Exclusive use display surface areas and persistently visible display of contents including advertisements

• US 7,523,415 B1
• Filed: 03/02/2000
• Issued: 04/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.
• Original Assignee: Hall Aluminum LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Porter, Swain W.
• Primary Examiner(s): SAX, STEVEN PAUL
• Application Number:
  US09/517,874
• Time in Patent Office: 3,337 Days
• Field of Search: 345/781, 345/803, 345/804, 345790-797, 345/788, 345/805, 345/806, 345/807, 345/802, 345/767, 345/966, 345/965, 345/619, 704/276, 725/37
• US Class Current: 715/806
• 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 3/04812 Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/14 Display of multiple viewports

Abstract

In a computer system having a display device with a display surface, a portion of the display surface is reserved for an exclusive use by a program, to allow contents rendered by the program to be persistently visible. In one embodiment, the reservation is accomplished through reducing the width and height of a shared portion of the display surface managed by a window manager, corresponding to a graphics resolution. In another embodiment, the reservation is accomplished by having the window manager work with a pixel resolution smaller than the operative pixel resolution of the display device driver. In one embodiment, the reservation is made only while the computer system is “on-line”. In one embodiment, the exclusive use is to render advertisements in the reserved portion by an advertising rendering program. The advertisements are HTML pages received from an advertisement web server through the Internet. The HTML pages are rendered in the reserved portion through a direct draw component. The direct draw component is provided with the unreduced width and height as the width and height of the surface area to support direct drawing of displays. A cursor control device driver also supports monitoring of movements of a cursor control device and of occurrences of cursor events. The cursor control device driver is likewise provided with the unreduced width and height as the width and height of the surface area to monitor for cursor movements and events. In other embodiments, multiple portions of the display surface are reserved for advertising and/or other exclusive uses. In yet other embodiments, full screen applications, including those that utilize page flipping are accommodated.

Claims

1. A method to be performed on a computer system having a display device, the method comprising:

reserving a first portion of a primary display area of a display surface of the display device, the primary display area being controllable by an operating system and to be dedicated for exclusive use and control by a first application program that is not part of said operating system, excluding all other programs, including said operating system, from using or controlling said reserved first portion of operating system controllable primary display area, and the display surface further has an overscan area that is not controllable by the operating system; and

maintaining said first portion for exclusive use by said first application program, as long as the first portion is reserved for exclusive use by the first application program, until a new reservation is made for said first portion, or until said first portion is released from the reservation made by said reserving.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said reserving comprises requesting a window manager to switch to a display mode having a smaller pixel configuration.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said reserving further comprises aborting a responsive request by the window manager to a display device driver to configure a display hardware to said smaller pixel configuration.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said reserving further comprises pre-alerting a display area manager of said display mode switch request to said window manager.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein

the method further comprises determining if a first event has occurred;

and

said reserving is performed only if the first event is determined to have occurred.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the method further comprises

determining if a second event has occurred;

and

unreserving said first portion of the operating system controllable primary display area for use by said first application program if the second event is determined to have occurred.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said unreserving comprises requesting a window manager to switch to a display mode having a larger pixel configuration.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said unreserving further comprises aborting a responsive request by the window manager to a display device driver to configure a display hardware to said larger pixel configuration.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein said reserving further comprises pre-alerting an display area manager of said display mode switch request to said window manager.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises

monitoring for a request by an application to change a display mode to a full screen mode;

and

notifying said first application program to temporarily stop rendering contents in said reserved first portion of the operating system controllable primary display area.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises

monitoring for a request by an application to change a display mode from a full screen mode to a normal mode;

and

notifying said first application program to resume rendering contents in said reserved first portion of the operating system controllable primary display area.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises

monitoring for a request by an application to change a display mode to a full screen mode;

and

upon detecting such as request, intercepting all page flipping calls by said application, and forwarding each of said page flipping calls onward only after said first application program has updated a back buffer.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the method further comprises interacting with said full screen mode requesting application to maintain said reserved first portion of the operating system controllable primary display area.

21. An article of manufacture comprising:

a processor readable storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of programming instructions to be executed by a processor reading the programming instructions from the storage medium, wherein when executed, perform the operations set forth in claim 1.

14. A method to be performed on a computer system having a display device, the method comprising:

pre-alerting a display area manager of a display mode switch request to a window manager;

submitting said display mode switch request to said window manager; and

aborting a responsive request by the window manager to a display device driver to configure a display hardware in accordance with said display mode switch request, to effectuate reservation of an area of a primary display area of a display surface of the display device, the primary display area being controllable by the operating system and to be dedicated for exclusive use and control by an application program that is not part of the operating system, excluding all other programs, including the operating system, from using or controlling the reserved area of the operating system controllable primary display area, and the display surface further has an overscan area that is not controllable by the operating system.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said display mode switch request is a request to switch to a selected one of a smaller and a larger pixel configuration.

