CLOSING, STARTING, AND RESTARTING APPLICATIONS

• US 20140298272A1
• Filed: 03/29/2013
• Published: 10/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sareen, Chaitanya, Worley, Matthew, Vranjes, Miron, Doan, Christopher, Krause, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 9,715,282 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/863
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

Described herein are embodiments that relate to implementation of multi-stage gestures, using multi-stage gestures to control applications, and allowing, under certain conditions, invocation of an open operation (which would normally only open an application or bring an application to the fore) to cause a target application to terminate before being newly opened. A multi-stage gesture may be used to invoke different functions at respective gesture stages of a same input stroke. The functions may be different forms of application “closing”, such as backgrounding or suspending an application, terminating an application, and restarting an application. The restarting (including termination) of an application when the application is opened may be termed a “smart-restart”, which may involve interpreting from specific user activity that a user intends to restart an application.

Claims

1. A method of implementing a multi-stage gesture on a computing device comprising a processor, a display, and an input device, the method comprising:

automatically identifying first-stage gestures by determining that corresponding strokes have;

moved in a first direction;

each time a first-stage gesture is identified automatically triggering a first action on the computing device;

automatically identifying second-stage gestures by determining that corresponding strokes have;

moved in the first direction and ended by dwelling for at least the given time; and

each time a second-stage gesture is identified automatically triggering a second action on the computing device.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

automatically identifying third-stage gestures by determining that corresponding strokes have;

moved in the first direction, dwelled for at least the given time, and moved in a second direction before ending; and

each time a third-stage gesture is identified automatically triggering a third action on the computing device,

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the first action comprises suspending an application on the computing device, the second action comprises terminating an application on the computing device, and the third action comprises re-starting an application on the computing device.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the suspending comprises maintaining an application in memory and causing the application to be at least partially undisplayed, the terminating an application comprises removing the application from memory, and the re-starting comprises removing the application from memory and starting a new execution of the application.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the identifying first-stage gestures further comprises determining that the corresponding strokes have a condition, the condition comprising either having started at a defined area or location, or having moved a threshold distance, wherein strokes that do not satisfy the condition are not identified as first-stage gestures.

6. A method according to claim 2, wherein the identifying the third-stage gestures further comprises determining that the corresponding strokes in the second direction have satisfied a condition, the condition comprising either having ended at a defined location or area, or having ended after moving a threshold distance, wherein strokes that do not satisfy the condition are not identified as second-stage gestures.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein strokes identified as second-stage gestures do not invoke the first action.

8. One or more computer-readable storage medium storing information to enable a computing device comprising a display, storage, and a processor to perform a process, the process comprising:

receiving strokes inputted by a user, each stroke comprising a start, an end, and continuous input therebetween; and

according to features of the strokes, determining when to invoke a first application management procedure and when to invoke a second application management procedure, wherein when a stroke is determined to have a first feature then the first application management procedure is invoked, and when a stroke is determined to have the first feature and the second feature then the second application management procedure is invoked.

9. A computer-readable storage medium according to claim 8, further comprising determining when to invoke a third application management procedure, wherein the second application management feature is if the stroke has the first feature, the second feature, and the third feature.

10. A computer-readable storage medium according to claim 8, wherein when the stroke does not have the second feature then the second application management procedure is not invoked for that completed stroke.

11. A computer-readable storage medium according to claim 9, wherein the first application management procedure hides an application but does not terminate the application, the second application management procedure terminates the application such that the application is neither running nor suspended, and the third application management procedure terminates and starts the application.

12. A computer-readable storage medium according to claim 9, wherein whether a stroke invokes the first, second, or third application management procedure depends on whether the stroke is determined to have the first feature, the second feature, or the third feature.

13. A computer-readable storage medium according to claim 8, the process further comprising displaying a first visual effect responsive to detecting the first feature, displaying a second visual effect responsive to detecting the second feature, and displaying a third visual effect responsive to detecting the third feature.

14. A computer-readable storage medium according to claim 13, wherein the first visual effect comprises displaying a reduced-size representation of the application, the second visual effect comprises displaying a second representation of the application, and the third visual effect comprises displaying a splash screen of the application.

15. A method implemented by a computing device comprising a processor, an input device, storage, and a processor, the method comprising:

automatically determining that a user has instructed the computing device to perform a close operation on an application executing on the computing device, and in response undisplaying the application and suspending execution of the application;

in further response to the close operation, starting monitoring of user interaction with the computing device to automatically determine whether the user has instructed the computing device to open the application.

16. A method according to claim 15, wherein the monitoring includes logic to end the monitoring responsive to detecting a pre-defined type of user interaction without the user having instructed the computing device to open the application.

17. A method according to claim 16, wherein the pre-defined type of user interaction does not occur before the monitoring determines that the user has instructed the computing device to open the application, and when determined that the user has instructed the computing device to open the application the application is terminated and a new execution of the application is started.

18. A method according to claim 17, wherein the instruction to open the application corresponds to a type of open instruction that will cause any arbitrary executing application to be displayed.

19. A method according to claim 17, wherein the pre-defined type of user interaction comprises one or more of:

switching to another application, launching another application, rearranging another application, or directing user input to another application.

20. A method according to claim 15, wherein the application comprises a loaded executable instance of a program stored in the storage, and when the monitoring determines that the user has instructed the application to open, automatically restarting the application by terminating the executing instance of the executable program and starting a new process from the executable program.