Methods and apparatus for displaying relative emphasis in a file

• US 7,836,408 B1
• Filed: 04/14/2004
• Issued: 11/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Patel, Sanjay K., Slingerland, Nathan T., Ollmann, Ian R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tan; Alvin H
• Application Number:
  US10/825,251
• Time in Patent Office: 2,407 Days
• Field of Search: 715/787
• US Class Current: 715/787
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04855 Interaction with scrollbars

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for providing a scroll bar including a plurality of locations corresponding to a plurality of locations in a file are disclosed. One or more location criteria that are obtained are used to identify one or more desired locations in the file. One or more display criteria to be applied to designate the one or more desired locations are identified. In addition, one or more desired locations in the file are located according to the location criteria. The scroll bar is then displayed by applying the display criteria to one or more locations of the scroll bar corresponding to the desired locations in the file.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

calculating the number of times a key word or phrase appears in a file, the file having a plurality of locations and comprising at least one of the key word or phrase;

for each of the locations of the file;

calculating the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location; and

dividing the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location by the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file to arrive at a relative importance value for the location; and

displaying a vertical scroll bar having a scroll thumb, the scroll bar having a plurality of segments each of which is visually distinctive and associated with one of the plurality of locations having one of the relative importance values, each segment being about the width of the scroll bar and indicating to a user a relative importance of the associated location of the file with respect to other locations in the file based on the relative importance value of the associated location of the file, by scanning only in a vertical direction, wherein in order to navigate directly to a particular file location having one of the relative importance values, a user views only the plurality of segments in the scroll bar, identifies a visually distinctive segment corresponding to the specific relative importance value, and moves the scroll thumb only in a vertical direction directly to the visually distinctive segment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the segments are displayed using a different color for different levels of relative importance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the segments are displayed using a different intensity for different levels of relative importance.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the segments are displayed using a different transparency setting for different levels of relative importance.

5. A method comprising:

identifying locations of interest within a file, the file comprising at least one key word or phrase;

calculating a relative importance value for each of the locations of interest relative to each other, the calculating comprising;

determining the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file;

calculating the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location; and

dividing the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location by the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file;

displaying a content window containing a section of the file;

displaying a vertical scroll bar having a scroll thumb movable vertically in the scroll bar;

displaying location objects within the scroll bar each of which corresponds to one of the locations of interest of the file having one of the calculated relative importance values, wherein each of the location objects is about the width of the scroll bar, includes visual indications of a relative importance of the corresponding location in the file based on the calculated relative importance value for the corresponding location, and can be scanned by a user in a vertical direction to determine the relative importance of the corresponding location of interest, such that, when the scroll thumb is manipulated to one of the location objects, the section of the file displayed in the content window changes to a section corresponding to the one of the location objects within the scroll bar.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the locations of interest are identified based on keyword matches.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the locations of interest identify one or more errors in the file.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the locations of interest identify one or more warnings in the file.

9. A graphical user interface stored on a computer readable storage medium comprising:

a content display window, wherein the content display window shows content from a file, the file comprising at least one key word or phrase;

a vertical scroll bar, wherein the scroll bar contains a scroll thumb and a plurality of location objects each of which corresponds to a location of interest within the file having a calculated relative importance value, wherein each of the location objects is about the width of the scroll bar, includes visual indications of a relative importance of the corresponding location in the file based on the calculated relative importance value for the corresponding location, and indicates the relative importance of the corresponding location of interest in comparison to other locations in the file through the use of varying display criteria for location objects based on the relative importance values of the corresponding locations of interest, wherein the relative importance values are calculated by;

determining the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file;

for each of the locations of interest of the file;

calculating the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location; and

dividing the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location by the number of times a key word or phrase appears in the file to arrive at the relative importance value for the location.

10. The graphical user interface of claim 9, wherein the location objects are uniform horizontal lines within the vertical scroll bar.

11. The graphical user interface of claim 9, wherein the display criteria for a particular location object is varied based on a non-linear function applied to the relative importance of the corresponding location of interest.

12. The graphical user interface of claim 9, wherein the display criteria are user-configurable.

13. An apparatus, comprising:

a display;

a file storage storing a file; and

a processor configured to;

identify locations of interest within the file, the file comprising at least one key word or phrase;

calculate the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file;

for each of the locations of interest of the file;

calculate the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location; and

divide the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location by the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file

to arrive at a relative importance value for the location; and

cause the display to display a scroll bar having a scroll thumb and a plurality of location objects, wherein each location object is about the width of the scroll bar and corresponds to one of the identified locations of interest within the file having one of the relative importance values, wherein each location object indicates a relative importance of the corresponding identified location of interest to a user without the user needing to scan in any direction other than along the scroll bar, the relative importance based on the relative importance value of the corresponding identified location of interest in the file.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to:

cause the display to display a background display criteria in areas of the scroll bar that do not have a location object or a scroll thumb.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the file is a text file.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the relative importance of the locations of interest are normalized prior to determining a display criteria to display when displaying the location objects corresponding to the locations of interest.

17. A computer readable storage medium storing executable computer code for using a scroll bar appearance to directly display file information, wherein the computer readable storage medium comprises:

executable computer code for obtaining one or more location criteria comprising a key word or phrase to identify a plurality of desired locations in a file, the file comprising at least one of the key word or phrase;

executable computer code for identifying one or more scroll bar display criteria for changing an appearance of location objects within the scroll bar to designate the plurality of desired locations in the file, wherein each location object is about the width of the scroll bar and corresponds to one of the identified desired locations, each location having a relative importance and wherein the change of appearance of each location object is based upon the relative importance of the corresponding desired location with respect to other location objects, wherein the relative importance of each of the locations is determined by;

determining the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file;

calculating the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location; and

dividing the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the location by the number of times the key word or phrase appears in the file;

executable computer code for locating the plurality of desired locations in the file according to the one or more location criteria.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising:

executable computer code for obtaining one or more user-defined parameters to which to apply to the display criteria.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the display criteria distinguish between relative importance levels at the pixel level.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the display criteria distinguish between relative importance levels at the sub-pixel level.