Abstract:
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that display hidden software options to a user. The GUIs described herein contain an instrumentality, for example an icon, which a user can activate which produces a separate drop down menu that lists at least some of the options that may be hidden to the user, but that are available. This removes the need for the user to search through the software or manuals for the software to determine where the options may be found if not visually apparent on the GUI.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   1. Field of the Invention 
   This invention relates generally to the use and production of graphical user interfaces. More specifically, the invention relates to methods for arranging graphical user interfaces to reveal menus and other hidden areas which are not readily apparent to a user. 
   2. Description of the Related Art 
   As computers have become more sophisticated over the years, user interfaces to the computers and software that is run on the computers have also become more advanced. Graphical user interfaces (GUI) in particular have become very popular in providing users of computers, and particularly mouse input devices, with access to software, including menus for software options. GUIs are often provided in color, and color indications have long been used to indicate to users of GUIs what the particular state of a software function may be, and how to change these states. 
   In GUI systems, objects often have different methods that can be invoked using a “pull-down” menu. While the use of pull-down menus have been considered by those skilled in the art as logical and clear methods for displaying software menus, there are often hidden areas in the screen or choices that the user simply doesn&#39;t stumble across when attempting to manipulate the GUI to invoke the full scope of the software&#39;s functionality. Therefore, GUIs with hidden or masked option menus simply do not provide users with enough information to allow all of the versatility of a software program to be readily apparent and so oftentimes the software is not used to its fullest potential. 
     FIG. 1  illustrates a prior GUI  10  which exhibits some of the aforementioned problems in the art. Besides a menu bar  20  on GUI  10  on which the user might look for the different drop down menus that allow options for the software to be invoked, this GUI comprises three “option areas”  30 ,  40 ,  50  wherein a user of GUI  10  might click to access options. For example, option area  30  might comprise options for printing, saving, querying, or updating. Option area  40  might comprise options for printing, updating or resyncing with a host. Option area  50  might comprise options for printing, querying, or sending a document or data to a remote user. It will be appreciated by those with skill in the art that many other options for manipulating data and software may appear in a GUI such as that shown at  10  in  FIG. 1 , and many types of software programs and/or regimes may employ such GUIs. 
   It will be further appreciated that a GUI  10  of the type shown in  FIG. 1  may be very poorly designed, especially with respect to option area  50  which is just a small sliver of the entire GUI window, or the display may be a size in pixels such that option area  50  is barely visible. Suppose that it is desired to invoke the option “send to a remote user” which is available in the option area  50 . Since option area  50  is almost completely obscured in the current GUI  10  configuration, indeed the entire option area  50  could be scrolled entirely off of the window, the user may not be able to visually find this function. This results in the user spending a large amount of wasted time trying to find the option. This might include reading manuals, which are often cumbersome and inconclusive, or calling help desks to try and figure out where the option is or what might be the problem with the GUI  110 . 
   Referring now to  FIG. 2 , when the user attempts to resize the window in its hunt for the correct option, option area  30  has been greatly reduced in size, option are  40  has been reduced to nothing more than a sliver of the window, and option area  50  has totally disappeared. Therefore, in attempting to find the desired option by simply resizing the window, the user has completely lost the ability to find the option, and the GUI  110  is of no use in providing functional options to the user. 
   There is therefore a long-felt need in the art for methods of organizing GUIs so that software options and functions are readily apparent and easily findable. The methods of the present invention should be readily adaptable to all types of software which utilize drop-down menus and other graphical displays for option picking. Moreover, the GUIs produced by the present invention should be easy to manipulate and operable for use with standard input devices such as a mouse or touch-sensitive capacitive pad. Such needs have not heretofore been fulfilled in the art. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The aforementioned long-felt needs are met, and problems solved, by GUIs of the present invention. Preferably, the GUIs comprise at least one option area for displaying to a user functions which may be invoked by the user by operating an input device to the GUI. Even more preferably, an instrumentality is operable to be activated by the user when the user manipulates the input device for displaying at the user&#39;s command in a separate menu the functions that are displayable to the user in the at least one option area. 
