SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VISUALLY BROWSING OF OPEN WINDOWS
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Abstract
A method referred to as visual window browsing allows a user to browse through windows on their desktop. Aspects of the invention include responsive to a command, moving open windows to form a visual stack with the topmost window in the stack being in focus. Responsive to a browse the windows in the visual stack can be browsed, where the topmost window moves to the bottom of the visual stack and the other windows move higher in the stack, with the second highest window becoming the topmost window and being in focus. Successive browse commands causes this behavior to repeat allowing a user to cycle through each of the open windows.
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Citations
40 Claims
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1-20. -20. (canceled)
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21. A method for concurrently displaying a plurality of windows on a display screen, the method comprising the steps of:
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responsive to a first command, reconfiguring a plurality of windows to present a first three dimensional visual representation of windows overlapping in a visual stack, a first window of the plurality of windows in the visual stack has focus and is a top window of the Z-order, wherein the step of reconfiguring responsive to the first command includes transitioning a two dimensional visual representation of each of the plurality of windows to the first three dimensional representation using animation; and responsive to a second command, reconfiguring the plurality of windows to present a second three dimensional visual representation of windows overlapping in the visual stack, which includes a second window of the plurality of windows that is in focus and becomes the top window of the Z-order and a third window that is absent from the display screen when the first three dimensional visual representation is presented, the third window is an addition in the Z-order and is a visual part of the second three dimensional visual representation, wherein the step of reconfiguring responsive to the second command includes transitioning from the first three dimensional visual representation to the second three dimensional visual representation using animation. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A method for concurrently displaying a plurality of windows on a display screen, the method comprising in order the steps of:
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responsive to a first command, reconfiguring a plurality of windows to present a first three dimensional visual representation of the windows overlapping, wherein the plurality of windows are arranged in Z-order based on distance from an edge of the display screen; responsive to a second command, reconfiguring the plurality of windows to present a second three dimensional visual representation of the windows overlapping, in which a window is located in a different position wherein more content of the window is revealed than in the first three dimensional visual representation while all of the windows presented in the first three dimensional visual representation are presented in the second three dimensional visual representation, - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35)
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36. A computer readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for performing a method of concurrently displaying a plurality of windows for a plurality of applications on a display screen when executed by a computer, the method comprising the steps of:
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determining that a number of open windows exceeds a threshold number; responsive to a command to initiate visual window browsing, determining a z-ordering of the number of open windows and presenting only the threshold number of open windows in a three dimensional visual stack representation on a display in accordance with the z-ordering, wherein the topmost window of the three dimensional visual stack is in focus and the open windows are arranged alphabetically by application title; listening for a command to preview contents of a specific window in three-dimensional visual stack or a command to browse to another window in the z-ordering; responsive to a command to preview contents of a specific window in the three-dimensional visual stack that is not the topmost window, revealing additional content of the specific window for a predetermined amount of time; and responsive to a command to browse to another window in the z-ordering, determining a next window in z-ordering to be in focus, moving the next window to top of three dimensional visual stack, setting focus to the next window, and moving the topmost window that was previously in focus to the bottom of the three dimensional visual stack. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38, 39, 40)
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Specification