Mobile communication terminal and method

• US 20060262146A1
• Filed: 06/22/2005
• Published: 11/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Liu, Wei, Popescu, Andrei, Grassel, Guido, Vaisanen, Matti, Roto, Virpi, Koivisto, Antti J., Pajunen, Lasse
• Application Number:
  US11/158,921
• Publication Number:
  US 20060262146A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/676
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/00 Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units program control for peripheral devices G06F13/10

Abstract

It is shown a method to move focus from a first user interface element to a second user interface element shown on a display of a mobile communication terminal, said mobile communication terminal further comprising an input device. The method comprises the steps of: detecting a directional input via said input device, said input indicating a desired direction to move; determining a set of candidate user interface elements being eligible to receive focus; for each candidate user interface element in said set of candidate user interface elements, determining a weighted distance between said candidate user interface element and said first user interface element by applying a function including, as an input parameter, an overlap between said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element in a direction orthogonal to said desired direction; and determining said second user interface element to be a particular candidate user interface element in said set of candidate user interface elements that has a minimum weighted distance to said first user interface element.

Claims

1. A method to move focus from a first user interface element to a second user interface element shown on a display of a mobile communication terminal, said mobile communication terminal further comprising an input device, said method comprising the steps of:

detecting a directional input via said input device, said input indicating a desired direction to move;

determining a set of candidate user interface elements being eligible to receive focus;

for each candidate user interface element in said set of candidate user interface elements, determining a weighted distance between said candidate user interface element and said first user interface element by applying a function including, as an input parameter, an overlap between said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element in a direction orthogonal to said desired direction; and

determining said second user interface element to be a particular candidate user interface element in said set of candidate user interface elements that has a minimum weighted distance to said first user interface element.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said mobile communication terminal further comprises a current focus position related to said first user interface element, said method comprising the further step of:

determining a new focus position related to said second user interface element, such that a component distance, along an axis orthogonal to said desired direction, of an absolute distance between said current focus position and said new focus position, is minimized.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein in said step of determining a new focus position, said new focus position is determined such that it is placed inside said second user interface element, at least a margin distance from any border thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of detecting an input involves detecting an input from a directional input device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said step of detecting an input involves detecting an input from a device selected from the group consisting of a four way input device, a five way input device, an eight way input device, a nine way input device, a joystick, a joypad and a navigation key.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said overlap between said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element in a direction orthogonal to said desired direction is restricted to an overlap being visible on said display.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

providing a visual representation of said focus position on said display.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said visual representation is a graphical symbol.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step, after said step of detecting an input, of:

determining a search area in a currently displayed document in which said first and second user interface elements are included, wherein said step of determining a set of candidate user interface elements is confined to user interface elements included in said search area.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said search area is a combination of a part of said document currently visible on said display and a part of said document that would be visible if said document is scrolled in said desired direction.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said applied function is:

dist_basic+dist_parallel+2*dist_orthogonal−

√

{square root over (overlap)},

wherein dist_basic is a Euclidian distance between a current focus position related to said first user interface element and a candidate focus position related to said candidate user interface element;

dist_parallel is a component along an axis parallel to said desired direction of a distance between a first point of said first user interface element utmost in said desired direction and a second point of said candidate user interface element utmost in a direction opposite said desired direction;

dist_orthogonal is a component along an axis orthogonal to said desired direction of a distance between a third point, which may be the same as said first point, of said first user interface element closest to said candidate user interface element and a fourth point, which may be the same as said second point, of said candidate user interface element closest to said first user interface element; and

overlap is a distance of overlap between said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element in a direction orthogonal to said desired direction.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein dist_parallel is set to 0 if said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element overlap in a direction parallel to said desired direction.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein dist_orthogonal is set to 0 if said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element overlap in a direction orthogonal to said desired direction.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein if a component of said current focus position on an axis orthogonal to said desired direction equals a component of said candidate focus position on an axis orthogonal to said desired direction, dist_basic is determined to be 0.

16. A computer program product, directly loadable into a memory of a digital computer, comprising software code portions for performing a method according to claim 1.

15. A mobile communication terminal comprising a display and an input device, said terminal being configured to allow movement of focus from a first user interface element to a second user interface element shown on said display, said terminal furthermore comprising:

means for detecting a directional input via said input device, said input indicating a desired direction to move;

means for determining a set of candidate user interface elements being eligible to receive focus;

means for determining, for each candidate user interface element in said set of candidate user interface elements, a weighted distance between said candidate user interface element and said first user interface element by applying a function including, as an input parameter, an overlap between said first user interface element and said candidate user interface element in a direction orthogonal to said desired direction; and

means for determining said second user interface element to be a particular candidate user interface element in said set of candidate user interface elements that has a minimum weighted distance to said first user interface element.