HK1055877A - Method for displaying data for multitasking operation in mobile telecommunication terminal - Google Patents

Description

Method for displaying data for multitasking operation in mobile communication terminal

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a user interface of a mobile communication terminal, and more particularly, to a method of displaying data for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal. Control of

Background

In a conventional mobile communication terminal, a method for controlling display may be performed by sharing "foreground" processing and "background" processing in one display unit.

In this case, the "foreground" process refers to a process for controlling a program having a higher priority to be executed among several concurrently-executed programs such as a multi-program, a multiprocessor, and the like. And the "foreground" process refers to a process for controlling only a program having a lower priority to be executed when a program having a higher priority is not executed among several simultaneously-executed programs.

However, the above-described conventional display control poses a problem in that when a call signal (e.g., a dropped call) having a higher priority than the input text information is received, the running text information is deleted.

It is not suitable for applying conventional display control to handle multitasking programs required for next-generation mobile communication terminals, such as downloading files while displaying a moving picture expert group (MP3) layer and simultaneously editing a Short Message Service (SMS) or a Multimedia Message Service (MMS).

Disclosure of Invention

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method of displaying data for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal so as to operate each designated task by switching the display even in the case of simultaneously operating several programs.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of displaying data for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal, the method comprising the steps of: while running the first task, running a second task that responds to the multitask request; determining whether a capacity for display conversion is exceeded; outputting an error message if the capacity of the display conversion is exceeded; and storing a display for displaying the first task and the second task if the capacity of the display conversion is not exceeded.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a display conversion method for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal, the method comprising the steps of: allowing a user to select a display conversion menu for converting a display when performing multitasking; determining a display conversion mode according to the selection of the display conversion menu; selecting a task to be switched to switch the display in case of a fast display switching mode; and sequentially switching the display from the display of the current task by using a shift key in the case of the normal display switching mode.

Drawings

The above and other objects and features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

fig. 1 is a diagram showing a mobile communication terminal to which a preferred embodiment of the present invention is applied;

fig. 2 is a flowchart for displaying data on multitasking operation in the mobile communication terminal according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart for displaying a related multitasking operation transition in the mobile communication terminal according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention; and

fig. 4 shows a diagram based on a switching method for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

Other objects and aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In this specification, a window of a graphical user interface for displaying a specific task is referred to as "display".

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing a mobile communication terminal to which a preferred embodiment of the present invention is applied.

The mobile communication terminal includes: an antenna unit 11 for receiving a wireless signal from an external source and transmitting the wireless signal to the external source; a speaker 12 for outputting a voice signal; a display unit 13 for displaying the current state of the mobile communication terminal; a high-low selection tab (pad) 14; and a keypad (keypad) unit 15 for inputting letters or phone numbers, etc. Specifically, a separate display changeover key is provided in the keyboard unit.

A process for controlling the display unit 13 by displaying the shift key will be described below.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart describing a preferred embodiment of the present invention, which corresponds to a method for displaying data on multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal.

After task a is first executed in step 201, it is checked in step 202 whether another new task B is running. At this time, if the task B is not executed, the task a is continuously executed. On the other hand, in step 203, in case of executing the task B, it is determined whether the display of the task B exceeds the capacity of the display conversion in the mobile communication terminal. It is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art that the capacity of the display conversion is based on the capacity of the memory.

After checking the result of step 203, if the capacity of display conversion of the mobile communication terminal is not exceeded, the display showing the running task a is stored in step 204. Next, in step 205, the new task B is displayed on the display unit.

After checking the result of step 203, if the display conversion capacity in the mobile communication terminal is exceeded, an error message is output in step 206. Subsequently, in step 207, it is determined whether to abort the currently running task A. If it is determined that task A continues to be run, the display of task A is not allowed to be converted to the display of task B. The result is instead that the execution of task B is aborted.

As a result of the check in step 207, if it is determined that the execution of task a is suspended, in step 209, the display for displaying task a is deleted and a new task B appears on the display unit. At this time, the display storing the task a for display execution is numbered differently from the currently stored previously executed task. For example, if the total number of currently stored tasks is "5", the currently running task a is stored with the number "6".

Fig. 3 is a flowchart describing a method for displaying a transition of multitasking operation in the mobile communication terminal according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 3, in order to switch the display related to multitasking in the mobile communication terminal, a display switch menu is first selected in step 301. Once the display transition menu is selected, the display transition mode is determined in step 302.

In this case, there are two display conversion modes, namely: a normal switching mode and a fast switching mode. Each mode is performed according to a user's selection.

In step 303, if the normal conversion mode is selected, the display conversion is sequentially executed up/down in one display by selecting a shift key on the current display or by selecting a display conversion selection key.

Meanwhile, if the fast switching mode is selected, an indicator (identifier), i.e., a number, of the currently running task is output and an indicator is selected, or a specific indicator in the currently running task is specifically input and selected, in step 304.

As a result of step 304, the task selected by the selected indicator is displayed in step 305.

Fig. 4 shows a diagram of a display based on the inventive method for display conversion for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal.

As shown in fig. 4, the display for multitasking in the mobile communication terminal indicates the location (location) of the current task among all tasks.

At this time, the switching to each specified task follows the same procedure as shown in fig. 3.

Fig. 4 also depicts that an arbitrary task is executed on each display unit, and an indicator for representing the nth display is displayed on the upper portion of the display unit.

As apparent from the above description, the present invention provides an advantage in that each task can be separately controlled while multitasking by maintaining each display corresponding to each task in a mobile communication terminal. This also prevents the current task in the display from being deleted when another new task with a higher priority starts to be executed.

In addition, the method as described above may be implemented by storing the instructions on a computer-readable medium such as a CD-ROM, a RAM, a ROM, a floppy disk, a hard disk, or a magneto-optical disk.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to a certain preferred embodiment, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made without departing from the scope of the invention defined in the appended claims.

Claims (7)

1. A method for displaying data for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) while running the first task, responding to the multitask request and running the second task;

(b) determining whether a capacity for display conversion is exceeded;

(c) if the display conversion capacity is exceeded, outputting an error message; and

(d) if the capacity of the display transition is not exceeded, a display for displaying the first task is stored, and the second task is displayed.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

(e) after performing step (c), determining whether to abort the first task;

(f) in a case where the first task is suspended, deleting the display for the first task so as to display the second task; and

(g) in the case of continuing the first task, the second task is suspended.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile communication terminal includes a display changeover switch for selecting one of the multitasking.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the display for the first task and the second task indicates a location of the task specified in all tasks.

5. A method for display conversion for multitasking operation in a mobile communication terminal, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) allowing a user to select a display conversion menu for converting a display when performing multitasking;

(b) determining a display conversion mode according to a selection from the display conversion menu;

(c) in the case of the fast switching mode, selecting a task to be switched so as to switch the display; and

(d) in the case of the normal conversion mode, the display is sequentially converted from the display for the current task by using the shift key.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the step (c) comprises the steps of:

(c1) displaying all indicators assigned to each task; and

(c2) allowing an indicator to be selected from these indicators.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein step (c) further comprises the steps of:

(c1) an indicator is allowed to be input to switch to a task corresponding to the input indicator.