Global user interface
First Claim
1. In a computing system having one or more windows, each of which displays text from a file belonging to a file system in which each file has one of a plurality of file contexts which are employed by the file system to locate the file, a method for providing an input to the computer system comprising the steps of:
- associating each window with the file context for the file whose text is being displayed therein;
receiving a portion of the text selected by a user from anywhere in any given one of the windows; and
automatically providing as the input the portion together with the file context for the given one of the windows.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system which is a combination of editor, window system, shell, and user interface and which provides a novel environment for the construction of textual applications such as browsers, debuggers, mailers, and so on. The system combines an extremely lean user interface with some automatic heuristics and defaults to achieve significant effects with minimal mouse and keyboard activity. The user interface is driven by a file-oriented programming interface that may be controlled from programs or even shell scripts. By taking care of user interface issues in a central utility, the system further simplifies the job of programming applications that make use of a bitmap display and mouse.
-
Citations
12 Claims
-
1. In a computing system having one or more windows, each of which displays text from a file belonging to a file system in which each file has one of a plurality of file contexts which are employed by the file system to locate the file, a method for providing an input to the computer system comprising the steps of:
-
associating each window with the file context for the file whose text is being displayed therein; receiving a portion of the text selected by a user from anywhere in any given one of the windows; and automatically providing as the input the portion together with the file context for the given one of the windows. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
-
-
7. A graphical user interface for a computer system having a file system in which each file has one of a plurality of file contexts which are employed by the file system to locate the file, the graphical user interface comprising:
-
one or more windows, each window displaying text from a file in the file system and being associated with the file context for the file whose text is being displayed therein; pointing means for specifying a position in one of the windows and including text selection means for selecting text at the position and specifying the use of the selected text in the computer system; and means responsive to the pointing means for automatically providing the selected text from any one of the windows together with the file context associated with that window to be employed in the computer system as specified by the text selection means. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
-
Specification