Pinch to adjust

• US 8,176,435 B1
• Filed: 09/08/2011
• Issued: 05/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Jitkoff, Nicholas, Shah, Roma
• Primary Examiner(s): Ke, Simon
• Application Number:
  US13/228,157
• Time in Patent Office: 243 Days
• Field of Search: 715/701, 715/702, 715707-713, 715/786, 715/784, 715/788, 345/173, 345/169
• US Class Current: 715/788
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text

Abstract

Methods and systems for resizing a display area of a display device are disclosed. An example method may include receiving an on-screen pinch gesture associated with a first location and a second location, the second location being different from the first location on a multi-touch input device. The method may also include for each of a plurality of predefined content areas: adjusting a respective size of each predefined content area based on the on-screen pinch gesture, determining a respective amount of the content to display in the predefined content area based on the respective adjusted size of the predefined content area, and displaying the respective adjusted amount of content within the respective predefined content area associated with the adjusted size on the multi-touch input device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

displaying, on a multi-touch input device, a plurality of content areas for an email messaging system, each content area associated with a respective first amount of text, wherein each of the plurality of content areas is displayed with a respective initial viewable amount of text that is a subset of the respective first amount of text;

receiving an on-screen pinch gesture for expanding a size of each of the content areas, the on-screen pinch gesture being associated with a first location and a second location, the second location being different from the first location on the multi-touch input device; and

for each of the plurality of content areas;

expanding a respective size of the respective content area based on the on-screen pinch gesture; and

displaying an increased viewable amount of text in the respective expanded content area based on the expanded size of the content area, wherein the increased viewable amount of text is a larger subset of the respective first amount of text than the initial viewable amount of text, and a character size of the increased viewable amount of text is substantially equal to a character size of the original viewable amount of text.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the on-screen pinch gesture is one of a horizontal on-screen pinch gesture or a vertical on-screen pinch gesture.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of content areas is a row.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of content areas is a header.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein content in the content areas includes one or more images.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving an on-screen pinch gesture associated with a first location and a second location comprises:

receiving a horizontal distance increasing on-screen pinch gesture.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein expanding the respective size of the respective content area based on the on-screen pinch gesture further comprises:

expanding the respective size of the respective content area based on the horizontal distance.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of content areas is a plurality of cards, each card associated with a respective browser window, and wherein expanding the respective size of the respective content area based on the on-screen pinch gesture comprises:

expanding the size of each respective browser window; and

reducing a number of the respective browser windows based on the expanding of the size.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein expanding a respective size of the respective content area comprises:

expanding a respective size of the respective content area without expanding a size of the text in the content area.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the plurality of content areas comprises:

displaying a first portion of the plurality of content areas, wherein a second portion of the plurality of content areas is not displayed, and

wherein the method further comprises, based on the on-screen pinch gesture, reducing a number of content areas in the displayed first portion of the plurality of content areas.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the plurality of content areas comprises:

displaying the plurality of content areas each having an email displayed.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the plurality of content areas comprises:

for each content area, displaying a first preview of the respective first amount of text in the respective content area, and

wherein increasing the viewable amount of text displayed in the respective expanded content area based on the expanded size of the content area comprises;

displaying a second preview in the respective expanded content area based on the expanded size of the content area,

wherein the second preview displays a larger subset of the respective first amount of text than the first preview.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the plurality of content areas comprises:

displaying the plurality of content areas each having a web browser displayed.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the plurality of content areas comprises:

displaying the plurality of content areas each having an email folder displayed.

9. A system, comprising:

an on-screen input device, configured to;

display a plurality of content areas for an email messaging system, each content area associated with a respective first amount of text, wherein each of the plurality of content areas is displayed with a respective initial viewable amount of text that is a subset of the respective first amount of text;

receive an on-screen pinch gesture for expanding a size of each of the content areas, the on-screen pinch gesture being associated with a first location and a second location, the second location being different from the first location on the on-screen input device; and

a content area adjustor, implemented with a computing device, configured to, for each of the plurality of content areas;

expand a respective size of the respective content area based on the on-screen pinch gesture; and

displaying an increased viewable amount of text displayed in the respective expanded content area based on the expanded size of the respective content area,

wherein the increased viewable amount of text is a larger subset of the respective first amount of text than the initial viewable amount of text, and a character size of the increased viewable amount of text is substantially equal to a character size of the original viewable amount of text.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the on-screen pinch gesture is one of a horizontal on-screen pinch gesture or a vertical on-screen pinch gesture.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of content areas is a row.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of content areas is a header.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein content in the content areas includes one or more images.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the content area adjustor is further configured to:

receive a horizontal distance increasing on-screen pinch gesture.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the content area adjustor is further configured to:

increase the respective size of each content area based on the horizontal distance.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the plurality of content areas is a plurality of cards, each card associated with a respective browser window, and the content area adjustor is further configured to:

expand the size of each respective browser window; and

reduce a number of the respective browser windows based on the expanding of the size.