Patent ID: 7366995

Claim:
A display system, comprising: a screen display for displaying graphical content further comprising data content; and an input device means, for defining a fixed reference point location and a movable current point location on said screen display; and a programmable controller operative to provide a first function region having a predetermined shape spatially relative to and containing said reference point location and second and third function regions each contiguous with at least one previously provided function region; wherein at least three function regions are each assigned a substantially different corresponding specific function, and each of said specific functions comprises one or more corresponding operations, and said programmable controller is operative to selectively actuate one or more said operations, the determined operations being selected based on, but not limited to, said current point location being within said corresponding function region, and at least one of all said plural operations is operable to continuously modify said displayed data content based on, but not limited to, both said reference point location and said current point location, whereby, a user may press and drag into different regions of a display to perform different operations such as panning, rotating, zooming, or others without having to first select the function with an additional user action such as a key press, click of an icon, pausing the motion of a cursor.