METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING A MENU DISPLAY

• US 20120023452A1
• Filed: 03/30/2010
• Published: 01/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Top Victory Investments Limited (TPV Technology Co., Ltd. (f/k/a Nanjing Huadong Electronics Information & Technology))
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Li, Rui
• Granted Patent: US 8,856,686 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/845
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4312 involving specific graphical features, e.g. screen layout, special fonts or colors, blinking icons, highlights or animations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications

Abstract

A method of generating a menu display (203), the method comprising the steps of: selecting a plurality of menu items (205_—1, 205_—2, 205_—3, 205_—4) from a plurality of candidate menu items, the candidate menu items being arranged in a plurality of hierarchical levels, on the basis of most frequently used menu items and most difficult to access menu items within the plurality of hierarchical levels; and displaying the selected menu items simultaneously.

Claims

1. A method of generating a menu display (203), the method comprising the steps of:

selecting a plurality of menu items (205_1, 205_2, 205_3, 205_4) from a plurality of candidate menu items, said candidate menu items being arranged in a plurality of hierarchical levels, on the basis of most frequently used menu items and most difficult to access menu items within said plurality of hierarchical levels; and

displaying said selected menu items simultaneously.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises

maintaining a count of use of each menu item, and wherein the step of selecting a plurality of menu items comprises selecting a plurality of menu items on the basis of menu items having at least the highest counts of use.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of selecting a plurality of menu items comprises selecting a plurality of menu items on the basis of menu items in at least the lowest hierarchical levels.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein said step of selecting a plurality of menu items and said step of displaying said selected menu items are continuously updated.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises

weighting each menu item on the basis of frequency of use and degree of difficulty of access of menu items within said plurality of hierarchical levels, and wherein the step of selecting a plurality of menu items comprises selecting a plurality of menu items on the basis of said weighting.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the method further comprises

storing said weighted menu items in a storage device;

and

continuously updating content of said storage device.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the step of storing said weighted menu items in a storage device comprises time stamping each menu item, and wherein the step of continuously updating content of said storage device comprises replacing the oldest menu items with new menu items.

8. A method according to claim 6, wherein the step of weighting each menu item comprises the step of storing a number of entries of each menu item in said storage device.

9. A method according to claim 8, wherein the step of selecting a plurality of menu items comprises selecting menu items having at least the highest number of entries in the storage device.

10. A computer program product comprising a plurality of program code portions for carrying out the method according to claim 1.

11. Apparatus (300) for generating a menu display (203) comprising:

a processor (301) for selecting a plurality of menu items (205_1, 205_2, 205_3, 205_4) from a plurality of candidate menu items, said candidate menu items being arranged in a plurality of hierarchical levels, on the basis of most frequently used menu items and most difficult to access menu items within said plurality of hierarchical levels; and

a driver (303) capable of driving a display (309) to display said selected menu items simultaneously.

12. Apparatus according to claim 11 further comprising a storage device for storing a plurality of entries of menu items on the basis of most frequently used menu items and most difficult to access menu items within said plurality of hierarchical levels, wherein said processor selects menu items having the highest number of entries in the storage device.

13. A user interface device comprising apparatus according to claim 11.