JPH024023A - User interface managing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To change, correct and delete the contents of a menu definition body even in the middle of executing an applied program by providing a means to fetch information from a user interface definition body, to present it to a display and, simultaneously, to process it. CONSTITUTION:An information presenting means 8 operates an input/output means 3, and it presents user interface information to a display 5. Next, when a user selects a command related to the change, correction, deletion, and addition of the user interface through the use of a keyboard, etc., and simultaneously, the user inputs a request to correct the command guidance of a menu concretely, the information input processing means 3 is operated, and the input of the processing contents of the user interface is asked for. Here, when the user inputs the contents, for example, to be corrected, an input information processing means 15 operates an output processing means 11, and the part to be corrected of a user interface definition body 1 is corrected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an information processing system or means having an interactive type or a method called conversational type using a computer, for example, CAD (Computer Aided Design).
ign) system and OA (Office Autom)
ation) Related to systems, editors, etc., this is a user interface that is suitable for separately defining the definition part of the display screen as user interface information, and changing or modifying that information, such as menu information, according to the user's preferences. It is related to the interface management method or the method for changing the definition part of the display screen.

[Conventional technology]

The conventional technology and invention described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 166440/1982 select a processing function of an application program having a plurality of processing functions and input data necessary to operate the selected function using a menu. It is concerned with the smooth exchange of data between users and application programs using an information input means called . These conventional technologies are
As shown in FIG. 1, a user interface program 24 receives input information 19 from an application program 23, and inputs information from a menu definition body 26 to a menu manual information 17.
The output information 16 is read and processed as , and the output information 16 is sent to the information input/output device 25, and the information 2 input from the device 25 is
0 is received by the user interface program 24;
By performing the processing and transmitting the output information 18 to the application program 23 as input information to the application program 23, a menu screen processing method is realized. Japanese Patent Publication No. 58-1664
The feature of No. 40 is that it has the features of functions 24 and 26 in Fig. 1, and essentially the input/output processing of 16 to 20 is the same as the conventional one shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 58-] and No. 66440. It's the same with technology.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Since the above-mentioned conventional technology only performs the input/output processing of items 16 to 20 in FIG. - Unable to delete or add. Problems caused by the inability to change, modify, delete, or add menu contents while an application program is running are as described below. For example, when inputting data after selecting a function using a menu, in the conventional system, the data input method and data format are fixed to those specified by the menu. Therefore, in a menu definition where character string input is specified, even if coordinate values can only be input by specifying the figure displayed in the information input/output bag [10],
The only way to input data is to obtain coordinate values by some means and input the coordinate values as a character string. This causes problems such as time-consuming work and data being lost. Furthermore, according to the prior art, the selection range of processing functions by the menu is fixed, so when a function is added to the application program 23, execution of the application program is interrupted and the contents of the menu definition body 26 are also updated. Otherwise, a problem arises in that the processing functions of the newly added application program 23 cannot be used.

This must be managed by always matching the version of the application program 23 and the version of the menu definition body 26, which makes version management complicated.

Further, when it is desired to use a combination of multiple functions of the application program 23, in the conventional technology, the application program 23 is modified, a new processing function having the combination function is created, and the menu definition body 26 is also updated. There are problems such as having to do this.

An object of the present invention is to enable the contents of the menu definition body 26 to be changed, modified, deleted, and added even while the application program is running, thereby making it possible to change the application program 23 depending on input operations. The purpose is to provide a unified environment in which various application programs 23 can be used without depending on the contents of the menu definition body 26. That is, this is achieved by newly adding input/output processing 21 and 22 in FIG.

[Means to solve the problem]

As a means to achieve the above objective, the technical means described below will be adopted.

(1) User interface definition input/output processing means capable of retrieving user interface information stored in an information storage device from the storage device or storing it.

(2) Means for inputting and outputting interactive information to information input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, and display devices such as a color display.

(3) Means for controlling the input/output means of (1) and (2) above and managing the input/output information.

(4) The control and management means in (3) above includes means for managing processing for importing information from a user interface definition, means for managing processing for presenting information imported from the definition on a display device, A requesting means for requesting a user's action on the presentation means, a means for managing input information input as a result of the action, a means for requesting input information accompanying the action, and a means for managing the input information. , information output means for reflecting the input information in the user interface definition body.

[Operation] When a user is interacting with a computer and attempts to change user interface information, the user interface management method according to the present invention allows the user to change, modify, or delete the user interface in advance. - The display processing device outputs means such as addition so that they can be selected at any time, and when the user makes a request such as change, the management means presents information regarding the user interface and displays the corresponding information. A process is performed to ask for information selection in order to perform the requested operation. Next, once the selection information has been entered, the user
You will be asked to input the requested operation details for the interface information. When the requested action content is input, the management means performs operations such as changing, modifying, deleting, adding, etc. to the input content with respect to the content of the user interface definition body in accordance with the requested action. Furthermore, the same result can be obtained by sending the above-mentioned requested action and its contents to the application program and having the application program process the requested action. As mentioned above, the above-mentioned means (1) to (4) according to the present invention
The information of the user interface definition body is updated at any time by
Since requested operations such as changes, modifications, deletions, and additions are possible, it is possible to arbitrarily construct a user interface that suits the user's preferences.

