| 摘要 |
<p>A method to maintain all of the information that is originally displayed in a window on the display screen in an interactive information handling system, as the size of the window is decreased. By selecting from a plurality of different character sets that are stored in the system, a character set is obtained which has the appropriate width and height attributes that allow the original text characters to be substituted for the corresponding text characters originally displayed. Since the selected character set contains proportionally smaller characters no information is lost because the size of the window was decreased. The different character sets that are stored may be hardware implemented such as ROM character generators based on different sized character boxes or software generated character sets which are also based on different sized character sets. The type of font is important only in the context that some fonts are more readable as the size of the characters decrease than others. The method allows the operator to dynamically vary the window size after the initial window has been displayed in response to some predetermined action by the operator. Any of the techniques suggested in the art for changing the window size would be appropriate. In the preferred embodiment of the method, the system includes a "mouse". Movement of the mouse in a generally horizontal direction with the button in the held position causes the horizontal window size to increase or decrease. The amount of decrease is calculated in real time by monitoring the movement of the mouse and cursor position. A table is stored in memory which lists all of the displayable character sets that are available. Each character set has a width attribute and a height attribute. A percentage decrease in width and height is stored in the table representing changes from the corresponding attributes of standard character set that is normally used to display information in the system. A new character set is selected from the table in accordance with the calculated percentage of decrease and the new character substituted in the text. If the user sizes the window below limits of readability or system capability for resolution, the window components are replaced with a graphic representation of the data or with icons. If the user decides to restore the size of the original, a 1-step key or mouse button sequence is available.</p> |
