AU4488599A - A method of generating a display - Google Patents

Description

Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT

(ORIGINAL)

Name of Applicant: NEC AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD., A.C.N. 004 803 490, of 635 Ferntree Gully Road, Glen Waverley, Victoria 3150, Australia Actual Inventor(s): Address for Service: Invention Title: DAVIES COLLISON CAVE, Patent Attorneys, of 1 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia "A METHOD OF GENERATING A DISPLAY" Details of Associated Provisional Application No: PP5748/98 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: -1- P:\OPER\DBWPP5748.98 3118/99 -2- A METHOD OF GENERATING A DISPLAY The present invention relates to a method of generating a display and an apparatus for executing the method. The method is particularly, but not exclusively, useful for generating a character display on the screen of a mobile telephone.

The size of a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen of a mobile telephone is restricted by the physical dimensions of the phone, which are continuing to reduce with every new model released. Although a greater number of pixels, and hence a greater number, albeit smaller, characters are available with current LCD screens, the reduced readability of these screens has proven disadvantageous. Furthermore, increased pixel capacity in an LCD gives rise to an increase in complexity and cost. Both of these factors present particular difficulties for phones of more complex mobile systems, such as GSM, which dictate many mandatory S-or expected functions that require a complex menu structure to be displayed to present the functions to a user. Any display difficulties make it inherently difficult to navigate through the menu structures. The same problem occurs in any device which has a small display screen S.that needs to display a number of characters for navigation of a menu structure. It is desired to provide a method and apparatus to overcome these difficulties or at least provide a useful alternative.

In accordance with the present invention there is provided a method of generating a display on a display screen, including: receiving data representing lines of characters to be displayed; truncating an upper part of a top line of said lines; truncating a lower part of a bottom line of said lines; applying one font to another line of said lines; applying another font, smaller than said one font, to the top and bottom lines and any remaining lines of said lines; and displaying said lines on said screen.

P:\OPER\DBW\PP5748.98 31/8/99 -3- The present invention also provides an apparatus having a display screen and processing means for receiving data representing lines of characters to be displayed, truncating an upper part of a top line of said lines, truncating a lower part of a bottom line of said lines, applying one font to another line of said lines, applying another font, smaller than said one font, to the top and bottom lines and any remaining lines of said lines, and displaying said lines on said screen.

A preferred embodiment of the present invention is hereinafter described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is a diagram of a display generated using a preferred embodiment of a mobile •telephone; Figure 2 is a block diagram of the hardware components of the mobile telephone; and Figure 3 is a flow diagram of a preferred embodiment of a process executed by the mobile telephone to generate a display.

Mobile telephones may be as small as about 70cc with common models being about 100cc. In the smallest phones, the LCD screens are typically able to display two lines of ten or twelve English characters in length, or five or six Chinese characters in length. Larger .ooooi telephones may display five lines with a similar number of characters. In Chinese this is usually accompanied with a reduction in font resolution from a desirable standard figure of about 16 x 16 pixels per character to 11 x 12 pixels per character. This tends to seriously affect the ability to easily navigate a series of commands or menu items forming a menu, which may be part of a number of menus forming a menu structure. The reduction in resolution tends to result in only 1 to 3 menu items displayed, and this provides the user with difficulties in being able to determine a current position within the menu structure. One technique for alleviating this lack of "menu position feel" is to use arrow symbols which indicate that more menu items are available in the direction of the illuminated arrows in the display. The arrows may be represented graphically in the text field of the screen, or displayed as icons outside the text field, such as in the NEC mobile phones PDC N206, G9 and G9-C. Another technique involves including a scroll bar at the side of the menu item display with a position pointer indicating how far down the menu the currently displayed item is positioned. All of these P:\OPER\DBW\PP5748.98 31/8/99 -4techniques use additional LCD resources and occupy additional area in the display screen, and do not overcome the fact that more menu items cannot be displayed.

The method and telephone described hereinafter seek to enable the user to be able to see a greater range of menu items on the display screen, without requiring a larger or more complex LCD. The new display generated also seeks to give the user a greater feeling of the position of the currently displayed item in a menu.

The method involves firstly applying an optimal font size to the menu item which is currently of interest, which normally on most displays, is highlighted, flashing or denoted by a cursor position. Menu items which are normally positioned directly above and below the :i currently selected menu item of interest are displayed with a reduced font size, i.e. a reduced quality font. Secondly, the spare screen resource provided by the reduced quality font is used to display additional menu items at the top and bottom of the display, with both the top and bottom menu items being truncated in half, as shown in Figure 1.

The method is able to produce a display 2, as shown in Figure 1, where an 80 x48 pixel screen is able to display five lines 4 to 12 of Chinese character menu items. The centre selected menu item 8 is highlighted and displayed with a characteristic 15 X 14 pixel font, whilst the remaining lines 4 to 12 have the characters displayed with a sub-optimal and smaller 11 x 12 pixel font. The top menu item 4 is truncated by removing its top half, whereas the bottom item 12 is truncated by removing its bottom half.

