Abstract:
Methods and systems for providing a visual indication of hung applications are provided. When an application is in a hung state, an application window is replaced with a proxy window. The appearance of the proxy window is altered when a user attempts to interact with the proxy window.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     Aspects of the present invention relate to computer operating systems. More specifically, aspects of the present invention provide a visual indication to users when a computer application does not timely interact with a computer operating system. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     It is common for computer applications and operating systems to be configured such that the computer operating systems periodically receive messages from computer applications. The messages inform the operating system that the applications are functioning properly. When an application does not transmit a message when expected, the application is considered to be “hung.” An application can hang for a number of reasons, including a slow network connection, an intensive processing routine or an error condition. Users often notice that an application is hung when an application window appears, but does not allow the users to interact with an application. For example, a word processing application may periodically send messages to an operating system. When the word processing application becomes hung, the user may be allowed to move an application window, but cannot save a document, access any of the menu commands or perform any other operation that requires the word processing application to interact with the operating system. 
     Existing computer operating systems do not provide an indication to users when an application hangs. Users can become frustrated when trying to interact with an application window that they can see, but is non-responsive to inputs from the users. Moreover, hung applications do not provide display data to the operating system. As a result, when another application window is placed over a hung application window, the display data for the hung application window is lost and cannot be restored. 
     Therefore, there is a need in the art for computer operating system functionality that alerts users when an application hangs. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Aspects of the present invention address one or more of the issues mentioned above and alert users when an application is in a hung state. When an application is in a hung state, an application window is replaced with a proxy window. The proxy window may initially have the same appearance as the application window. The appearance of the proxy window is then altered when a user attempts to interact with the proxy window. For example, the window may assume a frosted appearance. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Aspects of the present invention are described with respect to the accompanying figures, in which like reference numerals identify like elements, and in which: 
         FIG. 1  shows a functional block diagram of a conventional general-purpose computer system; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates a computer implemented method of alerting a user than an application is in a hung state, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates an exemplary application window for a word processing application, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; and 
         FIG. 4  illustrates a proxy window that includes a frosted appearance to alert the user that an application is in a hung state and the window is a proxy window, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Exemplary Operating Environment 
       FIG. 1  is a functional block diagram of an example of a conventional general-purpose digital computing environment that can be used to implement various aspects of the present invention. In  FIG. 1 , a computer  100  includes a processing unit  110 , a system memory  120 , and a system bus  130  that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit  110 . The system bus  130  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory  120  includes read only memory (ROM)  140  and random access memory (RAM)  150 . 
     A basic input/output system  160  (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer  100 , such as during start-up, is stored in the ROM  140 . The computer  100  also includes a hard disk drive  170  for reading from and writing to a hard disk (not shown), a magnetic disk drive  180  for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk  190 , and an optical disk drive  191  for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk  192  such as a CD ROM or other optical media. The hard disk drive  170 , magnetic disk drive  180 , and optical disk drive  191  are connected to the system bus  130  by a hard disk drive interface  192 , a magnetic disk drive interface  193 , and an optical disk drive interface  194 , respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the personal computer  100 . It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types of computer readable media that can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROMs), and the like, may also be used in the example operating environment. 
     A number of program modules can be stored on the hard disk drive  170 , magnetic disk  190 , optical disk  192 , ROM  140  or RAM  150 , including an operating system  195 , one or more application programs  196 , other program modules  197 , and program data  198 . A user can enter commands and information into the computer  100  through input devices such as a keyboard  101  and pointing device  102 . Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  110  through a serial port interface  106  that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). Further still, these devices may be coupled directly to the system bus  130  via an appropriate interface (not shown). A monitor  107  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  130  via an interface, such as a video adapter  108 . In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers. 
     The computer  100  can operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer  109 . The remote computer  109  can be a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer  100 , although only a memory storage device  111  has been illustrated in  FIG. 1 . The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 1  include a local area network (LAN)  112  and a wide area network (WAN)  113 . Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet. 
     When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer  100  is connected to the local network  112  through a network interface or adapter  114 . When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer  100  typically includes a modem  115  or other means for establishing communications over the wide area network  113 , such as the Internet. The modem  115 , which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus  130  via the serial port interface  106 . In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer  100 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. 
