Patent Application
20130125043
This application claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) from a Korean patent application filed on Nov. 10, 2011 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office and assigned Serial No. 10-2011-0116754, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user interface of a mobile terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to a user interface providing method and apparatus for a mobile terminal wherein items or objects can be displayed and managed using a virtual three dimensional space.
2. Description of the Related Art
Rapid advances in communication and semiconductor technologies have enabled tremendous growth in the use of mobile terminals. With such widespread utilization, mobile terminals have become a necessity of modern life. In addition to regular voice and text communication functions, there are advanced mobile terminals that can support various functions related to, for example, mobile television such as DMB or DVB, music playback based on MP3, photographing, data communication, Internet access, and wireless short-range communication. As mobile terminals now support an ever-increasing amount of different functions, there is a need in the art to develop a method that enables users to control the mobile terminals in a more rapid and convenient manner than known before. Particularly in recent years, as the number of mobile terminals having a touchscreen increases, a method is needed that enables better control of mobile terminals by means of touch interaction that is more convenient and provided in a more intuitive manner than known heretofore.
A conventional mobile terminal provides a user interface (UI) screen in a two-dimensional (2D) format. Such a user interface screen may provide only a flat area for item display and cannot provide an area for item management.
The present invention has been made in part in view of the above problems, and the present invention comprises user interface providing method and apparatus for a mobile terminal wherein multiple items can be represented on a three dimensional (3D) screen, and the items are preferably managed in a convenient manner using a specific area of the 3D screen and functions related thereto for rapid execution.
In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, there is an interface providing method for a mobile terminal, which preferably includes: outputting a three dimensional user interface screen (3D UI screen) having a first region for item display and a second region for item management; and managing at least one item using the second region.
In accordance with another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, there is an interface providing apparatus for a mobile terminal, which preferably includes: a touchscreen for outputting a three dimensional user interface screen (3D UI screen) having a first region for item display and a second region for item management; and a control unit controlling management of at least one item using the second region.
The features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art from the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention are described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The same reference symbols are used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts. Detailed descriptions of well-known functions and structures incorporated herein may be omitted to avoid obscuring appreciation of the subject matter of the present invention by a person of ordinary skill in the art. The description of the various embodiments is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possible instance of the invention. Therefore, it should be understood by a person or ordinary skill in the art that various changes and modifications may be made on the basis of the subject matter of the present invention that fall within the spirit of the invention and the scope of the appended claims.
In the present specification, the “mobile terminal” refers to a device having a touchscreen, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile communication terminal, a smartphone, a tablet computer, or a tabletop computer, just to name some non-limiting examples.
In the present invention, a user interface (UI) screen is presented in a 3D format, and items can be conveniently managed using extra space created by 3D visualization. For example, the 3D UI screen may be presented in the form of a cylinder or a prism; one or more items may be displayed in a first region; and the items may be manipulated using a second region. Here, the first region may be a side (e.g. face) of a cylinder or a side of the prism and the second region may be a base thereof the respective cylinder or the prism.
Referring now to
With continued reference to
The display panel 131 displays, for example, various menus of the mobile terminal 100, information input by the user, and information to be provided to the user. For example, the display panel 131 may display various screens in the course of utilizing the mobile terminal 100, such as a home screen composed of multiple pages, a message composition screen and a call handling screen. In particular, the display panel 131 may be comprised of a 3D UI screen. Here, the 3D UI display screen may include a first region (item display region) to display one or more items and a second region (drop table region) to manage or manipulate items. The display panel 131 may provide various display screens for item management using the drop table region. The use of the drop table region is described in detail later with reference to
The touch panel 132 is placed on the display panel 131, and may generate a touch event, which indicates that contact has been sensed, in response to a touch gesture of the user with the finger (or a stylus) and send the touch event to the control unit 110. More specifically, the touch panel 132 may detect a touch event through a change in physical quantity (such as capacitance or resistance) caused by contact upon an object on the surface thereof, and sends information identifying the type of the touch event (touch, touch release, tap, double touch, touch movement such as drag, flick or multitouch) and coordinates thereof to the control unit 110. As the operation and structure of touch panels 132 are known in the art, a detailed description thereof is omitted. In particular, the touch panel 132 may generate various control signals to manipulate items on the 3D UI screen, and send the control signals to the control unit 110. Here, the control signals may preferably include, for example, a request signal to move an item from the item display region to the drop table region, a request signal to move the item from the drop table region to the item display region, and/or a request signal to perform an operation (for example, delete, move or add-to-folder) on items present in the drop table region.
