The present disclosure relates generally to electronic devices having a display, and, more particularly to techniques for controlling the z-ordering of user interface objects displayed on such an electronic device.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
One use which has been found for computers has been to facilitate the communication of information to an audience. For example, it is not uncommon for various types of public speaking, (such as lectures, seminars, classroom discussions, keynote addresses, and so forth), to be accompanied by computer generated presentations that emphasize or illustrate points being made by the speaker. For example, such presentations may include music, sound effects, images, videos, text passages, numeric examples or spreadsheets, or audiovisual content that emphasizes points being made by the speaker.
Typically, these presentations are composed of “slides” that are sequentially presented in a specified order. These slides may contain audiovisual content in the form of objects placed on the slides. One challenge that may face those who create such presentations are the complexities involved in create and modifying the slides and objects used in a presentation and the association of effects with such slides and objects. For instance, when presented on a display, the objects may each have an associated horizontal and vertical position in an x-y plane.
In some applications, the objects may also have an associated position in the z-direction (often referred to as a z-order), which may convey depth to a user. For instance, each object may be ordered as being above or beneath the other objects as they appear on the slide, such that higher z-ordered objects may be depicted as overlying or obscuring lower z-ordered objects. One challenge that may face those who create such presentations are the complexities involved in create and modifying the slides and objects used in a presentation and the association of effects with such slides and objects. However, existing presentation applications may not provide an intuitive and interactive interface for adjusting the z-ordering of such objects displayed on such slides.
A summary of certain embodiments disclosed herein is set forth below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary of these certain embodiments and that these aspects are not intended to limit the scope of this disclosure. Indeed, this disclosure may encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below.
The present disclosure generally relates to a z-order editing process for adjusting the z-ordering of objects displayed on a user interface of an application. By way of example, in the context of a presentation application, the z-ordering adjustment process may include identifying one or more selected objects within a slide and then providing a z-ordering editing mode that provides an interactive graphical adjustment tool. Using the interactive graphical adjustment tool, a user may provide inputs indicating a desired direction for z-ordering adjustment. Changes in the z-ordering of the selected objects may be applied, displayed, and previewed dynamically or interactively on the slide.
The z-order editing process may include the ability to adjust multiple concurrently selected objects, such that the selected objects retain their relative z-ordering positions with respect to one another after the adjustment. The z-order editing process may also provide the ability to move multiple concurrently selected objects as a group, such that the selected objects become contiguous after the adjustment, even if the z-ordering of the selected objects was not contiguous prior to the adjustment.
Various aspects of this disclosure may be better understood upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:
One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
The present disclosure is directed to a technique for adjusting or manipulating the z-ordering of objects displayed on a user interface of an application. As used herein, the term “object” may refer to any individually editable component that may be displayed within a particular application, such as on a slide of a presentation application, within a document of a word processing application, within a spreadsheet in a spreadsheet application, or within an editing workspace of an image editing application. For instance, objects may include images, photo, text characters, line drawings, clip-art, charts, tables, embedded video and audio, and so forth. By way of example, in the context of a presentation application, the z-ordering adjustment process may include identifying one or more selected objects within a slide and then entering a z-ordering editing mode that provides an interactive graphical adjustment tool. Using the interactive graphical adjustment tool, a user may provide inputs indicating a desired direction for z-ordering adjustment. As the user interacts with the interactive graphical adjustment tool, changes based on the user inputs may be applied and displayed and previewed dynamically on the slide, although such changes are not fixed until the user exits the z-ordering editing mode. It should be understood that “interactively,” “dynamically,” “dynamic preview” or the like, as used herein, means the slide is continuously updated based upon the adjustments invoked by the user, such that the user does not perceive a noticeable delay or lag between the time in which the adjustment is made (e.g., via the interactive graphical tool) and the time at which the slide is updated to reflect the adjustment (e.g., substantially real-time).
In accordance with certain embodiments, the z-order editing process includes the ability to adjust multiple concurrently selected objects, such that the selected objects retain their relative z-ordering positions with respect to one another after the adjustment. In one embodiment, the z-order editing process includes the ability to move multiple concurrently selected objects as a group, such that the adjusted z-order positions results in the selected objects being contiguous, even if the z-ordering of the selected objects was not contiguous prior to the adjustment. In a further embodiment, the z-order editing process includes the ability to move multiple concurrently selected objects, such that the z-order spacing between the selected objects is retained following the adjustment.
With these foregoing features in mind, a general description of suitable electronic devices for performing these functions is provided below. In
An example of a suitable electronic device may include various internal and/or external components that contribute to the function of the device.
