EXPLODED VIEWS FOR PROVIDING RICH REGULARIZED GEOMETRIC TRANSFORMATIONS AND INTERACTION MODELS ON CONTENT FOR VIEWING, PREVIEWING, AND INTERACTING WITH DOCUMENTS, PROJECTS, AND TASKS

• US 20090064024A1
• Filed: 10/27/2008
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cheng, Lili, Horvitz, Eric J., Wu, Jia-Chi
• Granted Patent: US 8,707,204 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/771
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and method to facilitate efficient and automated presentation of information to users. A decomposition component automatically decomposes an information item into sets of subcomponents in a two- or three-dimensional isometric space, and generates visualizations having interactive graphics that allow users to inspect respective subcomponents. Interface features are provided to enable hover, dwell, and clicking commands, for example, providing a variety of options to zoom in, or change configurations of the visualization in accordance with the users intentions or inferences about what they desire to see or inspect more closely. Beyond the use of decompositions into exploded views of the content of items typically viewed as singular documents, the methods can be applied to perform geometric transformations on visualizations of multiple windows and other resources based on content and activity to provide regularized visualizations of the multiple items. Such exploded views can provide visual geometric summaries of projects, and a set of handles into accessing more detail on the subcomponents of the project.

Claims

1. A data presentation system, comprising:

a decomposition component that automatically segregates information items into a collection of subcomponents relating to a project or task; and

an interface component to render the subcomponents in a graphical manner to facilitate user processing and interaction with the project or task.

2. The system of claim 1, the interface component provides an exploded view relating to at least one of project access, task management, previewing information, minimization of information, progressive shrinking of information, and a clean-up function for the exploded view.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a task manager that enables sets of resources, and associated displays of content to be defined as tasks and manipulated together.

4. The system of claim 3, the task manager enables closing and opening of tasks or projects involving a re-generation of windows with associated content at locations the windows were in before a project was closed.

5. The system of claim 3, the task manager is associated with a task management and recovery system that enables users to define tasks or projects with content from one or more applications.

6. The system of claim 5, the tasks or projects are defined according to at least one of explicitly, based on a task definition procedure via an interface, or implicitly by linking tasks to particular applications, or by observing which resources and applications are used together.

7. The system of claim 6, further comprising mixes of implicit or explicit definitions that include allowing a user to invoke a “

Save as Project”

operation that lists recently touched or opened resources, including windows and content rendered that is currently being displayed on a user'"'"'s screen.

8. The system of claim 3, the task manager includes a Save as Project operation that allows a user to add new resources or to remove resources that have been assumed as part of a task.

9. The system of claim 1, the interface component enables for definitions of persistent projects that include one or more computational and associated display resources, that allow users to open, close, and swap projects.

10. The system of claim 1, the interface component provides an option to clean up and redisplay projects that are revisited—

or reconfigured and normalized with an explicit “

Clean up project,”

procedure.

11. The system of claim 1, the interface component provides at least one of the following options:

a component for viewing windows and other resources associated with a project, when the project is stored for later re-visitation, or is minimized into a small, iconic representation of the multiple windows and other resources associated with the project;

a component for tasks or projects that allow review of multiple projects by users, when a user desires to view a list of stored projects;

a component to allow for access to a preview of a project in a manner that allows a user to access a particular portion of the project;

a component that enables a user to focus one or more full screens of a computer display on a single project by swapping, with simple gestures, the project, along with a geometric layout of resources associated with the project, into view and swapping out or minimizing other resources associated with other tasks or projects; and

a component to regularize a view on a project when it has been swapped out of focus.