The storage unit 120, which comprises a non-transitory machine readable medium, may store programs for realizing functions of the mobile terminal 100 and user data. For example, the storage unit 120 may store an operating system (OS) that is loaded into a processor or microprocessor and executed to boot and operate the mobile terminal 100, as well as other application programs related to images, sounds and short-range wireless communication to support optional functions of the mobile terminal 100, and various content items, just to name a few possible examples. The storage unit 120 may store key maps and menu maps for proper operation of the touchscreen 130. The key maps may correspond to various keyboard layouts including but in no way limited to 3*4 and/or QWERTY layouts, and may include a control key map for controlling execution of an active application program. The menu maps may be associated with various functions, and may include a menu map for controlling execution of an active application program or programs. In particular, the storage unit 120 may store an item management program that controls a process of outputting a 3D UI screen and manipulating items through the drop table region of the 3D UI screen. The item management program may also control item manipulation operations such as move, delete and empty (described later with reference to
The storage unit 120 stores path information related to item movement. For example, the storage unit 120 may keep track of previous locations (in the item display region) of items that are moved to the drop table region. This keeping track of various locations enables moving multiple items in the drop table region back to their original locations in the item display region.
The control unit 110, which comprises hardware such as a processor or microprocessor configured for control of various functionality of the mobile terminal 100, may control the overall operation of the mobile terminal 100 and control signal exchange between internal components thereof. In particular, the control unit 110 may provide a 3D UI screen, which includes an item display region for the display of one or more items and the display of a drop table region to manage items. The control unit 110 may control a process of managing items and performing operations on items using the drop table region of the 3D UI screen. Operations of the control unit 110 are described in more detail with subsequent reference to
Although not shown in
Referring now to
However, when at (201) the edit function is selected, then at (203) the control unit 110 controls the touchscreen 130 to display an edit screen in a 3D format, that is, a 3D UI screen. For example, referring to
More specifically with reference to
The 3D UI screen may be displayed in the shape of a cylinder, as indicated by screen reference numeral 320. The 3D UI screen may also take many other various shapes. For example, the 3D UI screen may take the shape of a prism. In other words, the 3D UI screen may be presented in the form of a cylinder or a prism, as two non-limiting possible shapes; items are displayed in a side of the cylinder or prism; and a base of the cylinder or prism may be allocated as the drop table region 30.
With reference to
At (209), the control unit 110 checks whether the edit function is ended. When the edit function is not ended, the control unit 110 performs step 205. When the edit function is ended, then at (211) the control unit 110 may restore the menu screen.
In the above description, a 3D UI screen is output when an edit function is selected in a 2D menu screen. However, the present invention is not limited thereto. For example, the menu screen itself may be presented in a 3D format so that the drop table region can be used without execution of the edit function. In the above description of the operation of the process in
In the above exemplary description, the lower base of a cylinder or prism is used as the drop table region. However, the presently claimed invention is not limited thereto. For example, the upper base of a cylinder or prism may be used as the drop table region, or both the lower and upper bases thereof may also be used as the drop table region. In addition, the indicator region 10 may be not included in the 3D UI screen according to design or desire. In other words, the 3D UI screen may be composed of the item display region 20 and the drop table region 30. Any type of geometric shapes can be used, which can be contiguous or non-contiguous.
Referring now to
When an edit function is selected in a state in which the menu screen is output, the control unit 110 preferably controls the touchscreen 130 to output a 3D UI screen as indicated by screen reference numeral 415. The 3D UI screen 320 has been previously-described in connection with
Referring now to
When an edit function is selected in a state in which the menu screen is already output on the display, the control unit 110 can control the touchscreen 130 to output a 3D UI screen as indicated by screen reference numeral 445. Thus the display of the screen changes from 2D to 3D upon the edit function selection. The display may sense touch (contact) by at least one item in the item display region 20 of the 3D UI screen as indicated by screen reference numeral 445, and move the touched item toward the drop table region 30 as indicated by screen reference numeral 450, and then release the touched item in the drop table region 30. The control unit 110 may then control the touchscreen 130 to enroll the moved item in the drop table region 30 as indicated by screen reference numeral 455. Here, the control unit 110 may leave the position of the moved item empty without shifting other items as indicated by screen reference numerals 450 or 455.