In various embodiments, the electronic device 10 may be a media player, a cellular telephone, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a tablet computer, a personal data organizer, an e-book reader (e-reader), a workstation, or the like. For example, in certain embodiments, the electronic device 10 may be a portable electronic device, such as a tablet device or a model of an iPod® or iPhone® available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. In other embodiments, electronic device 10 may be a desktop, tablet, or laptop computer, including a MacBook®, MacBook® Pro, MacBook Air®, iMac®, Mac® Mini, or Mac Pro®, also available from Apple Inc. In further embodiments, electronic device 10 may include other models and/or types of electronic devices suitable for implementing the features disclosed herein.
As discussed herein, the electronic device 10 may be used to store and/or execute a variety of applications. Such applications may include, but are not limited to: drawing applications, presentation applications, a word processing applications, website creation applications, disk authoring applications, spreadsheet applications, gaming applications, telephone applications, video conferencing applications, e-mail applications, instant messaging applications workout support applications, photo management applications, digital camera applications digital video camera applications, web browsing applications, e-book reader applications, digital music player applications, and/or digital video player applications. Further, the electronic device 10 may be used to store, access, and/or modify data, routines, and/or drivers used in conjunction with such applications.
Various applications that may be executed on the electronic device 10 may utilize or share the same user interface devices, such as a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., a touch screen or touch pad), a mouse, a keyboard, and so forth. One or more functions of such interface devices, as well as corresponding information displayed on the electronic device 10, may be adjusted and/or varied from one application to the next and/or within a respective application. In this way, a common physical architecture (such as the interface devices provided by the electronic device 10) may support a variety of applications with user interfaces that are intuitive and transparent.
The depicted electronic device includes a display 12. In one embodiment, the display 12 may be based on liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology, or light emitting polymer display (LPD) technology, although other display technologies may be used in other embodiments. In accordance with certain embodiments, the display 12 may include or be provided in conjunction with touch sensitive elements. Such a touch-sensitive display may be referred to as a “touch screen” and may also be known as or called a touch-sensitive display system.
In addition, the electronic device 10 may include one or more storage/memory components 14 (which may include one or more computer readable storage mediums), a memory controller 16, one or more processing units (CPUs, GPUs, and so forth) 18, a peripherals interface 20, RF circuitry 22, audio circuitry 24, a speaker 26, a microphone 28, an input/output (I/O) subsystem 30, input and/or control devices 32, and an external port 34. Further, in certain embodiments, the electronic device 10 may include one or more optical sensors 36. These components may communicate over one or more communication buses or signal lines 38.
It should be appreciated that the depicted electronic device 10 is only one example of a suitable device, and that the electronic device 10 may have more or fewer components than shown, may combine the functionality of two or more of the depicted components into a single component, or a may have a different configuration or arrangement of the components. Further, the various components shown in
With respect to the specific depicted components, the storage/memory component(s) 14 may include high-speed random access memory and/or may also include non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-state memory devices. Access to storage/memory components 14 by other components of the device 10, such as the processor 18 and the peripherals interface 20, may be controlled by one or more respective controllers 16, such as a memory controller, disk controller, and so forth.
The peripherals interface 20 couples various input and output peripherals of the electronic device 10 to the processor 18 and storage/memory components 14. The one or more processors 18 run or execute various software programs and/or sets of instructions stored in storage/memory components 14 (such as routines or instructions to implement the features discussed herein) to perform various functions on the electronic device 10 and/or to process data. In some embodiments, the peripherals interface 20, the processor 18, and the memory controller 16 may be implemented on a single chip, such as a chip 40. In other embodiments, these components and/or their functionalities may be implemented on separate chips.
The RF (radio frequency) circuitry 22 receives and sends RF signals, also called electromagnetic signals. The RF circuitry 22 converts electrical signals to/from electromagnetic signals and communicates with communications networks and other communications devices via the electromagnetic signals. The RF circuitry 22 may include known circuitry for performing these functions, including but not limited to an antenna system, an RF transceiver, one or more amplifiers, a tuner, one or more oscillators, a digital signal processor, a CODEC chipset, a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, memory, and so forth. The RF circuitry 22 may communicate with networks, such as the Internet, also referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW), an intranet and/or a wireless network, such as a cellular telephone network, a wireless local area network (LAN) and/or a metropolitan area network (MAN), and/or other devices by wireless communication. The wireless communication may use any suitable communications standard, protocol and/or technology, including but not limited to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), a 3G network (e.g., based upon the IMT-2000 standard), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), a 4G network (e.g., based upon the IMT Advanced standard), Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE Advanced), Bluetooth, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) (e.g., IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g and/or IEEE 802.11n), voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, a protocol for email (e.g., Internet message access protocol (IMAP) and/or post office protocol (POP)), instant messaging (e.g., extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP), Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), Instant Messaging and Presence Service (IMPS)), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and/or Short Message Service (SMS), or any other suitable existing or later developed communication protocol.
