Patent ID: 8819568

Claim:
A windowing system for an electronic device that uses an electronic paper display, the windowing system comprising: a compositor configured to determine multiple update areas, wherein an update area indicates a smallest area of the electronic paper display to be updated in response to one or more changes being made to a window that is displayed on the electronic paper display, the update area including the window that is being changed and portions of higher layer windows that overlap the window, the electronic paper display capable of performing at least an area non-flashing update, an area flashing update, a full screen non-flashing update, or a full screen flashing update; a frame buffer configured to store the multiple update areas prior to updating the window; and a display controller manager that is configured to create a cumulative update area based on the update areas that are determined during a time period between a begin update instruction and an end update instruction, and to instruct a display controller to perform an update of a portion of the display corresponding to the cumulative update area, wherein the cumulative update area comprises a union of all the update areas that are determined during the time period between the begin update instruction and the end update instruction, the update comprising one of the area flashing update or the area non-flashing update.