Selective window exclusion for captured content

• US 20070234212A1
• Filed: 03/31/2006
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: de Souza, Jeremy, Wright, Stephen, Santiago, Pravin
• Granted Patent: US 7,689,926 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/703
• 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

Abstract

Described is the selective exclusion of content returned in a requested screen capture operation, wherein exclusion may be determined by a window category and the requesting application program. For example, a magnification program will not received content captured from its own layered window or from any other layered magnification windows. A registration mechanism obtains and maintains a window handle for any window registered for exclusion. A screen capture mechanism uses the information to determine whether to exclude the content of windows when returning the captured screen content. Exclusion may be accomplished by enumerating areas that are not covered by any layered window and copying those areas to a screen representation buffer or the like, and separately enumerating areas that are covered by at least one layered window. A covered area is only copied to the screen representation when it does not correspond to an excluded window.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

maintaining data that identifies each window of a category of one or more windows;

receiving a request to capture screen content; and

returning screen content that excludes the content of at least one window based on the maintained data.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the category corresponds to a layered window of an accessibility program, and wherein maintaining the data comprises maintaining a window handle for the layered window of the accessibility program.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the category corresponds to a layered window of a magnifier program, and wherein maintaining the data comprises maintaining a window handle for the layered window of the magnifier program.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the category corresponds to a set of windows that includes layered windows, including a layered window of a first magnifier program and a layered window for each of at least one other magnifier program, wherein receiving the request to capture screen content comprises receiving the request from the first magnifier program, and wherein returning the screen content comprises excluding the content of each layered window of the category.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein maintaining the data comprises receiving a registration request that identifies the window via a window handle.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein returning the screen content that excludes the content comprises, enumerating first areas that are not covered by any layered window, copying those first areas to a screen representation, enumerating second areas that are covered by at least one layered window, copying those second areas to the screen representation only when those areas do not correspond to an excluded window, and returning the copied screen representation.

7. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

a registration mechanism that maintains information comprising an identifier of at least one window that is registered as belonging to an exclusion category;

a screen capture mechanism that determines whether a request to capture screen content is to exclude each window of the exclusion category; and

an exclusion mechanism that selectively copies screen content for capture by copying screen content corresponding to windows that do not belong to the exclusion category.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the windows that belong to the exclusion category comprise layered magnifier windows.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein at least one layered magnifier window corresponds to a magnification program that occupies a full screen.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein at least one layered magnifier window corresponds to a window of a magnification program that moves with a screen pointer/cursor position.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the windows that do not belong to the exclusion category comprise layered transparent and/or semi-opaque user interface elements.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein each identifier comprises a window handle.

13. The system of claim 7 wherein the exclusion mechanism is incorporated into a kernel mode component.

14. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform steps, comprising:

receiving a registration request to register a window;

registering the window, including maintaining information about the registered window and any other similarly registered window or windows; and

when a request to capture screen content is received that corresponds to a specified window, making a determination from the information as to whether the specified window corresponds to a registered window, and if so, excluding content of each registered window from the captured screen content returned to the specified window in response to the request.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, receiving a request to de-register the window, and in response, de-registering the window.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the registration request is received via a magnification API call.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the registered window and any other similarly registered window or windows correspond to a category of layered magnifier program windows.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the category corresponds to a set of at least two layered windows, wherein the specified window is contained in the set, and wherein returning the screen content comprises excluding the content of each layered window of the category.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein excluding the content comprises, enumerating first areas that are not covered by any layered window, copying those first areas to a screen representation, enumerating second areas that are covered by at least one layered window, copying those second areas to the screen representation only when those areas do not correspond to a registered window, and returning the copied screen representation.