The audio circuitry 24, the speaker 26, and the microphone 28 provide an audio interface between a user and the electronic device 10. In one embodiment, the audio circuitry 24 receives audio data from the peripherals interface 20, converts the audio data to an electrical signal, and transmits the electrical signal to the speaker 26. The speaker 26 converts the electrical signal to audible sound waves. The audio circuitry 24 also receives electrical signals converted by the microphone 28 from sound waves. The audio circuitry 24 converts the electrical signal to audio data and transmits the audio data to the peripherals interface 20 for processing. Audio data may be retrieved from and/or transmitted to the storage/memory components 14 and/or the RF circuitry 22 by the peripherals interface 20. In some embodiments, the audio circuitry 24 may include an output jack (e.g., an audio out jack or a headset jack). The output jack provides an interface between the audio circuitry 24 and removable audio input/output peripherals, such as output-only speakers, headphones or a headset with both output (e.g., a headphone for one or both ears) and input (e.g., a microphone).
The I/O subsystem 30 couples input/output peripherals on the electronic device 10, such as a display 12, and other input/control devices 32, to the peripherals interface 20. The I/O subsystem 30 may include a display controller 44 and one or more input controllers 46 for other input or control devices. The one or more input controllers 46 receive/send electrical signals from/to other input or control devices 32. The other input/control devices 32 may include physical buttons (e.g., push buttons, rocker buttons, etc.), dials, slider switches, joysticks, click wheels, a touch pad, and so forth. In some alternate embodiments, the input controller(s) 46 may be coupled to any (or none) of the following: a keyboard, infrared port, USB port, and/or a pointer device such as a mouse. Examples of input/control devices 32 in the form of buttons may include an up/down button for volume control of the speaker 26 and/or the microphone 28, on/off buttons, and/or buttons used to invoke a home screen on the display 12 of the electronic device 10.
When present, a display 12 implemented as a touch screen provides an input interface and an output interface between the electronic device 10 and a user. In one such embodiment, the display controller 44 receives and/or sends electrical signals from/to the display 12 and the corresponding touch sensitive elements. The display 12 displays visual output to the user. The visual output may include graphics, alphanumeric characters, icons, video, and so forth (collectively termed “graphics”). In some embodiments, some or all of the visual output may correspond to user-interface objects.
In embodiments employing a touch screen, the display 12 has a touch-sensitive surface, sensor or set of sensors that accepts input from the user based on haptic and/or tactile contact. The touch screen and the display controller 44 generate signals in response to contact (and any movement or breaking of the contact) on the display 12, and the signals may be received and processed in accordance with routines executing on the processor 18 such that the signals (and the contact they represent) are recognized as interactions with user-interface objects that are displayed on the display 12. In an exemplary embodiment, a point of contact between a touch screen 12 and the user corresponds to an appendage, e.g., a finger, of the user, and/or a stylus wielded by the user.
In embodiments where a touch screen is employed, the display 12 and the display controller 44 may detect contact and/or movement (or breaks in such movement) using a suitable touch sensing technologies, including but not limited to capacitive, resistive, infrared, and surface acoustic wave technologies, as well as other proximity sensor arrays or other elements for determining one or more points of contact with the display 12. The user may make contact with such a touch sensitive display 12 using any suitable object or appendage, such as a stylus, a finger, and so forth. In some embodiments, a touch-sensitive display may be multi-touch sensitive, i.e., sensitive to multiple concurrent contacts. In an exemplary embodiment, projected mutual capacitance sensing technology is used, such as that found in the iPhone® and iPod Touch® from Apple, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.
The electronic device 10 also includes a power system 50 for powering the various components. The power system 50 may include a power management system, one or more power sources (e.g., battery, alternating current (AC)), a recharging system, a power failure detection circuit, a power converter or inverter, a power status indicator (e.g., a light emitting diode (LED)) and any other components associated with the generation, management and distribution of power in electronic devices.
The electronic device 10 may also include one or more optical sensors 36.
The electronic device 10 may also include one or more accelerometers 54.
In some embodiments, the software components stored in storage/memory 14 may include an operating system, a communication module (or set of instructions), a contact/motion module (or set of instructions), a graphics module (or set of instructions), as well as any other suitable modules or instructions used in the operation of the device 10 or by interfaces or applications executing on the device 10. By way of example, an operating system may be based upon various software platforms, such as Darwin, RTXC, LINUX®, UNIX®, OS X, WINDOWS®, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks, and may include various software components and/or drivers for controlling and managing general system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage device control, power management, etc.) and facilitates communication between various hardware and software components.