The method uses a characteristic of visual perception, in that a user is normally focused on the line of interest 8, and will either not perceive or not be concerned about the lack of resolution in the remaining lines 4, 6, 10 and 12. Also the user is able to readily interpret the top and bottom lines 4 and 12, as the content displayed is generally familiar to the user, and human character recognition can succeed even when great character distortion is present, such as is the case with handwritten characters. Accordingly, the user perceives that the display 2 is able to display more menu items.

P:\OPER\DBW\PP5748.98 31/8/99 The method is executed on a mobile telephone 20 which includes the standard hardware components of a mobile telephone, as shown in Figure 2. The components include a central processing unit (CPU) 22 which communicates with a program ROM 24 and a radio module 26. The CPU 22 is responsive to inputs received from a keypad 28 of the phone and generates and forwards display data to an LCD driver integrated circuit 30. The LCD driver 30 generates a display on an LCD screen 32 of the phone in accordance with the display data provided by the CPU 22. The radio module 26 includes a transceiver for transmitting and receiving radio signals on an antenna 27 of the phone 20 and also includes o oo a modulator and demodulator for receiving and outputting voice signals from and to a 0o 0 10 microphone 34 and a speaker 36, respectively, of the phone 20. The ROM 24 includes oexecutable code which controls operation of the hardware components of the phone 20 and, o •in particular, controls execution of a display generation process 40, as shown in Figure 3. The :display process 40 is executed by the CPU 22, which allows a standard LCD driver 30 to be used, but the process could be executed by either component or both the CPU 22 and the LCD driver 30, which can be integrated into one integrated circuit.

The display process 40 is invoked by the phone 20 after the phone 20 executes one of various processes 42 which generate display data representing characters to be displayed on

I

the screen 32. At step 44, the process 40 receives the character data from the process 42 and uses a memory location to store the character data representing five lines of text for the screen 32. The process 40 then processes each line of the text to generate a screen bitmap, which is begun at step 46 and involves different processing at steps 48 to 54, depending on which position a line has in the five lines 4 to 12. If it is determined at step 48 that the line being processed is the menu selected line, i.e. the third line 8, then a large font is applied and the new character data added to a screen buffer location at step 49. If at step 50, it is determined that the line is the second or fourth lines 6 or 10, then a smaller font is applied and the new character data added to the screen buffer location at step 51. If it is determined at step 58 that the line is the first line 4, then the smaller font is applied and the text of the line is truncated so as to remove its top half, as shown in Figure 1, and the new representative character data is then added to the screen buffer location at step 53. If, at step 54, the line is determined to be the fifth line 12 in the text to be displayed, the small font is applied and the text to be

Claims (14)

1. A method of generating a display on a display screen, including: receiving data representing lines of characters to be displayed; truncating an upper part of a top line of said lines; truncating a lower part of a bottom line of said lines; applying one font to another line of said lines; applying another font, smaller than said one font, to the top and bottom lines and any remaining lines of said lines; and 0. 10 displaying said lines on said screen. o0o0

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said lines represent menu items of a menu, and said another line is a selected line of said menu. °0

3. A method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the display of said lines occupies the vertical "width of said screen. *o0o

4. A method as claimed in claim 2 or 3, including displaying different lines of said menu **0000 0..00in the position of said selected line with said one font when scrolling through said menu items of said menu. A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein said another line is a centre line between said top line and said bottom line.

6. A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, including additionally highlighting said another line relative to said top, bottom and remaining lines.

7. An apparatus having a display screen and processing means for receiving data representing lines of characters to be displayed, truncating an upper part of a top line of said lines, truncating a lower part of a bottom line of said lines, applying one font to another line of said lines, applying another font, smaller than said one font, to the top and bottom lines and P:\OPER\DBW\PP5748.98 31/8/99 -8- any remaining lines of said lines, and displaying said lines on said screen.

8. An apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein said lines represent menu items of a menu, and said another line is a selected line of said menu.

9. An apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein the display of said lines occupies the vertical width of said screen. An apparatus as claimed in claim 8 or 9, wherein different lines of said menu are displayed in the position of said selected line with said one font when scrolling through said omenu items of said menu. 900o SO11. An apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 7 to 10, wherein said another line is a centre line between said top line and said bottom line.

12. An apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 7 to 11, wherein said another line is o.o. additionally highlighted relative to said top, bottom and remaining lines.

13. An apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 7 to 12, comprising a portable hand held 0 device.

14. An apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 7 to 13, comprising a mobile telephone. An apparatus as claimed in any one of claims 7 to 14, wherein said display screen is a small LCD screen.

16. A method of generating a display screen substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

17. An apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings. P:\OPER\DBW\PP5748.98 31/8/99 -9-

18. The steps, features, compositions and compounds disclosed herein or referred to or indicated in the specification and/or claims of this application, individually or collectively, and any and all combinations of any two or more of said steps or features. DATED this 31st day of August, 1999 10 NEC AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD. By its Patent Attorneys DAVIES COLLISON CAVE 0 0 0