1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for producing, controlling and displaying menus that combine radial marking menus and linear menus and, more particularly, to a system that combines a pattern selectable menu with a location selectable menu into a single display.
2. Description of the Related Art
Menus selection in modern user interfaces is a fundamental and frequently used operation. In general, the length of time it takes to select from a menu is small (seconds or fractions of second). However, because menu selection is a high frequency operation in some types of applications, reducing the time involved in selecting from a menu can result in significant time savings in the overall time it takes to accomplish a larger task. It is for this very reason that menu selection speed up (“accelerator”) techniques like “hot keys” and marking menus are popular.
Each accelerator technique has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, hot keys can select from a large set of menu items, for example, every key on the keyboard can be used as hot key. However, this is at the cost of the user remembering the associations between menu items and keys. Hot keys are also not effective if a user is working on a system that does not include a keyboard or the user must move between the keyboard and another device while operating the interface. For example, the user may have to move the same hand from a mouse, to the keyboard, and then back to the mouse.
Marking menus is a pop up menu technology that displays menu items in a circle, around the cursor whereas traditional menus (linear menus) display menu items in a linear fashion, for example, from top to bottom. Because of this difference, item selection can be performed more rapidly with marking menus than with linear menus. For example, a user can select from marking menus by “flicking” or making a stroke of the cursor in the direction of a desired menu item. Thus, the user does not have to wait for the menu to be displayed to select from it. However, as the number of items in a marking menu increases, rapid selection without popping up the menu becomes difficult because the angular difference between menu items becomes small and difficult for the user to articulate. To combat this problem, the number of items in a marking menus is generally limited to eight or less.
What is needed is a combination of a radial marking menu and a linear menu in the same display such that the number of items in the menu can be increased beyond eight items while still permitting rapid selection for the items of the marking menu using a marking or stroke pattern and selection of the items of the linear menu using a locational method.
It is an object of the present invention to combine radial marking menus with linear menus in the same display.
It is another object of the present invention to combine marking menu selection techniques with location selection techniques.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a menu display in which selection of some items are accelerated.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a process that distinguishes between linear (or location) based menu selection and pattern-based menu selection.
The above objects can be attained by a system that combines a radial marking menu, in which item selection is performed by marking a menu item with a cursor mark, with a linear menu, in which item selection is performed by selection at a particular location. The system distinguishes between parts of the display in which the linear menu is located and parts of the display in which the radial marking menu is located.
These together with other objects and advantages which will be subsequently apparent, reside in the details of construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part hereof, wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout.
The present invention typically has a hardware configuration, as illustrated in
The present invention combines a radial marking menu with a linear menu into a single display where the radial and linear portions are associated with each other and displayed simultaneously. The present invention allows the menus to be selected using the pattern and location techniques of these two types of menus. The selection and display arrangement of linear and radial menus will be discussed before discussing their combination.
A linear menu 30, as illustrated in
Radial menus include two types: pie menus and marking menus. Pie menus are typically used in item selection using the location principles of linear menus as discussed above. Marking menus operate on the principle of the direction of cursor or pointer motion as being the basis for item selection. Marking is a menu selection operation which works as follows. A user activates the selection indicator of the pointing device 26, such as by pressing down on the screen with a pen or holding down the button on a mouse and waits for a short interval of time (approximately ⅓ second). A radial menu 40, such as illustrated in
Another, faster, way to make a selection without popping up the menu is by drawing a mark 58 as illustrated in
Thus, marking menus allow items to be selected in two different ways. Using the method of
Marking menus avoid some of the problems of hot keys. A user does not have to remember the association between keys and menu items. The user only needs to remember the spatial layout of menu items. Typically users very quickly learn the spatial location of menu items, especially for frequently used commands. Marking menus also do not require a keyboard for operation. However, because human capability is limited in the accuracy in which angles can drawn, the number of menu items in marking menus is generally limited to eight items.
In many situations modern user interfaces use menus with more than eight items. For example, the number of items in pop-up menus in the ALIAS V6 package ranges from 8 to 15 items, with an average of 12.75 items per pop-menu. Higher number of items can be used in marking menus by making the menus hierarchic. In this case rapid menu selection requires a zig-zag type line with pauses rather than just a simple stroke. For example, a 64 item menu can be made up of an eight item menu where each item leads to another eight item submenu. Thus, if a user interface designer wishes to convert an application which uses linear menus into one which uses marking menus, the designer must convert any menu that takes more than eight items into an hierarchic menu. This conversion process requires extra work and linear menu items may not decompose naturally into hierarchic categories.
