furthermore, in typical systems, a user wishing to mark a message for a particular action, such as urgent or delete, must move to a different area of the screen in order to accomplish this.
There are many situations in which people would like to view extended amounts of text, but are limited by the amount of display area or “screen real estate” available to them. For example, a user looking at a list of items might want to see or preview the detailed content text of one of the items, without looking to or covering up other areas of the display.
Another problem is that a user wishing to follow a discussion must sort through a list of scattered messages. This can make it difficult for users to locate related items, to notice if an issue raised in a message has already been handled by someone else, or to follow a discussion at all. This can be particularly difficult when using a portable device with a small display as there is less opportunity to see related items in a large displayed list. Furthermore, due to difficulties in entering text on many such devices, the cost of responding to a message that has already been handled by someone else is high.
Another problem is that conventional systems require a user wishing to mark an item for later action to move the cursor to a different region of the display or use keyboard controls. This is especially problematic in situations where screen real estate is limited, such as with handheld portable devices.
Other limitations and problems also exist.
The invention overcomes these and other limitations of existing systems.
One aspect of the invention relates to an apparatus and method for simplifying the viewing of related items in a list environment. The apparatus and method provides a simplified view of a thread, letting users identify related items and/or navigate through related items.
In some embodiments, a relationship icon may be used to indicate the presence of items related to a currently selected item. The relationship icon may indicate related items before and after a currently selected item.
In some further embodiments, relationship icon may be a graphical icon indicating the number of related items. In other embodiments, the relationship icon may include a numeric display of the number of related items.
In some embodiments, relationship icon may change appearance based on characteristics of the related items. For example, relationship object may appear in different colors.
In some embodiments, relationship icon may include a static icon for navigating among related items. A user wishing to navigate among related items may do so by selecting the relationship icon.
In some embodiments, relationship icon may enable a user to move to a next and/or previous related items. In other related embodiments, relationship icon may enable a user to select a related item which to navigate.
In some embodiments, relationship icon may enable a user to display a hierarchical list of related items and to select an item from the list.
In some embodiments, relationship icon may be used for identification of and navigation among related items. Relationship icon may indicate the presence of related messages before and after a currently selected messages, and allow a user to move between related messages.
Other objects and features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in connection with the accompanying drawings that disclose embodiments of the invention. It should be understood, however, that the drawings are designed for purposes of illustration only and not as a definition of the limits of the invention.
Relationship module 142 may identify related messages and allow a user to view related messages that are a part of the same discussion thread or activity. The threading relationships may be maintained using various threading services such as those described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/334,087 (Publication No. U.S. 20030163537A1), entitled “Method and Apparatus for Handling Conversation Threads and Message Groupings as a Single Entity,” filed Dec. 30, 2002, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/995,151 (Publication No. U.S. 20030101065A1), entitled “Method and Apparatus for Maintaining Conversation Threads in Electronic Mail,” filed Nov. 27, 2001, the specifications of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety. It should be noted that the invention is not limited to any particular mechanism for determining threads among a set of documents including email messages.
Text extension module 144 may enable a user to view additional text associated with a particular message. Gestural module 146 may allow a user to perform tasks related to a message using gestural motions and pop-up menus, for example, a user may make a quick pass through a list of messages and mark certain messages for later action. These features will be described in greater detail hereinafter.
As illustrated in
Server 130 may be or include, for instance, a workstation running Microsoft Windows™ NT™, Microsoft Windows™ 2000, Unix, Linux, Xenix, IBM, AIX™, Hewlett-Packard UX™, Novell Netware™, Sun Microsystems Solaris™, OS/2™, BeOS™, Mach, Apache, OpenStep™, or other operating system or platform.
Terminal device 110 may be connected to server 130 over network 120 via communications link 122. Examples of terminal device 110 may include any one or more of, for example, a desktop computer, a laptop or other portable computer, a hand-held computer device such as a Blackberry, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a web-enabled mobile phone, or a Palm Pilot, or any other terminal device.
Network 120 may include any one or more networks. For instance, network 120 may include the Internet, an intranet, a PAN (Personal Area Network), a LAN (Local Area Network), a WAN (Wide Area Network), a SAN (Storage Area Network), a MAN (Metropolitan Area Network), or other network.
Communications link 122 may include any one or more communications links. For instance, communications link 122 may include a copper telephone line, a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connection, a Digital Data Service (DDS) connection, an Ethernet connection, an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) line, an analog modem connection, a cable modem connection, a wireless connection, or other communications link.
