BLOCK-BASED CONTENT SELECTING TECHNIQUE FOR TOUCH SCREEN UI

• US 20140173484A1
• Filed: 12/14/2012
• Published: 06/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Barnes & Noble College Booksellers LLC (Barnes & Noble Education, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nook Digital, LLC (f/k/a Barnesandnoble.com LLC) (Bahwan CyberTek Pvt Ltd.)
• Inventors: Hicks, Kourtny M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,134,893 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/769
• 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 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for providing a content selecting mode in electronic touch screen devices. The content may be, for instance, text, graphics, images, files, and/or other consumable content. The user can engage the mode with a combination of gestures and touch points on the touch screen. The combination may include, for example, multiple initial touch points within a given content block, followed by a dragging gesture that moves the touch points into or otherwise within the given content block, wherein the entire content block is then highlighted/selected. The initial touch points may touch, for instance, any piece of content within that block and the subsequent dragging gesture moves those initial touch points toward another piece of content within that block. As the drag continues into other blocks, so does selecting. The techniques can be used, for example, to select entire sentences or paragraphs or other content blocks.

Claims

1. A device, comprising:

a touch screen display for displaying content to a user and allowing user input; and

a user interface including a content selecting mode that can be activated in response to user contact via the touch screen display, the user contact including an initial touch point targeting a block of displayed content and that transitions into a dragging touch point within the block of content, wherein the content selecting mode is configured to cause the entire block of displayed content to be selected.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the content selecting mode is configured to treat the multiple dragging touch points as a navigation gesture in response to those dragging touch points encountering a page break in the content.

3. The device of claim 2 wherein a next page that is provided in response to the navigation gesture is fully selected.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein the content selecting mode is further configured to provide a selection action user interface feature to be displayed to the user, the selection action user interface feature being executable on the selected content.

5. The device of claim 1 wherein at least one of the initial touch point and/or the dragging touch point are user-configurable with respect to number of touch points provided.

6. The device of claim 1 wherein the initial touch point and the dragging touch point each includes two or more touch points.

7. The device of claim 1 wherein the content selecting mode is further configured to cause a selection page count to be displayed on each selected page of the content when multiple pages are selected, the selection page count corresponding to the number of pages included in the selected content and starting at page one.

8. The device of claim 1 wherein the selected content remains selected until the content selecting mode is affirmatively terminated.

9. The device of claim 1 wherein the initial touch point includes a press-and-hold gesture, a diagonal gesture, and/or a circular gesture.

10. The device of claim 1 wherein the selected content advances past the dragging touch point.

11. The device of claim 1 wherein the device is an eReader device or a tablet computer or a smartphone.

12. A mobile electronic device, comprising:

a touch screen display for displaying content to a user and allowing user input; and

a user interface including a content selecting mode that can be activated in response to user contact via the touch screen display, the user contact including an initial touch point targeting a block of displayed content and that transitions into multiple dragging touch points within the block of displayed content, wherein the content selecting mode is configured to cause the entire block of displayed content to be selected, such that the selected content advances past the dragging touch points;

wherein the content selecting mode is further configured to cause a piece of displayed content touched by the initial touch point to be highlighted after a brief delay from application of the initial touch point, or once the multiple dragging touch points are applied, or once the multiple dragging touch points begin to move.

13. The device of claim 12 wherein the content selecting mode is further configured to provide a selection action user interface feature to be displayed to the user, the selection action user interface feature being executable on the selected content.

14. The device of claim 12 wherein at least one of the initial touch point and/or the multiple dragging touch points are user-configurable with respect to number of touch points.

15. The device of claim 12 wherein the content selecting mode is further configured to cause a selection page count to be displayed on each selected page of the content when multiple pages are selected, the selection page count corresponding to the number of pages included in the selected content and starting at page one.

16. The device of claim 12 wherein the initial touch point includes a press-and-hold gesture, a diagonal gesture, and/or a circular gesture.

17. A computer readable medium encoded with instructions that when executed by one or more processors, cause a content selecting process to be carried out, the process comprising:

in response to user contact via a touch sensitive display device, activating a content selecting mode in the device, the user contact including an initial touch point targeting a block of displayed content and that transitions into a dragging touch point within the block of displayed content; and

selecting the entire block of displayed content.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17 wherein the content selecting process further includes treating the multiple dragging touch points as a navigation gesture in response to those dragging touch points encountering a page break in the content.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 17 wherein the content selecting process further includes causing a selection page count to be displayed on each selected page of the content when multiple pages are selected, the selection page count corresponding to the number of pages included in the selected content and starting at page one.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 17 wherein causing the entire block of displayed content to be selected includes selecting content that the dragging touch point has not yet touched.