22. An article of manufacture comprising:

a processor readable storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of programming instructions to be executed by a processor reading the programming instructions from the storage medium, wherein when executed, perform the operations set forth in claim 14.

16. A method to be performed on a computer system having a display device, the method comprising:

determining if a first event has occurred;

operating the display device with a primary display area of a display surface of the display device, the primary display area being controllable by the operating system, the primary display area further having one or more display areas whose contents are persistently visible and controlled by a first application program that is not part of the operating system, excluding all other programs, including the operating system, from using or controlling the one or more display areas, if the first event is determined to have occurred, and the display surface further has an overscan area that is not controllable by the operating system;

determining if a second event has occurred; and

operating the display device with the primary display area having no display area whose contents are persistently visible and controlled by an application program that is not part of the operating system, excluding all other programs, including the operating system, from using or controlling, if the second event is determined to have occurred.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein said operating of the display device with the operating system controllable primary display area having one or more display areas whose contents are persistently visible and controlled by a first application program further comprises accommodating the first application program to operate in a full screen mode.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said accommodating comprises temporarily suspending rendering contents into said display areas.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein said accommodating comprises interacting with said first application program that operates in a full screen mode to at least partially maintain said display areas.

23. An article of manufacture comprising:

a processor readable storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of programming instructions to be executed by a processor reading the programming instructions from the storage medium, wherein when executed, perform the operations set forth in claim 16.

20. A method to be performed on a computer system having a display device, the method comprising:

intercepting a page flipping call by an application that is not part of the operating system, operating in a full screen mode;

updating locations of a back buffer unused by said application with contents to be persistently visible in an area of a primary display area of a display surface of the display device, the primary display area being controllable by the operating system, the primary display are being reserved for use and control by the application, excluding all other programs, including the operating system, form using or controlling the reserved area of the operating system controllable primary display area, and the display surface further has an overscan area that is not controllable by the operating system; and

forwarding said page flipping call onward after said updating.

24. An article of manufacture comprising:

a processor readable storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of programming instructions to be executed by a processor reading the programming instructions from the storage medium, wherein when executed, perform the operations set forth in claim 20.

25. An apparatus comprising:

a storage medium having stored therein a plurality of programming instructions designed to implement a display device driver to render displays on an operating system controllable primary display area of a display device, and a use manager to cooperate with said display device driver to effectuate reservation of a first sub-portion of said operating system controllable primary display area to be dedicated for exclusive use or control by an application program that is not part of the operating system, excluding all other programs, including the operating system, from using or controlling the reserved first sub-portion of said operating system controllable primary display area, and to maintain said first sub-portion for exclusive use by said application program, as long as the first sub-portion is reserved for exclusive use by the application program, until a new reservation is made for said first sub-portion, or until said first portion is released from the reservation made by said reserving, the display device further having an overscan area not controlled by the operating system; and

a processor coupled to the display device and the storage medium to execute the programming instructions.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the use manager is equipped to receive an alert of a display mode change request from a window manager to said display device driver, and in response, upon intercepting said display mode change request, aborting said display mode change request.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the use manager is equipped to monitor for a display mode change request to enter a full screen mode of operation from an application, and in response, notifying applications associated with said use display areas to temporarily suspend rendering contents into said use display areas.

28. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the use manager is equipped to monitor for a display mode change request to enter a full screen mode of operation from an application, and interact with said application to at least partially maintain said display areas.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the use manager is further equipped to intercept page flipping calls by said application, and facilitating rendering of contents into said display areas by applications associated with the display areas prior to forwarding the intercepted page flipping calls.

30. An apparatus, comprising:

a storage medium having stored therein a plurality of programming instructions designed to reserve a first portion of a primary display area of a display surface of a display device, the primary display area being controllable by an operating system and to be dedicated for exclusive use and control by a first application program that is not part of said operating system, excluding all other programs, including said operating system, from using or controlling said reserved first portion of operating system controllable primary display area, and the display surface further has an overscan area that is not controllable by the operating system; and

to maintain said first portion for exclusive use by said first application program, as long as the first portion is reserved for exclusive use by the first application program, until a new reservation is made for said first portion, or until said first portion is released from the reservation made by said reserving; and

a processor coupled to the storage medium to execute the programming instructions.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, further comprising a display device coupled to the processor.

32. An apparatus, comprising:

means for reserving a first portion of a primary display area of a display surface of the display device, the primary display area being controllable by an operating system and to be dedicated for exclusive use and control by a first application program that is not part of said operating system, excluding all other programs, including said operating system, from using or controlling said reserved first portion of operating system controllable primary display area, and the display surface further has an overscan area that is not controllable by the operating system; and

means for maintaining said first portion for exclusive use by said first application program, as long as the first portion is reserved for exclusive use by the first application program, until a new reservation is made for said first portion, or until said first portion is released from the reservation made by said reserving.