In addition, the software components stored in storage/memory 14 may include various applications and media (e.g., music, videos, e-books) loaded or purchased by a user of the device 10 to provide additional functionality to the device 10. By way of example only, the storage/memory 14 may be configured to store applications and media purchased and/or downloaded from the App Store® or from iTunes®, both of which are online services offered and maintained by Apple Inc.
The communication module facilitates communication with other devices over one or more external ports 34 and also includes various software components for handling data received by the RF circuitry 22 and/or the external port 34. The external port 34 (e.g., Universal Serial Bus (USB), IEEE-1394 (FireWire), Ethernet port, etc.) is adapted for coupling directly to other devices or indirectly over a network (e.g., the Internet, wireless LAN, etc.). In some embodiments, the external port 34 is a multi-pin (e.g., 30-pin) connector that is the same as, or similar to and/or compatible with the 30-pin connector used on iPod® devices.
The contact/motion module may facilitate the detection and/or interpretation of contact with a touch sensitive input device, such as a touch screen, click wheel or touch pad. The contact/motion module includes various software components for performing various operations related to detection of contact, such as determining if contact has occurred (e.g., detecting a finger-down event), determining if there is movement of the contact and tracking the movement across the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., detecting one or more finger-dragging events), and determining if the contact has ceased (e.g., detecting a finger-up event or a break in contact). Determining movement of the point of contact, which is represented by a series of contact data, may include determining speed (magnitude), velocity (magnitude and direction), and/or an acceleration (a change in magnitude and/or direction) of the point of contact. These operations may be applied to single contacts (e.g., one finger contacts) or to multiple simultaneous contacts (e.g., “multi-touch”/multiple finger contacts).
The graphics module includes various known software components for rendering and displaying graphics on the display 12 or other connected displays or projectors, including components for changing the intensity of graphics that are displayed. As used herein, the term “graphics” includes any object that can be displayed to a user. In some embodiments, the graphics module stores data representing graphics to be used. Each graphic may be assigned a corresponding code. The graphics module receives, from applications etc., one or more codes specifying graphics to be displayed along with, if necessary, coordinate data and other graphic property data, and then generates screen image data to output to the display controller 44.
Examples of applications that may be stored in storage/memory 14 may include work productivity applications as well as other applications. Examples of such applications may include word processing applications, image editing applications, drawing applications, presentation applications, JAVA-enabled applications, encryption, digital rights management, voice recognition, and voice replication.
With the foregoing discussion of the functional and structural components of an electronic device 10 in mind,
The electronic device 10 in the form of the laptop computer 60 also may include various external ports 34 that allow connection of the laptop computer 60 to various external devices, such as a power source, printer, network, or other electronic device. For example, the laptop computer 60 may be connected to an external projector through a cable connected to a respective external port 34 of the laptop computer 60.
In addition to computers, such as the depicted laptop computer 60 of
In the depicted embodiment, the handheld device 70 includes an enclosure or body 72 that protects the interior components from physical damage and shields them from electromagnetic interference. The enclosure may be formed from any suitable material such as plastic, metal or a composite material and may allow certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation to pass through to wireless communication circuitry within the handheld device 70 to facilitate wireless communication.
In the depicted embodiment, the enclosure 72 includes user input structures 32 (such as the depicted button 74 and touch sensitive elements 76 incorporated into display 12 to form a touch screen) through which a user may interface with the device 70. Each user input structure 32 may be configured to help control a device function when actuated. For example, the button 74 may be configured to invoke a “home” screen or menu to be displayed. Other buttons, switches, rockers, and so forth may be provided to toggle between a sleep and a wake mode, to silence a ringer or alarm, to increase or decrease a volume output, and so forth.
In the depicted embodiment, the multi-function device 70 includes a display 12 that may be used to display a graphical user interface (GUI) 80 that allows a user to interact with the multi-function device 70. Generally, the GUI 80 may include graphical elements that represent applications and functions of the multi-function device 70. For instance, the GUI 80 may include various layers, windows, screens, templates, or other graphical elements that may be displayed in all, or a portion, of the display 12. Such graphical elements may include icons 82 and other images representing buttons, sliders, menu bars, and the like. The icons 82 may be selected and/or activated via touching their locations on the display 12 in embodiments in which the display 12 is provided as a touch screen.
In the depicted embodiment, an operating system GUI 80 may include various graphical icons 82, each of which may correspond to various applications that may be opened or executed upon detecting a user selection (e.g., via keyboard, mouse, touch screen input, voice input, etc.). The icons 82 may be displayed in a graphical dock 86 or within one or more graphical window elements 84 displayed on the screen of the display 12. By way of example only, the depicted icons 82 may represent a presentation application 88, such as Keynote® from Apple Inc., an application 90 for accessing the App Store® service from Apple Inc., an application 92 for accessing the iTunes® service from Apple Inc., as well as an e-reader/e-book application 94.
