| 摘要 |
An apparatus and method for creating and controlling a virtual workspace of a windowing system, the windowing system comprising hardware and software components, including a computer, a display device and an operating system supporting windowing. The virtual workspace has associated logical dimensions exceeding the physical dimensions of the display device's screen so that only a portion of the virtual workspace can be displayed at any time. The apparatus comprises a workspace input device coupled to the computer, the workspace input device providing, responsive to the end-user's activity, data relevant to the operations of the virtual workspace. The apparatus also comprises a workspace control mechanism responsive to the data provided by the workspace input device, the workspace control mechanism actuating the operations associated with such data and controlling the display on the screen of the portions of the virtual workspace. The method comprises the steps of (i) acquiring, at a workspace input device, data of types relevant to virtual workspace operations, said data being representative of end-user activity associated with said operations; (ii) providing data representative of the acquired data, to the workspace control mechanism; (iii) initiating, responsive to the provided data, interaction between the workspace control mechanism and one or more other software components, the interaction being directed to actuating the virtual workspace operations, and (iv) actuating virtual workspace operations by initiating interaction between the software components and the hardware components. |
