Patent ID: 8271900

Claim:
An inputting apparatus, comprising: a display unit on which an image is displayed; a detecting portion configured to detect an approach value which represents an approaching degree or a touching degree of an input object with respect to each of positions in the display unit and which becomes larger where the approaching degree or the touching degree is a certain degree than where the approaching degree or the touching degree is a degree smaller than the certain degree; a button-display portion configured to display at least one button on the display unit, each of the at least one button comprising: a display area comprising an entire area in which an image representing the each of the at least one button is displayed, and a button name of the each of the at least one button displayed in the display area; a receiving portion configured to receive an input of a predetermined command assigned to one of the at least one button when an approach value detected in the one button displayed by the button-display portion exceeds a first threshold value; a positional-information detecting portion configured to detect positional information indicating a position of the input object on the display unit; an entering-position specifying portion configured to specify an entering position at which the input object has entered the one button for the first time on the basis of the positional information detected by the positional-information detecting portion; a reference-point determining portion configured to determine a reference point on the basis of the entering position specified by the entering-position specifying portion; and an enlarging and displaying portion configured to enlarge and display only the one button on the display unit when the approach value detected in the one button exceeds a second threshold value which is smaller than the first threshold value, wherein the enlarging and displaying portion is configured to enlarge the display area of the one button at a predetermined ratio from the reference point determined by the reference-point determining portion, wherein the enlarging and displaying portion is configured to enlarge the button name of the one button at another predetermined ratio in the enlarged display area at a position distant from the reference point by a distance greater than or equal to a predetermined distance, and wherein the enlarging and displaying portion is configured to separate the button name of the one button into a plurality of parts and to arrange the plurality of parts in the display area, such that an entirety of the button name is displayed in the display area at a position different from the entering position.