In some embodiments, the selection of a particular icon 82 may lead to a hierarchical navigation process, such that selection of an icon 82 leads to a screen or opens another graphical window that includes one or more additional icons 82 or other GUI elements. By way of example only, the operating system GUI 52 displayed in
The multi-function device 70 also may include various external ports 34 that allow connection of the multi-function device 70 to external devices, such as computers, projectors, modems, telephones, external storage devices, and so forth. For example, one external port may be a port that allows the transmission and reception of data or commands between the multi-function device 70 and another electronic device, such as a computer. One or more of external ports 34 may be a proprietary port from Apple Inc. or may be an open standard I/O port.
With the foregoing discussion in mind, various techniques and algorithms for implementing aspects of the present disclosure on electronic devices 10 and associated hardware and/or memory devices are discussed below. For example, in certain implementations, an electronic device 10 may be employed to store and/or run a work productivity application or suite of applications. One example of such applications includes the Pages® word processing application, the Numbers® spreadsheet application, and the Keynote® presentation application (e.g., 88), which are all provided within the iWork® application suite available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. In certain embodiments, such applications, or aspects of such applications, may be encoded using a suitable object-oriented programming language, such as Objective-C, C++, C#, and so forth.
By way of example, a presentation application 88, such as Keynote® may be employed to generate and present slideshows, typically consisting of a sequential display of prepared slides. For example, turning to
Prior to discussing the use or features of a presentation application 88 in accordance with the present disclosure, it should be appreciated that, as used herein, a “slide” should be understood to refer to a discrete unit on which one or more objects may be placed and arranged. Such slides should also be understood to be discrete units or elements of an ordered or sequential presentation, i.e., the slides are the pieces or units that are assembled and ordered to generate the presentation. Such a slide may be understood to function as a container or receptacle for a set of objects (as discussed below) that together convey information about a particular concept or topic of the presentation. A slide may contain or include different types of objects (e.g., text, numbers, images, videos, charts, graphs, and/or audio, and so forth) that explain or describe a concept or topic to which the slide is directed and which may be handled or manipulated as a unit due to their being associated with or contained on the slide unit.
The order or sequence of the slides in a presentation or slideshow is typically relevant in that the information on the slides (which may include both alphanumeric (text and numbers) and graphical components) is meant to be presented or discussed in order or sequence and may build upon itself, such that the information on later slides is understandable in the context of information provided on preceding slides and would not be understood or meaningful in the absence of such context. That is, there is a narrative or explanatory flow associated with the ordering or sequence of the slides. As a result, if presented out of order, the information on the slides may be unintelligible or may otherwise fail to properly convey the information contained in the presentation. This should be understood to be in contrast to more simplistic or earlier usages of the term “slide” and “slideshow” where what was typically shown was not a series of multimedia slides containing sequentially ordered content, but projected photos or images which could typically be displayed in any order without loss of information or content.
As used herein, the term “object” may refer to any individually editable component on a slide of a presentation. That is, something that can be added to a slide and/or be altered or edited on the slide, such as to change its location, orientation, size, opacity, color, or to change its content, may be described as an object. For example, a graphic, such as an image, photo, line drawing, clip-art, chart, table, which may be provided on a slide, may constitute an object. Likewise, a character or string of characters may constitute an object. Likewise, an embedded video or audio clip may also constitute an object that is a component of a slide. Therefore, in certain embodiments, characters and/or character strings (alphabetic, numeric, and/or symbolic), image files (.jpg, .bmp, .gif, .tif, .png, .cgm, .svg, .pdf, .wmf, and so forth), video files (.avi, .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .qt, .rm, .swf, .wmv, and so forth) and other multimedia files or other files in general may constitute “objects” as used herein. In certain graphics processing contexts, the term “object” may be used interchangeably with terms such as “bitmap” or texture”.
Further, because a slide may contain multiple objects, the objects on a slide may have an associated z-ordering (e.g., depth) characterizing how the objects are displayed on the slide. That is, to the extent that objects on the slide may overlap or interact with one another, they may be ordered, layered or stacked in the z-dimension with respect to a viewer (i.e., to convey depth) such that each object is ordered as being above or beneath the other objects as they appear on the slide. As a result, in the event of an overlap of objects, a higher object can be depicted as overlying or obscuring a lower object. In this way, a slide may not only have a width and length associated with it, but also a depth (i.e., a z-axis).
