NAVIGATING IN GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE ON HANDHELD DEVICES

• US 20110164057A1
• Filed: 09/10/2009
• Published: 07/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Prabhu, Sudhir Muroor
• Granted Patent: US 8,645,858 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/650
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/44 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

The invention relates to presenting and browsing in metadata on handheld display devices such as music/mp3 players mobile phones, PDA'"'"'s, digital cameras. A graphical user interface (GUI) accesses metadata arranged in different categories and determines a hierarchical order of this. A metadata category is shown in a menu of category entries in a separate pane on the GUI. Rotation of the device is detected by a rotation sensor, and upon rotation the pane with the menu being browsed before rotation is maintained in the GUI, and at least one pane a menu representing a hierarchical super- or sub-category of the category being browsed before rotation is added or removed. This allows the user to expand or collapse metadata categories shown in the GUI by rotating the device.

Claims

1. A handheld electronic device (1) for presenting and browsing in metadata, the display device comprising:

a display (2) for displaying a graphical user interface for browsing in metadata;

a pointing device (3) for receiving user input for browsing and selecting in the graphical user interface;

a sensor for detecting rotation of the display device;

a graphical user interface controller configured to;

determine a hierarchical ordering of metadata arranged in different categories;

represent each category by a menu (5, 9, 13) of category entries (6, 10, 14) in the displayed graphical user interface and show each menu in a separate pane (4, 8, 12);

determine rotation between different orientations of the display device by input from the sensor; and

upon rotation of the display device;

maintain a pane (4) in the displayed graphical user interface with a menu (5) being browsed before rotation;

add or remove at least one pane (8) in the displayed graphical user interface with a menu (9) representing a hierarchical super- or sub-category of the category being browsed before rotation.

2. The display device according to claim 1, wherein the pointing device is a multi point touchpad and wherein selection and browsing make use of multi-point touch gestures.

3. The display device according to claim 2, wherein the graphical user interface controller is further configured to determine, by input from the multi point touchpad, expansion or pinching gesture of the user, and add or remove at least one pane (12) in the displayed graphical user interface with a menu (13) representing a hierarchical super- or sub-category of the category being browsed when the expansion or pinching gesture of the user was determined.

4. The display device according to claim 3, wherein said metadata comprise artists, albums, playlists, ratings, dates, genre, titles related to audio or video data.

5. The display device according to claim 4, of the preceding claims, wherein the sensor for detecting rotation of the display device is a three-dimensional acceleration sensor.

6. A method (18) for presenting and browsing in metadata on a handheld electronic device (1), the method comprising:

providing metadata arranged in different categories;

determining a hierarchical ordering of the metadata;

representing each category by a menu (5, 9, 13) of category entries (6, 10, 14) in a graphical user interface to be shown on a display of the device, where each menu is shown in a separate pane (4, 8, 12);

displaying a graphical user interface with at least one pane (4) containing a menu (5) of category entries (6) being browsed;

rotating the device;

maintaining, in the displayed graphical user interface, the pane with the menu being browsed before rotation; and

adding or removing at least one pane (8) in the displayed graphical user interface with a menu (9) representing a hierarchical super- or sub-category of the category being browsed before rotation.

7. A software product for instructing a processing unit to execute the method of claim 6 when the product is run on an electronic processing unit.