Patent Document

BACKGROUND  
         [0001]    This invention relates generally to using touch screen displays for processor-based systems.  
           [0002]    Conventionally, touch screen displays may be utilized to provide user inputs to processor-based systems. The user can touch the display screen with a finger or a stylus to indicate a selection.  
           [0003]    Positioning a mouse cursor over a selectable display element may generate an event. For example, causing the mouse cursor to “hover” over a selectable display element may generate an event. The element may be highlighted or an insert box may be displayed that provides information about the element. Similarly, moving the mouse generates mouse cursor move events that cause the on-screen cursor to be moved in correspondence with the user&#39;s mouse movement. Similarly, when a button on the mouse is selected, a mouse click event may be generated, for example, to select a display element under the mouse cursor.  
           [0004]    Generally, these mouse commands are well known to software designers of processor-based systems. Unfortunately, they are generally not available with touch screen displays. For example, it is generally not possible to detect when a finger is hovering over a touch screen because the touch screen only works when it is touched.  
           [0005]    A large amount of conventional software, including browser software, operating system software and application software, as a few examples, may operate based on conventional well-known mouse commands that are conventionally recognized and conventionally utilized to provide user inputs to application programs. Unfortunately, this software is not amenable to operation with processor-based systems that utilize touch screens. This is because the touch screens do not provide commands that are recognized as conventional mouse cursor commands.  
           [0006]    As a result, conventional software, in some cases, may not be usable with processor-based systems that use a touch screen as an input-output device. In particular, touch screen generated input commands may be incompatible with software that expects commands in the format conventionally associated with mouse cursor command protocols.  
           [0007]    Thus, there is a need for a way to provide mouse functionality in connection with touch screens. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]    [0008]FIG. 1 is a schematic depiction of one embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0009]    [0009]FIG. 2 is a flow chart for software in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention; and  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a hardware device in accordance with the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0011]    Referring to FIG. 1, a touch screen display  12  may be coupled to a processor-based system  18 . The processor-based system  18  may include software  14  that translates touch screen events into mouse events. Thus, processor-based system  18  software  16 , which expects to receive mouse events, receives events generated from the touch screen  12  that are recognized by the software  16  as though the touch screen events were mouse events. This may occur despite the fact that the system  18  does not use a mouse and no mouse operation is utilized in connection with the touch screen  12 .  
         [0012]    Instead, interaction with the touch screen  12  in an appropriate fashion is translated into a mouse event by the software  14  and forwarded to the software  16  to implement the appropriate software controls. In other words, the software  16  responds to interaction with the touch screen  12  as though a mouse had been utilized. Thus, conventional software that relies on mouse events may be utilized in connection with touch screens.  
         [0013]    In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, shown in FIG. 2, touch screen translator software  14  may detect the presence of the user&#39;s finger or stylus on the touch screen  12 , as indicated in diamond  22 . In response to the detection of the finger/stylus, a mouse over event may be generated, as indicated in block  24 . A mouse over event corresponds to a mouse cursor being positioned over a display element, without selecting that element by a mouse click.  
         [0014]    A check at diamond  26  determines whether the user&#39;s finger/stylus moves. If so, a mouse move event may be generated as indicated in block  28 . A mouse move event corresponds to movement of a mouse which results in movement of the position of the mouse cursor on a display screen in correspondence to the user&#39;s mouse movement.  
         [0015]    A check at diamond  30  determines whether the finger/stylus presence is still detected on the touch screen  12 . If so, the flow iterates to monitor for finger/stylus movement at diamond  26 . Otherwise, a mouse click event may be generated as indicated at block  32 . When the user removes the user&#39;s finger/stylus from the touch screen  12 , the display element last under the user&#39;s finger/stylus may be determined to have been selected. As a result, a mouse click event, corresponding to the actuation of a mouse button, may be generated.  
         [0016]    Thus, the software  14  may implement mouse commands including the mouse over, mouse move and mouse click events. Other conventional mouse events may be generated as well. Different finger/stylus actuations can be recognized as the mouse over, move or click event. However, in each case, a particular finger/stylus movement or actuation may be translated into a corresponding mouse event that may be recognized by software  16  that expects conventional mouse commands.  
         [0017]    Finally, referring to FIG. 3, one embodiment of a processor-based system  10  to implement the present invention is illustrated. Of course, the present invention is not in any way limited to any particular hardware architecture or arrangement. The embodiment shown in FIG. 3 is simply an illustration of a wireless mobile processor-based device.  
         [0018]    In the system  10 , a processor  38  is coupled to a touch screen display  40  and a power controller  42 . The processor  38 , in one embodiment, may be the StrongARM brand processor available from Intel Corporation. The processor  38  may also communicate with a host processor-based system using sync signals  58  and file transfer signals  60 .  
         [0019]    The processor  38  is also coupled to a coder/decoder or codec  44 . The codec  44  provides an analog output signal to headphones  46  or speakers  48 .  
         [0020]    A baseband section  50  is coupled to a radio frequency interface  52  in one embodiment. The interface  52  may facilitate communications with a base station using a wireless protocol. This may be the case in a variety of portable devices including web tablets and personal digital assistants, as two examples. In other embodiments, the system  10  may be a standalone system, may communicate over a tethered cable with a base station, or may use other wireless techniques such as infrared technology.  
         [0021]    The processor of  38  is also coupled to a static random access memory (SRAM)  54  and a flash memory  56  in one embodiment. In that embodiment, the translator software  14  and the software  16  may be stored in the flash memory  56 . Of course, other types of storage devices, such as hard disk drives, may also be used in other applications. The processor  38  is also coupled to one or more peripheral cards  62 .  
         [0022]    The touch screen translator software  14  may be integrated into conventional application programs on a given processor-based system. For example, the software  14  may be integrated into Internet browser software. In addition, the software  14  may be integrated into a graphics support layer that is used for building graphical user interfaces, such as a Java Abstract Window Tool Kit (AWT). In some cases, the software  14  may even be incorporated into the operating system. It may even be useful in many cases to integrate the translator software  14  into the graphics support layer to allow a large number of application programs to run with touch screen displays without alteration of the operating system itself.  
         [0023]    While the present invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, those skilled in the art will appreciate numerous modifications and variations therefrom. It is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and variations as fall within the true spirit and scope of this present invention.

Technology Category: 3