     It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are illustrative and other techniques for establishing a communications link between the computers can be used. The existence of any of various well-known protocols such as TCP/IP, Ethernet, FTP, HTTP, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11x and the like is presumed, and the system can be operated in a client-server configuration to permit a user to retrieve web pages from a web-based server. Any of various conventional web browsers can be used to display and manipulate data on web pages. 
     Description of Illustrative Embodiments 
       FIG. 2  illustrates a computer implemented method of alerting a user than an application is in a hung state. First, in step  202  it is determined whether or not an application is in a hung state. An application may be in a hung state when the application does not communicate with an operating system within a predetermined period of time. When the application is not in a hung state, in step  204  the process waits for predetermined test time before returning to step  202  and again determining whether the application is in a hung state. When the application is in a hung state, in step  206  application display data is captured. Step  206  may include capturing bitmap data that is used to create an application window that is displayed on a display device. 
     The method shown in  FIG. 2  includes capturing application display data after it is determined that an application is in a hung state. In alternative embodiments application display data may be captured at other times. For example, a memory may store the last known good state of application display data for an application window or the memory may be updated at regular intervals. 
     In step  208  a proxy window that includes the application display data is created. The proxy window may have the same appearance as the application window, but does not have the same functionality as an application. For example, a proxy window may be configured to merely display information and not allow a user to interact with the window. In step  210  the application window is replaced with the proxy window. When the application window and the proxy window have the same appearance, a user may not recognize that the application window has been replaced with the proxy window. 
     In step  212  it is determined whether or not a response is received from a user. Step  212  may include determining whether the user has attempted to use a pointing device to select one of the menu options available on the window, attempted to input text or perform some other operation that would normally be accomplished with the application window. If no response is received from the user, in step  214  the proxy window is replaced with the application window when an application is no longer in a hung state. The combination of steps  212  and  214  may be transparent to a user. That is, if a user does not attempt to interact with the proxy window, the user would not know that an application window has been replaced with a proxy window and the proxy window is then replaced with an application window. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, the appearance of a proxy window would always be different from the appearance of an application window, regardless of whether or not a response is received from a user. 
     When a response is received from a user, in step  216  the appearance of the proxy window is altered.  FIG. 3  illustrates an exemplary application window for a word processing application, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.  FIG. 4  illustrates a proxy window that includes a frosted appearance to alert the user that an application is in a hung state and the window is a proxy window. The frosted appearance may be obtained, for example, by blending a bitmap of the proxy window with a white bitmap. One skilled in the art will appreciate that there are numerous other methods of changing the appearance of a proxy window to alert the user that an application is in a hung state. For example, if the application window is normally in color, the appearance of the proxy window may be changed to black-and-white to alert the user of the hung application. In another example, one or more callers of the proxy window may be altered. 
     Next, is determined whether the hung application window is related to another application window in step  218 . For example, an electronic-mail application window may be related to a word processing application window when a word processing application is used to compose electronic-mail messages. When the hung application window is not related to another application window, the process returns to step  214 . When the hung application window is related to another application window, in step  220  a proxy window for the related application window is created. Next, the appearance of the related application proxy window may be altered in step  222 . In alternative embodiments, the appearance of the related application proxy window may be altered only when a user attempts to interact with the window or with the proxy window. The appearance may be altered in the same manner that the proxy window has been altered in step  216 . Alternatively, the appearances of related application windows may be altered differently to identify the windows as related application proxy windows. 
     After step  222 , in step  224  it is again determined whether the application is in a hung state. When the application is still in a hung state, in step  230  the process waits for a test time period before again determining whether the application is in a hung state. When the application is no longer in a hung state, in step  226  the application proxy window is replaced with an application window and in step  228  the related application proxy window is replaced with a related application window. After step  228 , the process returns to step  204 . 
     The present invention has been described in terms of preferred and exemplary embodiments thereof. Numerous other embodiments, modifications and variations within the scope and spirit of the appended claims will occur to persons of ordinary skill in the art from a review of this disclosure.