Referring now to
When the user releases the touched item in the drop table region 30, as indicated by screen reference numeral 485, the control unit 110 may control the touchscreen 130 to enroll the moved item in the drop table region 30 and to display a distinctive ghost image 486 at the previous position of the moved item in the item display region 20. Here, the ghost image 486 may be obtained by modifying at least one of the size, transparency and color of the item having been moved to the drop table region 30. For example, as indicated by screen reference numeral 485, a translucent ghost image 486 is displayed at the previous position of the item having been moved to the drop table region 30. A ghost image 486 indicates existence of a corresponding item having been moved to the drop table region 30 and reminds the user of the original position of the item now in the drop table region. When a ghost image with a different size, transparency or color is displayed at the original position of the item having been moved to the drop table region 30, the control unit 110 may shift the subsequent items 50 of the moved item back to their original positions as indicated by screen reference numeral 485.
Hereinabove, a description is given of examples for moving items present in the item display region 20 to the drop table region 30. Next, a description is given of examples for moving items present in the drop table region 30 to the item display region 20.
Referring to
Referring now to
The mobile terminal can detect: (1) a touch of a desired one of the items displayed on the touchscreen and arranged in multiple rows and columns; (2) a move (drag, flick or sweep) the touched item in a given direction in the item display region 20, and a release of the touched item. Then, the control unit 110 may control movement of the touched item to the previous position (marked by the ghost image) or to an empty position of the current page. When there is no empty position in the current page, the control unit 110 may control movement of the touched item to an empty position of the next page. When there is no empty position until the last page, the control unit 110 may add a new page and move the touched item to the new page.
When the touchscreen detects a tap on one of the items arranged in multiple rows and columns as indicated by screen reference numeral 540, the control unit 110 may control stack the spread items into a pile as indicated by screen reference numeral 530 (return to the previous item arrangement). In this case, the item arrangement is switched according to tap events. In another exemplary embodiment, the item arrangement on the touchscreen may be switched according to touch movement events. For example, multiple items stacked in a pile may be spread into multiple rows and columns according to a flick up, and multiple items spread in multiple rows and columns may be stacked in a pile according to a flick down.
Referring now to
In a state indicated by screen reference numerals 565 or 580, when the user selects “empty” option, the control unit 110 may move all the items present in the drop table region 30 to the item display region 20 as indicated by screen reference numeral 590. Here, for items whose previous positions are remembered, the control unit 110 may move the items to their previous positions (for example, positions marked by ghost images). For items whose previous positions are not remembered (unknown), the control unit 110 may move the items to empty positions of the current page. When there is no empty position in the current page, the control unit 110 may move the item to an empty position of the next page. When there is no empty position until the last page, the control unit 110 may add a new page and move the item to the new page.
Referring now to
As indicated by screen reference numeral 640 in
As indicated by screen reference numeral 660 in
With continued reference to
As described above, in the present invention, an operation such as the “delete”, “make folder” or “make page” operations may be applied commonly to multiple items present in the drop table region 30, enhancing user convenience. For example, to delete or move multiple items, the user does not have to enter the same command or gesture multiple times.
Referring now to
As the indicator region 10 and the item display region 20 are used similarly as in the previous exemplary embodiments, and thus a description thereof is omitted. Unlike the previous exemplary embodiments, the drop table region 30 may include a make-folder item 71 and a make-page item 72. Here, the make-folder item 71 is associated with “make folder” function described in connection with
In a state indicated by screen reference numeral 710, the user may move an item in the item display region 20 to the make-folder item 71 as indicated by screen reference numeral 720 or 730. Then, the control unit 110 may control the touchscreen 130 to display a distinctive ghost image (different from the corresponding item in terms of at least one of size, transparency and color) at the previous position of the item having moved to the make-folder item 71.