Thus, as used herein, the term “slide” should be understood to represent a discrete unit of a slideshow presentation on which objects may be placed or manipulated. Likewise, an “object,” in this context, should be understood to be any individually editable component that may be placed on such a slide. Further, as used herein, the term “transition” describes the act of moving from one slide to the next slide in a presentation. Such transitions may be accompanied by animations or effects applied to one or both of the incoming and outgoing slide. Likewise, the term “build” as used herein should be understood as describing effects or animations applied to one or more objects provided on a slide or, in some instances to an object or objects that are present on both an outgoing and incoming slide. For example, an animation build applied to an object on a slide may cause the object to be moved and rotated on the slide when the slide is displayed. Likewise, an opacity build applied to an object on a slide may cause the object to fade in and/or fade out on the slide when the slide is displayed. Further, while “objects” are depicted herein as being editable components on a slide of a presentation application 88, it will be appreciated that objects may also refer to editable components of other types of applications, such as word processing applications, spreadsheet applications, image processing/editing applications, and so forth.
With the foregoing in mind, it will be appreciated that, in certain embodiments a presentation application 88, as shown in
As will be appreciated, depending on the inputs and selections made by a user, the depicted presentation application 88 may display various screens, icons, and or other graphics. These elements may represent graphical and virtual elements, such as menus, graphical buttons, sliders, dials, scrollbars, and the like, through which the user may manipulate or select to interact with the presentation application 88. Further, it should also be understood that the functionalities set forth and described in the subsequent figures may be achieved using a wide variety graphical elements and visual schemes. Therefore, the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the precise user interface conventions depicted herein. Rather, embodiments of the present technique may include a wide variety of user interface styles.
The screen 120 of
The navigator pane 124 may display a representation 150 of each slide 140 of a presentation that is being generated or edited. The slide representations 150 may take on a variety of forms, such as an outline of the text in the slide 140 or a thumbnail image of the slide 140. Navigator pane 124 may allow the user to organize the slides 140 prepared using the application. For example, the user may determine or manipulate the order in which the slides 140 are presented by dragging a slide representation 150 from one relative position to another. In certain embodiments, the slides representations 150 in the navigator pane 124 may be indented or otherwise visually set apart for further organizational clarity. In addition, in certain embodiments, the navigator pane 124 may include an option 152 which, when selected, adds a new slide to the presentation. After being added, the slide representation 150 for such a new slide may be selected in the navigator pane 124 to display the slide 140 on the canvas 128 where objects 142 may be added to the new slide 140 and/or the properties of the new slide 140 may be manipulated.
In certain implementations, selection of a slide representation 150 in the navigator pane 124 results in the presentation application 88 displaying the corresponding slide information on the slide canvas 128. For example, for a selected slide representation (here depicted as the slide numbered 3 (“slide 3”), as identified by highlighted region 154) the corresponding slide 140 may be displayed on the slide canvas 128. The displayed slide 140 may include one or more suitable objects 142 such as, for example, text, images, graphics, video, or any other suitable object. In some embodiments, a user may add or edit features or properties of a slide 140 when displayed on the slide canvas 128, such as slide transitions, slide background, and so forth. In addition, in some embodiments a user may add objects 142 to or remove objects 142 from the slide 140 or may manipulate an object 142 on the slide 140, such as to change the location or appearance of the object 142 or to add or edit animations or builds to the object 142. The user may select a different slide 140 to be displayed for editing on slide canvas 124 by selecting a different slide representation 150 from the navigator pane 124, such as by touching the displayed slide representation 150 in a touch screen embodiment of the device 10.
In the depicted implementation a user may customize objects 142 associated with the slide 140 or the properties of the slide 140 using various tools provided by the presentation application 88. For example, in certain embodiments, when in the edit mode, selection of a slide 140, object 142, and/or toolbar option 158 may cause the display of an interface presenting one or more selectable options for the selected slide 140 or object 142, which a user may then select, deselect, or otherwise manipulate to modify the slide 140 or object 142 as desired. For example, selection of certain toolbar options 158, such as an inspector or information icon 160, may cause properties of the selected object 142 or slide 140 to be displayed for review and/or modification. Likewise, selection of an animation mode icon 162 from among the toolbar options 158 may cause the presentation application 88 to enter an animation mode from which builds or animations applied to objects and/or transitions assigned to slides may be reviewed, edited, and/or manipulated. Similarly, selection of a play mode icon 164 from among the toolbar options 158 may cause the presentation application 88 to enter a presentation mode in which the slides 140 of the slide presentation are sequentially displayed on the display 12 or an attached display device.