   It will be appreciated that the instrumentality may comprise, for example, an icon that is visually displayed on the GUI or is otherwise conveniently viewed by the user when the user wishes to display the options in the separate menu. Alternatively, a series or combination of keystrokes that are enterable from a computer keyboard may be made operable to enable display of the separate menu with the options at the request of the user. 
   Additionally, the input device may be a mouse or other tactile device such as a capacitive touch pad. However, it will be appreciated that other input devices, for example, voice-activated input devices may also be used in conjunction with the present invention to accept input commands from the user. All such embodiments and equivalents thereof are intended to be within the scope of the present invention. 
   The present invention allows GUIs to function efficiently and expeditiously for users that are in need of invoking any software function that is offered by the software package. The inventive GUIs eliminate the need for users to unnecessarily search for and find hidden functions, thereby preventing the user from being distracted from the task at hand. Moreover, the GUIs described and claimed herein allow software packages to be used to their fullest capabilities and also widen the spectrum of users that will be able to utilize these capabilities since even a relatively inexperienced GUI operator will have the ability to gain access to all of the software&#39;s functionality very easily. These results have not heretofore been achieved in the art. 
   These and other features, objects and benefits of the invention will be best understood by those skilled in the art by reading the following detailed description of the invention in conjunction with the drawings which are first described briefly below. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     In the drawings wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout the several views hereof: 
       FIG. 1  is a view of a prior art GUI having various option areas which may be activated by a user to invoke software functionality; 
       FIG. 2  is a view of the GUI of  FIG. 1  wherein the option areas have been re-sized; 
       FIG. 3  is a flow chart of a preferred method of the present invention wherein hidden options may be accessed by a user; 
       FIG. 4  is a view of a GUI provided in accordance with the present invention; 
       FIG. 5  is a view of the GUI of  FIG. 4  having a separate menu that has been accessed by a user and which displays software options; and 
       FIG. 6  is an alternative embodiment of a GUI of the present invention 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   Referring now to  FIG. 3 , a flow chart of preferred methods for providing GUIs in accordance with the present invention is illustrated. It will be appreciated by those with skill in the art that the inventive GUIs will be programmed in an appropriate software language and run on a computer or server. The GUIs may be written in any software language such as C++, JAVA, Visual Basic, HTML, UNIX, or other, preferably object-oriented, language. The GUIs will be manipulatable by a user of the software using an input device, such as a mouse, touch sensitive pad, or other mechanism. 
   The preferred methods begin at step  60 , and at step  70  a user attempts to access the inventive GUI for invocation of software options that the user desires to use. It is then determined at step  80  whether the options are hidden from the user on the GUI. If the options are not hidden, then the method progresses to step  90  and the user accesses the desired option so that the particular software functionality can be invoked. Alternatively, even if all of the menu or option areas are visible, it may still be desirable to put up the menu of  FIG. 5  since it may be poorly designed or otherwise hidden by another element on the screen, for example. The method then stops at step  100 . 
   However, if the options are indeed hidden from the user, or the user cannot otherwise find the particular option that it desires to invoke, or if it is otherwise desirable to up the menu, then the method progresses to step  110  wherein the user accesses an instrumentality of the GUI (to be described in more detail below) to display at least a partial list of the options invocable for the software, some of which may have been hidden from the user in the GUI for one reason or another. The hidden options may be displayed to the user after the user accesses the GUI instrumentality in a variety of ways. For example, but not intending to limit the invention in any way, a separate menu of all of the options available to the user, hidden or not, may be displayed to the user after the instrumentality is invoked so that the user may then see all of the options on the menu and pick the desired option therefrom. Alternatively, an option tree structure in the form of bullets may appear, or a folder/subfolder arrangement may be displayed having all of the options thereon for display to the user. All such arrangements and equivalents thereof are intended to be within the scope of the present invention. 
   Regardless of how the hidden options are displayed to the user, at step  120  the user selects from the displayed list of hidden options in the GUI, the desired option which the user wishes to invoke. This software function is then conventionally performed, and at step  140  the user determines whether there are other software options which it desires to be invoked. If not, then the method stops at step  100 . If so, then the method returns to step  80  where it is determined whether the options are hidden, and the process repeats. 
