Patent ID: 8319993
Filing Date: 2012-11-27
Classification: G03G,G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for operating user interfaces of a multifunction peripheral (MFP) device configured for performing print jobs, scan jobs and copy jobs, the device having a device controller and a native user interface (UI) and controllable at a plurality of access points, the method comprising: operating the device in multiple simultaneous job contexts, said job contexts including at least one of a print job context, a scan job context and a copy job context; associating an instance of the native UI with each of said job contexts, each of said simultaneous job contexts having an associated sequence of UI states; creating a virtual UI corresponding to one of said instances of the Ul, the virtual UI maintained in a device-independent format; converting the virtual UI into a physical UI instance for one of the access points and projecting the virtual UI to said one of the access points; and wherein said operating the device in multiple simultaneous different job contexts includes: job context switching between job contexts using time-sharing, the device controller time slicing operations between job contexts to avoid resource conflicts; storing information for each job context by the device controller, including information to suspend and resume the job context, including a current UI state as a UI context state associated with the job.