Patent ID: 9740306
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A method for controlling a graphical user interface comprising: establishing a communications pathway between a data handling system and a physical input device, wherein the data handling system comprises one or more processors, one or more memories, and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more memories, wherein at least one of the one or more processors execute the program instructions, wherein said physical input device is a physical object having M faces along a first axis of rotation and having N faces along a second axis of rotation; presenting within a field of a graphical users interface (GUI) a content item from a multi-dimensional data structure of the data handling system, wherein a first dimension of the multi-dimensional data structure has O discrete ordered items, wherein a second dimension of the multi-dimensional data structure has P discrete ordered items, where O is different than M and where P is different than N; detecting rotations of the physical object along the first axis of rotation, wherein each rotation of one of the M faces results in an incremental navigation by one ordered item through the first dimension of the O discrete ordered items; detecting rotations of the physical object along the second axis of rotation, wherein each rotation of one of the N faces results in an incremental navigation by one ordered item through the second dimension of the P discrete ordered items; and responsive to each navigation through the multi-dimensional data structure occurring as a result of the detected rotations, presenting a data item of the multi-dimensional data structure in the field, where the presented data item corresponds to the incremental navigation of the multi-dimensional data structure in the first and second dimension.