   In this fashion, the GUIs of the present invention always make readily available to the user all of the allowed software options that a user may desire to invoke when operating the GUI and the software. This allows the users fast access to the options without having to first search throughout all of the option areas of a GUM for the desired option or options to be invoked. The inventive GUIs thereby allow a user to operate the software very quickly and efficiently while alleviating any frustration that a user my experience searching for options. These results have not heretofore been achieved in the art. 
     FIG. 4  illustrates an inventive GUI which is similar in form to the prior GUIs of  FIGS. 1 and 2  in that the same three option areas  30 ,  40 ,  50  are extant. In accordance with the invention, an instrumentality  150  is provided to the GUI which will allow the user to display the options which are available in any one, or all, or the option areas  30 ,  40  SO, preferably by a single mouse click. In the preferred embodiment, instrumentality  150  is an icon in the form of a lightning bolt. It will be appreciated that the icon could take any form and may be placed in the GUI at any place that is conspicuous to the user. Alternatively, a unique combination or sequence of keystrokes could be used as the instrumentality, for example, Ctrl-Shift-F1. 
   Whatever form the instrumentality takes,  FIG. 5  illustrate that in accordance with the invention when instrumentality  150  is invoked by the user by clicking on the icon or otherwise enabling the instrumentality, a separate menu  160  appears which in this embodiment displays all of the allowed options that a user might wish to invoke. It will be appreciated by those with skill in the art that other than all of the allowed options may be displayed, for example, only those options that are not visually present on the GUI may be displayed on menu  160 . Moreover, a list of all options available on the GUI as well as those not found on the GUI but which are only in other drop-down menus may be displayed on separate menu  160 . Additionally, other than a separate menu  160  may be provided to display all of the options. For example, a tree structure having the different options marked by bullets that can be clicked on to open the options may be employed, or a folder/subfolder arrangement may be provided which classifies the options into different types for storage in the folders and subfolders to be accessed therefrom. 
   As can be seen, in the embodiment of  FIG. 5  menu  160  comprises four separate areas corresponding to different software options available to the user. A first area  162  displays options that are not associated with option areas  30 ,  40 ,  50 . Rather, first area  162  displays options relating to mouse menus which a user may access through the GUI after separate menu  160  is accessed. Area  164  displays options that correspond to those found in option area  30 ; print, save, query and update. Area  166  displays options that correspond to those found in option area  40 ; print, update and re-sync. Similarly, area  168  displays options that correspond to those found in option area  50 ; print, query and send. Any or all of the options displayed on menu  160  in areas  162 ,  164 ,  166 ,  168  may be hidden from the user through the GUI before the icon  150  is invoked, and so they only become apparent to the user when the separate menu  160  is displayed. This allows the user fast and easy access to the options without long, frustrating periods of search for the functionality provided by these options. 
     FIG. 6  illustrates yet another alternative embodiment of GUIs provided in accordance with the present invention. In  FIG. 6 , the option areas  30 ,  40 ,  50  are made more distinct by simply shading or otherwise altering the color scheme or fill of the areas in a distinctive manner. In this fashion, the user will be better able to view the various option areas  30 ,  40 ,  50  and thereby more easily spot the options that are made available through GUI  10 . In this embodiment, the instrumentality is simply a toggle of one of the keys on the keyboard, and thus no icon is present. 
   Thus, the present invention allows GUIs to function efficiently and expeditiously for users that are in need of invoking any software function that is offered by the software package. The inventive GUIs described and claimed herein eliminate the need for users to unnecessarily search for and find hidden functions, thereby preventing the user from being distracted from the task at hand. Moreover, the GUIs provided in accordance with the present invention allow software packages to be used to their fullest capabilities and also widen the spectrum of users that will be able to utilize these capabilities since even a relatively inexperienced GUI operator will have the ability to gain access to all of the software&#39;s functionality very easily. These results have not heretofore been achieved in the art 
   While there have been shown and described and pointed out certain novel features of the present invention as applied to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various omissions and substitutions and changes in the methods and apparatus described herein, and in their operation, may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. It is expressly intended that all combinations of those elements and/or method steps which perform substantially the same function in substantially the same way to achieve the same results are within the scope of the invention. Substitutions of method steps and elements from one described embodiment to another are also fully intended and contemplated. It is the intention, therefore, to be limited only as indicated by the scope of the claims appended hereto.