As discussed above, certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to techniques for controlling the z-ordering of selected objects within a slide of a presentation. Certain embodiments of such techniques will now be discussed below with reference to
Referring first to
The current slide 140 includes five objects 142, each taking the form of a geometric square block, although any suitable type of objects 142 may be present, such as text, images, video, charts, tables, and so forth. Each of the objects 142 may have a horizontal and vertical position with respect to the screen 120, sometimes referred to as x-y coordinates. Each of the depicted objects 142 may also have an associated z-ordering position that enables a user to differentiate the depth of each object 142. For instance, in the present example, the z-order positions of each object may be expressed from 0 to n−1, wherein n represents the total number of objects 142 within the slide having unique z-order positions, and wherein a z-order position of 0 represents the object having the greatest depth. That is, an object 142 having a z-order position of 0 may be perceived by a user as being beneath all the other objects 142. In other words, in the present embodiments, the z-order position may increase in the perpendicular direction (e.g., along a z-axis) outwards from the plane of the screen 120. To better illustrate the z-order positions of each object 142 in
As further shown in
Continuing to
With respect to z-ordering, a user may also modify the z-order position of the selected object (block 2) by selecting the graphical button 178. For instance, referring to
The window 190 includes a graphical slider 192 having a slider indicator 194 that may be manipulated along the slider 192 to change the z-order position of a selected object(s) in response to user inputs. The graphics 196 and 198 may be displayed within the window 190 on opposite ends of the slider 192 to indicate the directions in which the slider indicator 194 may be moved to increase or decrease the z-order position of block 2. For instance, in the present embodiment, sliding the indicator 194 to the left (e.g., towards graphic 196) may reduce the current z-order position of block 2, and sliding the indicator 195 to the right (e.g., towards graphic 198) may increase the current z-order position of block 2. In accordance with embodiments of the present technique, the slide canvas 128 may be updated interactively or dynamically to display the changes in z-ordering of the objects 142 as the user manipulates the position of the indicator 194. In other words, the desired adjustments may be displayed and previewed by the user on the slide canvas 128, although such adjustment may not necessarily be fixed until the user indicates that the z-order editing process is completed. For instance, once the desired z-ordering adjustments have been made, a user may exit the window 190, thus ending the z-ordering editing functionality provided by the presentation application 88, through selection of the graphical button 200 (the “DONE” button). These techniques are depicted in more detail below with respect to
As shown in
In
While
Continuing,
Next, in
Further, while the adjustment of z-order positions is accomplished in the embodiments shown in
The techniques discussed above with reference to
At block 228, one or more z-order adjustment commands may be received based upon user inputs provided via the graphical interactive tool. Next, at block 230, the received commands are applied to the selected object or objects by updating the slide 140 displayed within the slide canvas 128 as a dynamic preview to reflect the z-order adjustments requested by the user. Thereafter, at decision block 232, the method 220 determines whether the z-order editing process is completed. For instance, the method 220 may detect the completion of the z-order editing process based on whether the user selects the DONE button 200 from the window 190 (or the graphical button 208 in the embodiment illustrated in
While the embodiments illustrated in
The multiple contiguous selected objects 142 in
Further, as discussed above, because the adjustment of the indicator 194 may indicate a user's desire to shift the selected objects (blocks 1 and 2) to the highest possible z-order positions, the order of the objects 142 listed from lowest to highest z-order positions, as shown in
To provide some additional examples with respect to the objects 142 depicted on the slide 140 of
Continuing to
The current slide 140 includes seven objects 142 in the form of geometrical square blocks although, as discussed above, any suitable type of objects 142 may be present, such as text, images, video, charts, tables, etc. Here, the objects 142 depicted in
In the present embodiment, adjustment of the z-order positions of multiple concurrently selected non-contiguous objects from within the slide 140 may result in the multiple selected objects (blocks 2 and 5) becoming contiguous while retaining their relative z-ordering with respect to one another. For instance, with respect to the selected blocks 2 and 5, a user input that increases or decreases the z-order positions of blocks 1 and 5, which are currently separated or spaced by two z-order positions or levels (e.g. blocks 3 and 4), may result in blocks 2 and 5 being contiguous in the z-direction while retaining their relative z-ordering from prior to the adjustment, i.e., block 5 having an adjusted z-order position that is directly adjacent but greater relative to the adjusted z-order order position of block 1. This adjustment is illustrated in
To better illustrate these relative adjusted positions of blocks 2 and 5,
The determination of how to adjust the z-order positions of multiple concurrently selected non-contiguous objects 142 from the slide 140 may be based upon the direction of the z-order adjustment. For instance, in
Accordingly, during the z-order adjustment, the z-order position of the reference object is adjusted based on the position of the slider indicator 194, while the remaining object or objects are moved as many z-order positions as needed to become contiguous with the reference object after the adjustment. For instance, as discussed with reference to
Next,
While the above illustrated embodiments depict the adjustment of two concurrently selected objects 142 (
At block 256, one or more z-order adjustment commands may be received based upon user inputs provided via the graphical interactive tool and, thereafter, at block 258, a desired z-direction of adjustment is determined based upon the user inputs. Subsequently, at block 260, a determination is made as to whether all of the currently selected objects are contiguous in the z-direction. If the selected objects are already contiguously arranged, then the method 248 continues to block 262, wherein the z-order position of each of the contiguous selected objects is adjusted in the selected z-direction (from block 258), such that after the z-order adjustment, the selected objects 142 remain contiguous in the z-direction and maintain their relative z-ordering with respect to one another (
Returning to decision block 260, if it is determined that the selected objects 142 are not contiguously arranged in the z-direction, the method 248 continues instead to block 268. As shown at block 268, a reference object is identified from the multiple selected objects by determining the selected object having the z-order position that is furthest in the selected z-direction (from block 258). Thereafter, at block 270, the z-order position of the reference object is adjusted based upon the selected z-direction, and z-order positions of the remaining selected objects are adjusted such that they become contiguous with the adjusted reference object while all the selected objects maintain their relative z-ordering with respect to one another after the adjustment. Next, the method proceeds to decision block 264. As discussed above, if the z-order editing process is not complete, the method 248 may return to block 256 to receive additional z-order adjustment commands. If it is determined at block 264 that the z-order editing process is completed, the method 248 ends at block 266.
