Patent application number | Description | Published |
20140298272 | CLOSING, STARTING, AND RESTARTING APPLICATIONS - 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. | 10-02-2014 |
20140310642 | DEFERRED PLACEMENT PROMPT - A deferred placement prompt is provided in a user interface when an application window is launched. Responsive to the presentation of the deferred placement prompt, the user can provide a directional placement instruction (e.g., a “drag” of the prompt, a selection of a screen region, a keyboard input) to indicate the user's preference for placement of the launched window. The user interface can give cooperative feedback to the user during the deferred placement prompt operation, such as highlighting an application window to be replaced, responsive to a directional placement instruction, animating the deferred placement prompt, etc. | 10-16-2014 |
20140310646 | Application Window Divider Control for Window Layout Management - An application window divider control is shared by a first application window and a second application window in a user interface. Based on a received directional instruction that moves the application window divider control along an axis of the user interface, placement of the first application window and the second application window may be positioned across a range of consistently spaced points along an axis of the user interface. Placement adjustment can also impact other application windows in the user interface. The application window divider control may also snap to provide “magnetic” points along the axis when certain conditions are satisfied. | 10-16-2014 |
20140325430 | CONTENT-BASED DIRECTIONAL PLACEMENT APPLICATION LAUNCH - A user can select content on an interface screen and provide an associated directional placement instruction to launch a new application window that displays the selected content or information associated with the selected content. The directional placement instruction may indicate an area of the screen where the user prefers to display the new application window. Responsive to the initiation of the directional placement instruction, a conversion module converts the selected content into a placeable representation of the new application. Responsive to receipt of the directional placement instruction, a window management system presents the new application window in the user interface in a location based on the directional placement instruction. | 10-30-2014 |
20140325431 | AUTO-GROUPING OF APPLICATION WINDOWS - Described herein are techniques for automatically forming groups of application windows. The techniques may be performed with a computing device executing a windowing system, the windowing system having a user interface element that can be interacted with by a user to manage applications executing on the computing device. Each application may correspond to a separate process and application window. It may be determined that an operation has occurred that will evict the application windows of target applications from the display, and in response an application group may be automatically formed. The application group may have indicia of the evicted target applications. The application group may be provided to the user interface element, and when the user interface element is interacted with by the user the user interface element displays user-selectable graphic application indicators for both the application group and applications other than the target applications. | 10-30-2014 |
20140337794 | SMART INSERTION OF APPLICATIONS INTO LAYOUTS - Embodiments described herein relate to maintaining a tiled arrangement of application windows as a user inserts application windows into a managed display region. A tiled arrangement is an arrangement where windows do not overlap each other and substantially maximize window occupation of the display region. Generally, when a user inserts an application window the tiled arrangement is maintained by resizing any previously present application windows. Where to insert a window, which displayed windows to resize and to what extent can be determined based on factors such as user input, any prior manual adjustment of the tiled arrangement, and/or minimum window sizes. Whether tile arranging is performed in a managed or curated fashion (e.g., by sharing space equally among windows) or in a semi-curated fashion may be determined by taking into account any of the aforementioned factors. | 11-13-2014 |
20160034154 | Application Launcher Sizing - Application launcher sizing techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a likely usage context is determined, by a computing device, of a user in interacting with the computing device. An application launcher is dynamically sized within a display area of the user interface by the computing device based on the determined likely usage context of the user. The application launcher is configured for output responsive to an input received from a user and includes a plurality of representations of applications that are selectable to navigate to a user interface corresponding with a respective said application. | 02-04-2016 |
20160034155 | Adaptive Sizing and Positioning of Application Windows - This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling adaptive sizing and positioning of application windows. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable sizing and positioning of application windows to provide an optimized layout of application windows. | 02-04-2016 |
20160034156 | Dynamic Joint Dividers for Application Windows - This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling dynamic joint dividers for application windows. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable sizing and positioning of application windows to provide an optimized layout of application windows. | 02-04-2016 |
20160034157 | Region-Based Sizing and Positioning of Application Windows - This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling region-based sizing and positioning of application windows. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable sizing and positioning of application windows to provide an optimized layout of application windows. | 02-04-2016 |
20160034159 | Assisted Presentation of Application Windows - This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling assisted presentation of application windows. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable sizing and positioning of application windows to provide an optimized layout of application windows. | 02-04-2016 |