The present invention combines marking menus and linear menus into a single menu 60, as illustrated in
The present invention, as depicted in
The invention has some characteristics different from traditional linear menus. First, the user must pause to display the menu before selecting an item from the linear portion 64 of the menu. This is not a great disadvantage since these items are by definition supposed to be infrequently used commands. If the position where the menu pops-up is very close the edge of screen there may not be enough room to select some of the items from the radial portion 62 of menu using a flick. For example, suppose the menu 60 pops up when a user presses the mouse button down right in the top left corner of the screen. At this point there is no room to “flick” the cursor up or to the left to select some of the menu items. In practice, this is not a serious problem since there are very few situations where a menu is popped up right along the edge for the screen. Also, the amount of room needed for a flick can be very small. Finally, the radial portion 62 of menu 60 represents a grouping of menu items that is based on frequency of selection. In linear menus, items are generally grouped together based on function. Therefore, the conversion to this new menu system might require rearrangement of items in a menu. Fortunately, the particular grouping of menu items has little value once a user becomes familiar with a menu layout and therefore this is not a serious problem in the long run.
The creation of such a combined menu requires that a displayed menu 70, as illustrated in
The invention behaves differently from the description above when the user does not display the menus but draws a mark. In this case, the mark is interpreted as if the linear menu items do not exist. For example, if a mark like 76 were drawn this would not result in the selection of linear menu item 5, but in radial item menu 3. This has the advantage that a user can quickly select radial menu items with a quick mark (a “flick”) without accidently selecting linear menu items.
The present invention is directed to the combination of radial menus and linear menus in the same display. If the invention were to follow the typical rules for menu selection in the prior art this would mean that all menu selections (either by displaying a menu or by drawing a mark) would be based on the location of the cursor at the end of the stroke. This in turn would result in selection errors when a user tries to select from the menu of the present invention quickly. Thus, the advantage and distinction of the present invention is apparent.
The operation of the process of determining the selection is illustrated in the flowcharts of
The pen-down operation of
In the pen-drag operation the first check performed, as depicted in
In the pen-still operation (
The pen-up operation as depicted in
It is important that an implementation take certain characteristics of typical window operating systems, with which the invention is typically used, into account as well as accounting for how such operating systems interface with applications. One problem is that many operating systems do not issue an event when a cursor or pointer moved by a pointing device stops moving and the velocity drops to zero. Another problem is that some systems will not relinquish control unless an interrupt is generated. As a result, for such systems the implementation must include a provision for periodically sampling pointing device (cursor) position, such as by including timer interrupts, so that the various steps discussed above will work properly. Some operating systems do not include provisions for saving a portion of a screen into which a menu such as that of the present invention is “popped.” In such systems the implementation needs to provide for saving and restoring the portion of the display over written by the pop-up menu when or after the particular selection by the user is made. Because of such problems it is preferred that the invention be implemented in an XWINDOWS system, such as available from Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Additional details concerning the preferred implementation of the process depicted by
The invention has been described with respect to examples that depict menus with text labels. However, in many cases the preferred mode of display is to use icons. An example of an icon menu that includes radial as well as linear menu items that are arranged in a three-column array is illustrated in
The menu items shown and discussed herein have included text labels and icons, however, other types of menu items such as moving pictures, symbols, sound, etc. can be substituted. The invention can also be used with any type of menu in a variety of contexts, such as a tool pallet, pulldown menu and object hot spots. The stroke or “ink trail” or “rubber band line” also need not be displayed. The number of items in each portion of the menu can vary and the items can be in any desired arrangement.
The many features and advantages of the invention are apparent from the detailed specification and, thus, it is intended by the appended claims to cover all such features and advantages of the invention which fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and operation illustrated and described, and accordingly all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention.
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/263,958, filed Mar. 8, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,618,063, which is divisional of Ser. No. 08/840,725 filed Apr. 1, 1997 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,926,178, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/469,913, file Jun. 6, 1995 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,689,667 all incorporated by reference herein.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20040095395 A1 | May 2004 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 08840725 | Apr 1997 | US |
Child | 09263958 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 09263958 | Mar 1999 | US |
Child | 10611960 | US | |
Parent | 08469913 | Jun 1995 | US |
Child | 08840725 | US |