Controlling Scroll Speed To Improve Readability

• US 20070209017A1
• Filed: 03/01/2006
• Published: 09/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Gitika, Chamberlain, Benjamin
• Granted Patent: US 8,381,121 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/781
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning

Abstract

A scrolling speed controlling system including a personal computer, a human interface device, an executable application, and a scroll speed adapter component. A user choosing to scroll an application window quickly may experience reduced readability of the information in the window because the speed at which the window is scrolling is too great to allow the user to identify or comprehend the information in the application window. A scroll speed adapter component make use of predetermined areas of interest to the user to control the scroll speed in such a way as to slow down scrolling as the area of interest approaches and speed up scrolling as the area of interest moves away.

Claims

1. A computerized system, comprising:

an executable application that allows scrolling controlled by a human interface device; and

a scroll speed adapter component for controlling scrolling speed coupled to the executable application, the scroll speed adapter component identifying at least one area within data associated with the executable application and controlling scrolling speed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the human interface device is a computer mouse.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the scroll speed adapter component is a component object model component.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the scroll speed adapter component is a class included in the executable application.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a runtime execution module for executing the application and the scroll speed adapter component.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the scroll speed adapter component further calculates a distance between the at least one area and at least one boundary area of the executable application.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one area is predetermined to be of interest to a user of the executable application.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the scroll speed adapter includes a table that includes at least one scrolling speed.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the executable application is a spreadsheet application.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the executable application is a word processing application.

11. A computer implemented method, comprising:

detecting that a user of an application has chosen to scroll a window associated with the application;

determining that an edge associated with the window is within a predetermined distance to a preconfigured marker associated with the window;

determining the actual distance between the edge and the preconfigured marker; and

adjusting a scrolling speed of the window.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the adjusting further includes looking up the actual distance in a table which correlates distance and scrolling speed.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the adjusting further includes using the actual distance as an input for a function that calculates scrolling speed.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the detecting further includes determining that the user of the application is selecting information within the window associated with the application.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising calculating the location of the preconfigured marker at the time the user of the application chooses to scroll the window.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the adjusting the scrolling speed of the window further includes adjusting the scrolling speed differently for a positive or negative actual distance.

17. A computer-readable media having computer-executable modules comprising:

a hardware abstraction layer in an operating system for accepting user input from a human interface device and for controlling an application window; and

a scroll speed component for controlling a scroll speed of the application window based on the location of an identified area within the application window from a boundary of the application.

18. The computer-readable media of claim 17, further comprising a monitor coupled to the hardware abstraction layer for displaying the operating system.

19. The computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the boundary of the application corresponds to a parent window of the application.

20. The computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the scroll speed component controls the scroll speed differently depending on the scroll direction.