Referring now to
As discussed above, the z-order positions of the selected blocks 2 and 5 may be adjusted by moving the position of the indicator 194 on the slider 192 either towards the graphic 96 or the graphic 98 within the editing window 190. Further, in the embodiment depicted in
It should be further noted that if blocks 2 and 5 were to be adjusted in the decreasing z-direction once again, then the updated z-ordering of the objects 142, from lowest to highest z-order positions, would be: block 2, block 0, block 1, block 5, block 3, block 4, and block 6. That is, block 2 would now be in the lowest z-order position. As such, no further adjustments of blocks 2 and 5 would be permitted by the presentation application 88 while the checkbox 274 is selected, as the z-order position of block 2 could not be further reduced, and the z-order position of block 5 could not be further reduced while also maintaining the initial spacing.
Referring now to
At block 288, one or more z-order adjustment commands may be received based upon user inputs provided via the graphical interactive tool and, thereafter, at block 290, a desired z-direction of adjustment is determined based upon the user inputs. Subsequently, at block 292, a determination is made as to whether all of the selected objects are capable of being adjusted in the selected z-direction determined at block 290. For instance, as discussed above, this determination may be based upon whether one of the selected objects 142 already has the furthest possible z-order position in the selected z-direction (e.g., the lowest z-order position of 0 when the decreasing z-direction is selected, or the highest z-order position of n−1 when the increasing z-direction is selected). If, at decision block 290, it is determined that at least one of the selected objects 142 cannot be adjusted in the selected z-direction, then the z-ordering of the selected objects 142 is not adjusted, as indicated at block 294.
Thereafter, the method 280 continues to decision block 296 to determine whether the z-order editing process is completed. If it is determined that the z-order editing process is not completed (e.g., the user has not selected the “DONE” button 200 from window 190), then the method 280 returns to block 288 to receive additional z-order adjustment commands. However, if it is determined at decision block 296 that the z-order editing process is completed, the method 280 ends at block 298, in which the z-order editing mode is exited.
Returning to decision block 292, if it is determined that all of the selected objects 142 are capable of being adjusted in the selected z-direction from block 290, then the method 280 continues instead to block 300. As shown at block 300, the z-order positions of the selected objects are adjusted in the selected z-direction such that all the selected objects maintain both their relative z-ordering with respect to one another and their spacing between one another in the z-direction after the adjustment. Following block 300, the method 280 may proceed to decision block 296. As discussed above, if the z-order editing process is not complete, the method 280 may return to block 288 to receive additional z-order adjustment commands or, if it is determined at decision block 296 that the z-order editing process is completed, the method 280 ends at block 298.
As will be understood, the various techniques described above and relating to z-order adjustment of objects displayed on a user interface (e.g., within a presentation application 88, a spreadsheet application, a word processing application, an image editing application, etc.) are provided herein by way of example only. Accordingly, it should be understood that the present disclosure should not be construed as being limited to only the examples provided above. Indeed, a number of variations of the z-order adjustment techniques set forth above may exist. Further, it should be appreciated that the above-discussed techniques may be implemented in any suitable manner. For instance, such techniques may be implemented using hardware (e.g., suitably configured circuitry), software (e.g., via a computer program including executable code stored on one or more tangible computer readable medium), or via using a combination of both hardware and software elements, such as the electronic device 10 having suitable configured software applications stored within a computer readable medium (e.g., memory/storage device 14).
The specific embodiments described above have been shown by way of example, and it should be understood that these embodiments may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. It should be further understood that the claims are not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed, but rather to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of this disclosure.