Relationship icon 208 may be used to navigate between the related messages and/or indicate the presence of related message. In one embodiment, relationship icon 208 may be used to indicate the presence of messages related to a currently selected message. For example,
In some embodiments, relationship icon 208 may also use other appearance changes to reflect the status of related messages. For example, a portion of relationship icon 208 may be displayed in bright red to indicate urgent related messages or may be displayed in green to indicate unread related messages. Other colors and/or visual indications may be used as would be apparent.
In some embodiments, relationship icon 208 may display the number of related messages. For example,
In some embodiments, relationship icon 208 may be used for navigating among related messages. For example, as illustrated in
In some embodiments, relationship icon 208 may be used to bring up a hierarchical list of related messages. A user may invoke a hierarchical view by, for example, selecting circle 212 representing a currently selected message.
In other embodiments, relationship icon 208 may be used for navigation of and identification of related messages. Relationship icon 208 may indicate the presence of related messages before and after a currently selected messages, and allow a user to move between related messages. For example,
In some embodiments, a relationship icon may be used when a message list is not being displayed. As illustrated in
While described above in relationship to electronic mail messaging, relationship icon may be used in other environments having a list of related items. For example, relationship icon may be used to identify related items in chat rooms, message boards, and other list environments.
According to another aspect of the invention, a system is provided for enabling a user to view extended text underlying lists and other contexts. In some embodiments, a user may view extended text in-line without obstructing the view of other displayed items. An example user interface 700, according to one embodiment, is illustrated in
A user may view the extended information, such as detailed content of a particular message or field, by using text extension module 142.
In some embodiments of the invention, terminal device 110 is a handheld portable device with limited display. A user invoking text extension module 142 may view details of a selected message without obstructing the view of other displayed items.
The retrieved messages presented to the user may appear on one or more lines having fields such as, for example name field 702, subject field 704, and a date/time field 706. The user may wish to view additional text associated with one or more of the retrieved messages. In an operation 908, the user may select text extension icon 208 related to the one or more desired messages. In an operation 910, test extension module may provide a scrolling field 804 in place of, for example, subject field 704.
In an operation 912, the user may then scroll through text associated with the one or more messages in place, without obstructing the view of other screen items. While not shown, the user may dismiss scrolling field 804 associated with any of the one or more messages by selecting text extension icon 208 a second time.
While the embodiments described above relate to email messages, it would be apparent that scroll regions may be created other than those for messages. For example, the scrolling fields may be used in lists of search results or tables of data.
In some embodiments, text extension module 142 may enable a user to display underlying information in the context of another display or visualization, such as charts and graphs. For example,
Another aspect of the invention relates to a system and method for setting attributes and initiating actions through gestural menus.
In some embodiments, a user may mark a message for a particular action without selecting an action icon from gestural menu 1120. For example, to mark a message for deletion, a user may select gestural menu icon 1106 associated with the message and drag it in a predetermined direction or outside of the screen display area. This “gesture” is analogous to throwing the item away. A user wishing to mark a message urgent may select the icon and drag it upward, a gesture analogous to raising the message to a higher importance. Other directional gestures may also be used.
In some embodiments, a user may be presented with submenus above or below the selected action. For example,
The user may wish to take a quick pass through the retrieved email messages. In an operation 1408, the user may navigate to a gestural menu icon associated with a desired message to invoke gestural menu 1120. In an operation 1410, the user may select a desired action from gestural menu 1120. While not illustrated, the user may select action icons for one or more messages by selecting the associated gestural menu icon.
Once a user has marked all desired messages, the user may end the email session, as illustrated in an operation 1412. In an operation 1414, email messages and corresponding actions are stored at storage device 150 and appropriate actions taken. While not illustrated, a user may later retrieve email messages via terminal device 110 or any other terminal device capable of connecting to storage device 150. The later retrieved email messages retain the actions previously selected. While retrieving messages from a storage device and sending the retrieved messages to terminal device 110 is illustrated as occurring at server 130, it will be appreciated the messages may stored at and retrieved from terminal device 110 or other locations accessible by terminal device 110.
While particular embodiments of the present invention have been described, it is to be understood that modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. The scope of the invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described herein. Other embodiments, uses and advantages of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. The specification should be considered exemplary only, and the scope of the invention is accordingly to be limited by the following claims.