The user may touch the make-folder item 71, move the make-folder item 71 to a desired position of the item display region 20, and release the make-folder item 71 as indicated by screen reference numeral 740. Then, the control unit 110 may create a folder 75 at the touch release position and move the items in the make-folder item 71 to the created folder 75 as indicated by screen reference numeral 750. Here, the make-folder item 71 may become empty, and the ghost images 73 and 74 may be removed. As described above, the “make folder” function may be more easily performed using the make-folder item 71 in comparison to using the menu popup window 65 as in
Although not shown in
Referring now to
The user may touch the make-page item 72, move the make-page item 72 to a desired position of the item display region 20, and release the make-page item 72 as indicated by screen reference numeral 840. Here, the touch release position may be in between pages. Then, the control unit 110 may produce a visual effect (for example, tilting the current page) to notify the user of page insertion as indicated by screen reference numeral 840.
After touch release, the control unit 110 may add a page at the touch release position and move the items in the make-page item 72 to the added page as indicated by screen reference numeral 850.
As described above, the “make page” function may be more easily performed using the make-page item 72. Although not shown in
In another exemplary embodiment, the space between the make-folder item 71 and the make-page item 72 may be utilized as a region for stacking items as described in connection with
The user interface providing method of the present invention according to the presently claimed invention is a statutory invention in compliance with 35 U.S.C. §101, and may be implemented as one or more computer programs comprising machine executable code that is loaded into hardware such as a processor and/or microprocessor and executed, such machine executable code may be stored in various computer readable storage media. The computer readable storage media may store program instructions, data files, data structures and combinations thereof. The program instructions are machine readable code that is loaded into hardware such as a processor, microprocessor, or control unit, and executed may include instructions developed specifically for the present invention and existing general-purpose instructions known to persons skilled in the art. The computer readable storage media comprises machine readable mediums specially designed a processor microprocessor to store and execute program instructions, and may include magnetic media such as a hard disk, floppy disk and magnetic tape, optical media such as a CD-ROM and DVD, magneto-optical media such as a floptical disk, and memory devices such as a ROM, RAM and flash memory. The program instructions that are loaded into hardware such as a process, microprocessor, or controller, may include machine codes produced by compilers and high-level language codes executable through interpreters. Each hardware device may be replaced with one or more software modules to perform operations according to the present invention, and vice versa.
According to an exemplary aspect of the present invention, the interface providing method and apparatus enable a mobile terminal to present a UI screen in a 3D format. Hence, the contents under of the UI screen may be readily understood s contents of the UI screen. Extra space obtained by 3D visualization in the UI screen can be used as an area for item management and execution of functions related to items. In other words, the extra space may be used to execute functions, which would be executed through complicated steps in a regular 2D UI screen, in a simple way, thereby enhancing user convenience.
For example, one or more items may be kept in the extra space and may be invoked as necessary. In addition, multiple items present in the extra space may be simultaneously deleted or simultaneously moved to their original positions in the 3D UI screen.
The above-described methods according to the present invention can be implemented in hardware, firmware or as software or computer code loaded into hardware such as a processor or microprocessor and executed, the machine executable code being stored on a recording medium such as a CD ROM, an RAM, a floppy disk, a hard disk, or a magneto-optical disk or computer code downloaded over a network originally stored on a remote recording medium or a non-transitory machine readable medium and to be stored on a local recording non-transitory medium, so that the methods described herein can be rendered in such software that is stored on the recording medium using a general purpose computer, or a special processor or in programmable or dedicated hardware, such as an ASIC or FPGA. As would be understood in the art, the computer, the processor, microprocessor controller or the programmable hardware include memory components, e.g., RAM, ROM, Flash, thumbnail, etc. that may store or receive software or computer code that when accessed and executed by the computer, processor or hardware implement the processing methods described herein. In addition, it would be recognized that when a general purpose computer accesses code for implementing the processing shown herein, the execution of the code transforms the general purpose computer into a special purpose computer for executing the processing shown herein. A controller or control unit configured to perform a function as used herein includes hardware and is not to be construed as software per se.
Although the user interface providing method and apparatus for a mobile terminal have been described in detail hereinabove as exemplary embodiments of the present invention, it should be understood that many variations and modifications of the basic inventive concept described herein will still fall within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2011-0116754 | Nov 2011 | KR | national |
