MULTI-FINGER TOUCHPAD GESTURES

• US 20160085438A1
• Filed: 09/23/2014
• Published: 03/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Doan, Christopher, Worley, Matthew I., Donahue, Tyler J., Sanghai, Nidhi S., Vranjes, Miron, Sappington, Emily Grace, Karol, Sohit, Slemon, Matthew Kiichi, Mittereder, Andrew P.
• Granted Patent: US 10,296,206 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• 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

A multi-finger touchpad gesture refers to a movement of multiple fingers in a particular pattern across a touchpad. The touchpad senses the multiple fingers, and based on the sensed finger locations and finger movements, one of multiple multi-finger touchpad gestures is detected. A user interface being presented on a display is altered as appropriate in response to the detected multi-finger touchpad gesture. Various different multi-finger touchpad gestures can be detected. The multi-finger touchpad gestures can include a gesture that traverses different hierarchical views of the operating system user interface, a gesture that switches between two recent windows, a gesture that traverses a back stack of windows, a gesture that displays a window selection view and selects a particular window, and a gesture that moves a window to a different location (including snapping a window to an edge or corner of the display).

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a user input that is a gesture on a touchpad, the user input comprising multiple fingers sensed by the touchpad concurrently for at least part of the gesture and moving in a particular pattern across the touchpad;

determining, based on a pattern of the user input, which of multiple multi-finger touchpad gestures is indicated by the user input, the determining including;

changing, in response to the indicated gesture being a traverse hierarchical views multi-finger touchpad gesture, to a different hierarchical view of an operating system user interface of the computing device;

switching, in response to the indicated gesture being a switch between recent windows multi-finger touchpad gesture or a traverse back stack of windows multi-finger touchpad gesture, to a different one of multiple windows in a back stack of windows, the back stack of windows comprising an indication of an order in which windows on the computing device were most recently a current window;

displaying, in response to the indicated gesture being a scrubbing window selection multi-finger touchpad gesture, a window selection view including multiple thumbnails of windows of the computing device via which directional movement on the touchpad can result in selecting one of the multiple thumbnails and switching to the window represented by the selected thumbnail;

or

moving, in response to the indicated gesture being a window movement multi-finger touchpad gesture, the current window to a user-selected location on the display.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, the determining comprising determining that the indicated gesture is a switch between recent windows multi-finger touchpad gesture or a traverse back stack of windows multi-finger touchpad gesture, and the switching comprising:

identifying the current window;

identifying a most recently used previous window; and

switching, in response to the indicated gesture being a switch between recent windows multi-finger touchpad gesture, the most recently used previous window to be the current window.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, further comprising repeatedly switching, in response to each subsequent user input that is a switch between recent windows multi-finger touchpad gesture, the most recently used previous window to be the current window.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, the determining comprising determining that the indicated gesture is a switch between recent windows multi-finger touchpad gesture or a traverse back stack of windows multi-finger touchpad gesture, and the switching comprising, in response to the indicated gesture being a traverse back stack of windows multi-finger touchpad gesture:

determining in which of two directions the multiple fingers are moved, the two directions being approximately opposite one another;

making, in response to the direction of movement being a first direction of the two directions, a next more recently used window in the back stack of windows the current window; and

making, in response to the direction of movement being a second direction of the two directions, a next less recently used window in the back stack of windows the current window.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, the determining comprising determining that the indicated gesture is a window movement multi-finger touchpad gesture, and the moving comprising:

moving the current window in a direction of movement of the user input; and

using, in response to the multiple fingers no longer being sensed by the touchpad, a location of the current window when the multiple fingers are no longer sensed by the touchpad as the user-selected location of the current window.

6. A method as recited in claim 5, the user input comprising freeform movement of the current window anywhere on the display.

7. A method as recited in claim 5, the user input comprising movement to do one of:

snap the current window to an edge of the display, minimize the window, and maximize the window.

8. A method as recited in claim 5, the user input comprising movement to snap the current window to a corner of the display.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, the touchpad comprising an input-only device.

10. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

receive a user input that is a gesture on a touchpad, the user input comprising multiple fingers concurrently moving across the touchpad for at least part of the gesture,

determine whether a direction of movement is in one of two directions, the two directions being approximately opposite one another,

change a view of the operating system user interface to a next higher hierarchical view of multiple operating system UI hierarchical views in response to the direction of movement being a first direction of the two directions, and

change a view of the operating system user interface to a next lower hierarchical view of the multiple operating system UI hierarchical views in response to the direction of movement being a second direction of the two directions.

11. A device as recited in claim 10, the multiple operating system UI hierarchical views comprising, in order from lower hierarchical view to higher hierarchical view:

a base layer in which a desktop surface is displayed, a window view in which open windows are displayed, and a window selection view in which representations of open windows are displayed.

12. A device as recited in claim 11, the multiple operating system UI hierarchical views comprising, as a next higher hierarchical view from the window selection view, a virtual desktop view in which multiple different desktops are displayed.

13. A device as recited in claim 10, the first direction of the two directions comprising an up direction, and the second direction of the two directions comprising a down direction.

14. A device as recited in claim 10, the computing device including the touchpad.

15. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon multiple instructions that, responsive to execution by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations including;

receiving a first part of a user input that is a gesture on a touchpad, the first part of the user input comprising multiple fingers concurrently moving across the touchpad for at least part of the gesture,

displaying, in response to the first part of the user input, a window selection view including multiple representations of windows of the device,

receiving a second part of the user input that is a directional movement on the touchpad, at least one of the multiple fingers that was sensed by the touchpad during the first part of the user input remaining sensed by the touchpad during the second part of the user input,

identifying selection of one of the windows represented in the window selection view, and

making the selected one window a current window.

16. A device as recited in claim 15, for each of the multiple representations, the representation of a window displaying information regarding the window.

17. A device as recited in claim 15, the operations further comprising:

highlighting, in response to the directional movement, different ones of the multiple representations; and

the identifying comprising identifying, as the selected one window, a window represented by a highlighted representation at the time when the multiple fingers are no longer sensed by the touchpad.

18. A device as recited in claim 15, the second part of the user input comprising directional movement of a number of fingers that is less than a number of fingers in the first part of the user input that is the gesture.

19. A device as recited in claim 15, the touchpad being a separate device from a display device on which the window selection view is displayed.

20. A device as recited in claim 15, the touchpad comprising an input-only device.