Multi-finger touchpad gestures

• US 10,296,206 B2
• Filed: 09/23/2014
• Issued: 05/21/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Doan, Christopher, Worley, Matthew I., Donahue, Tyler J., Sappington, Emily Grace, Karol, Sohit, Sanghai, Nidhi S., Vranjes, Miron, Slemon, Matthew Kiichi, Mittereder, Andrew P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hailu, Tadesse
• Application Number:
  US14/494,432
• Publication Number:
  US 20160085438A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,701 Days
• Field of Search: 715863
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

A multi-finger touchpad gesture refers to a movement of multiple fingers in a particular pattern across a touchpad. The touchpad senses the multiple fingers, and based on the sensed finger locations and finger movements, one of multiple multi-finger touchpad gestures is detected. A user interface being presented on a display is altered as appropriate in response to the detected multi-finger touchpad gesture. Various different multi-finger touchpad gestures can be detected. The multi-finger touchpad gestures can include a gesture that traverses different hierarchical views of the operating system user interface, a gesture that switches between two recent windows, a gesture that traverses a back stack of windows, a gesture that displays a window selection view and selects a particular window, and a gesture that moves a window to a different location (including snapping a window to an edge or corner of the display).

Claims

1. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

receive a user input that is a gesture on a touchpad, the user input comprising multiple fingers concurrently moving across the touchpad for at least part of the gesture;

determine, based on a pattern of the user input, which of multiple finger gestures is indicated by the user input, the determining including;

maximizing a current window, in response to the indicated gesture being a movement to maximize the current window received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, so the current window becomes a full-screen window on a display;

ceasing display of the current window, in response to the indicated gesture being a movement to minimize the current window received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, so the current window is not displayed on the display;

snapping the current window to the edge of the display including snapping, in response to the indicated gesture being a snap to the left-hand side movement received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, the current window to the left edge of the display; and

the snapping the current window to the edge of the display including snapping, in response to the indicated gesture being a snap to the right-hand side movement received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, the current window to the right edge of the display.

2. A device as recited in claim 1, the movement to maximize the current window comprising movement up on the touchpad, the movement to minimize the current window comprising movement down on the touchpad, the movement to snap the current window to the left-hand side comprising movement left on the touchpad, the movement to snap the current window to the right-hand side comprising movement right on the touchpad.

3. A device as recited in claim 1, the touchpad comprising an input-only device.

4. A device as recited in claim 1, the determining further comprising snapping, in response to the indicated gesture being a movement to snap the current window to a corner of the display, the current window to the corner of the display, the snapping comprising resizing the current window to a size approximately one-quarter of the display and locating the current window at a location in which each of two edges of the current window are adjacent to a different one of two edges that create the corner being snapped to.

5. A device as recited in claim 1, three different windows being displayed on the display, the three windows comprising a first window that is the current window, a second window, and a third window, the determining further including:

switching, in response to the indicated gesture being a movement to traverse a back stack of windows including the three windows, to displaying the second window as the current window, the back stack of windows comprising an indication of an order in which windows on the computing device were most recently a current window;

receiving an additional user input that is an additional gesture on the touchpad, the additional user input comprising multiple fingers concurrently moving across the touchpad for at least part of the additional gesture; and

switching, in response to the additional gesture being the movement to traverse the back stack of windows including the three windows, to displaying the third window as the current window.

6. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon multiple instructions that, responsive to execution by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations including;

receiving a first part of a user input that is a gesture on a touchpad, the first part of the user input comprising multiple fingers concurrently moving across the touchpad;

displaying, in response to the gesture, a window selection view including multiple representations of windows of the device;

receiving, after displaying the window selection view, a second part of the user input that is a directional movement of at least one of the multiple fingers but fewer than all of the multiple fingers on the touchpad to select one of the windows represented in the window selection view, the at least one of the multiple fingers being sensed by the touchpad during both the gesture and the directional movement, and the at least one of the multiple fingers not being lifted off the touchpad until a window from the window selection view is selected; and

making the selected one window a current window.

7. A device as recited in claim 6, for each of the multiple representations, the representation of a window displaying information regarding the window.

8. A device as recited in claim 6, the operations further comprising:

highlighting, in response to the directional movement, different ones of the multiple representations; and

identifying, as the selected one window, a window represented by a highlighted representation at the time when the at least one of the multiple fingers are no longer sensed by the touchpad.

9. A device as recited in claim 6, the touchpad being a separate device from a display device on which the window selection view is displayed.

10. A device as recited in claim 6, the touchpad comprising an input-only device.

11. A device as recited in claim 6, the operations further including:

receiving an additional user input that is an additional gesture on the touchpad, the additional user input comprising multiple fingers concurrently moving across the touchpad for at least part of the additional gesture;

maximizing the current window, in response to the additional gesture being a movement to maximize a current window received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, so the current window becomes a full-screen window;

ceasing display of the current window, in response to the additional gesture being a movement to minimize the current window received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, so the current window is not displayed;

snapping, in response to the additional gesture being a snap to the left-hand side movement received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, the current window to the left edge of the display; and

snapping, in response to the indicated gesture being a snap to the right-hand side movement received while the current window is displayed as a floating window, the current window to the right edge of the display.