〔Example〕

A preferred embodiment of the user interface management scheme according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Figure 2 is 2
1 is a block diagram showing the basic configuration of an interactive system implementing a user interface management method according to the present invention. This interactive system includes an input section 100 and a processing section 20.
0, an output section 300, and an information storage section 400. The input unit 1o○ is a mouse 101 as shown in FIG.
゜Keyboard 102. It has function keys 103 and the like. It constitutes a coordinate information indicating device and an information input device. This input section 1o○ is the processing target of an interactive system in which display attributes are given based on the user interface information 2, which is the contents of the information storage section 400 displayed on the output section 300, for example, menu information or the contents of the storage section. Information, for example, the constituent elements of a figure (line segment data) can be specified, and parameters such as character strings can be input. The processing unit 200 includes a microcomputer 201, a host computer 202, etc., and the microcomputer 201 has a mouse 101, a keyboard 102, and the like.
Function key 103° is connected to display 301. In addition, the information storage unit 400 and the auxiliary storage device 2
03 etc. And this processing section 200
For example, the output unit 300, which may include a hard copy machine, a plotter, etc., displays on a color display 301, imports data from various devices that make up the input unit 100, inspects, searches, recognizes, and stores it in the auxiliary storage device 203. It is in charge of the input/output of the system and the operation control of each device that makes up the information processing equipment that operates the interactive system. Also, the communication device 204
This facilitates the smooth exchange of information between the microcomputer 201 and the host computer 202.

Taking a structural analysis support system as an example, the user interface management method using the above-mentioned interactive system is the PAD (Problem Analysis System) shown in FIG.
sDiagram). Here, the third
The auxiliary storage device 203 in the figure contains information related to the user interface (in this embodiment, menu information).

Display color information 2 (display color table) for graphics, etc. has already been input, and information such as graphics is displayed on the color display 301 with reference to this input information. That is, in FIG. 4, in order for the user interface definition input/output means 2 to display the information stored in the user interface definition 1 on the display device 5 under the control of the information importing means 7. , an operation is performed in which the information is taken in as internal information of the user interface management means 4. Then, the information presentation means 8 in FIG.
The input/output means 3 of the input device is activated to present user interface information on the display device 5. Next, when the user wants to change, modify, delete, or add information related to the user interface displayed on the color display 301 in FIG. 3, as in step 900 in FIG. The keys 103 are used to select commands related to changing, modifying, deleting, and adding user interfaces using at least one of the mouse 101. When the selection information is input, the selection processing means 9 shown in FIG. The user is asked to input selection information, and for example, when the user manually requests to specifically modify the menu command guidance, the selection information processing means 13 shown in FIG. 4 is activated, and the input processing means 10 is activated. let In the means 10, the information input processing means 14 first operates and asks for input of processing contents of the user interface. Then, as in step 10oO in FIG. 5, the user inputs, for example, the content that he wishes to modify. Then, the input information processing means 15 in FIG.
is activated, and the output processing means 11 is activated. Then, as in step 1100 of FIG. 5, the output processing means 11 of FIG. 4 modifies the portion of the user interface definition body 1 of FIG. 4 that should be modified.

The contents of the user interface definition body are maintained and managed in the manner described above. Here, an example of changing the user interface will be shown using a more specific example. FIG. 6 is a stress contour map display screen in the interactive structural analysis support system. The color par 27 in FIG. 6 is a scale for showing the stress distribution by color. In this case, when the user wants to change the stress distribution color (28 to 31),
The user instructs the display information change command 32 shown in FIG. 6 using a mouse, digitizer, or the like. Then, the system displays changeable user interface information as shown in FIG. 7, and waits for instructions from the user as to which part to change. When the user specifies color bar 35 for the stress contour map shown in FIG. 7, the system makes it possible to input color codes 28 to 31 of the color bar shown in FIG. Then, in FIG. 7, the user selects a pair of color codes, such as 29. When the user inputs 39 from the color palette 4o, only the specified color code of the color bar 35 in FIG. 7 is changed (from 29 to 39). Finally, when the user inputs the return command 41 in FIG. 7, the changed user interface describes the contents of the magnetic deanuku, which is the user interface definition body, as shown in 42 to 43 in FIG. 8. Change 6 Next, the system returns to the state before the user interface change process, that is, the stress contour display screen shown in FIG.
The color bar 27 and model 34 in FIG. 6 are displayed again. The results are shown in FIG. This completes the change process.

As another embodiment, examples of modifying command guidance are shown in FIGS. 1o and 11. In FIG. 10, when the user wants to modify the command guidance 44, he issues a display control command 45 to perform the modification operation. In this case, if the surface distribution load of the command guidance 44 is corrected as the press pressure, the system will rewrite the contents of the user interface definition body in Fig. 11 from 47 to 48, and the command guidance in Fig. 10 from 44 to 46. Fix it.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, in order to have the interactive system itself manage user interface information, it is possible to easily and quickly change, modify, delete, and add input user interfaces. be able to.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the differences between the conventional method and the present invention, FIG. 2 is a basic configuration block diagram of an interactive system implementing the user interface management method according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the basic configuration of an interactive system implementing the user interface management method according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an apparatus showing a specific embodiment of an interactive system that implements a user interface management method according to the present invention. PA showing configuration
D display diagram, FIG. 5 is a PAD display diagram showing the procedure of an embodiment of the user interface management method according to the present invention, and FIGS. 6 to 9 are explanatory diagrams of specific embodiments of the present invention. ,
Examples of changing user interface information related to display attributes in a structural analysis support system. FIGS. 10 and 11 are explanatory diagrams of other embodiments, showing examples of changing menu guidance information among user interface information. FIG. 16...Output information, 17...Menu human power information, 1
8... Input information, 19... Output information, 20... Input information, 21... Information operating means, 22... Information reading means, 23... Application program, 24... User Interface program, 25...Information input/output device, 1st figure 2nd figure 4th figure

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Work such as changing, modifying, deleting, adding, etc. the content of user interface information during actual operation of the interactive system, which facilitates information exchange between the computer and the user. A user interface management device having means for performing. 2. A user interface management device comprising means for storing user interface information during actual operation of the interactive system in the processing device according to claim 1.