Method and apparatus for presenting and navigating bookmarks in a set of electronic reading material

摘要

An improved mechanism is provided for presenting and navigating bookmarks in a set of electronic reading material (ERM). In one implementation, when a portion of an ERM is displayed, a graphical element, which represents the contents of the ERM, is also displayed. A current location indicator and one or more bookmark indicators are further displayed on or within proximity of the graphical element to show where, within the ERM, the currently displayed portion is located and where bookmarks are located. This provides a useful graphical overview to a user. In addition, the mechanism may facilitate navigation to a bookmark by enabling a user to select one of the bookmark indicators to navigate directly to that bookmark. The mechanism may also enable a user to navigate sequentially from bookmark to bookmark using a previous bookmark control and/or a next bookmark control. With these capabilities, bookmark presentation and navigation are improved.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
causing content from a particular portion of a set of electronic reading material (ERM) to be displayed in a graphical user interface, wherein the particular portion is located at a particular location within the ERM; wherein a plurality of user-designated bookmarks have been associated with respective bookmark locations within the ERM; detecting a first invocation of a previous bookmark control element displayed in the graphical user interface; in response to detecting the first invocation of the previous bookmark control element:
determining that a first user-designated bookmark, of the plurality of user-designated bookmarks, is associated with a first bookmark location within the ERM that:
precedes the particular location, andis closer to the particular location than any other bookmark location that precedes the particular location;causing content from a first portion of the ERM that is associated with the first bookmark location to be displayed; while displaying content from the first portion of the ERM, detecting a second invocation of the same previous bookmark control element; in response to detecting the second invocation of the previous bookmark control element:
determining that a second user-designated bookmark, of the plurality of user-designated bookmarks, is associated with a second bookmark location within the ERM that:
precedes the first bookmark location, andis closer to the first bookmark location than any other bookmark location that precedes the first bookmark location; andcausing content from a second portion of the ERM that is associated with the second bookmark location to be displayed; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.