Patent ID: 7519920

Claim:
A method of providing a display control mechanism for information in a handheld computer or a tablet PC, comprising: displaying a document with information elements in a display area on a display screen of said data processing system; displaying a cursor on said display, and controlling movement of said cursor in said display area in accordance with a detected movement of a stylus across the display screen, said cursor capable of being activated for panning tool behavior when located on the document; scrolling the document after the cursor is activated on the document for panning tool behavior, the scrolling of the document being in tandem with the controlled movement of said activated cursor in the display area such that the information elements of the document in the display screen are dragged in substantially the same direction of the controlled movement of said activated cursor; and after said activated cursor crosses outside of the display area into an autoscroll area, continuing to scroll the document in a direction corresponding to the movement of said activated cursor while crossing outside of the display area, wherein the speed of continued scrolling is controlled according to at least one of the speed and acceleration into which said activated cursor entered the autoscroll area when crossing outside the display area, the continued scrolling persists automatically while the activated cursor remains in the autoscroll area after crossing outside of the display area, and the direction of the continued scrolling of the document is substantially the same as the scrolling direction of the document instantly before the crossing of the cursor outside of the display area.