Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Andrew T Hockman

Matthew Jay Kotler

Erez Kikin Gil

Mark E Pearson

Vignesh Sachidanandam

Christopher Hugh Pratley

Ned Bearer Friend

Doreen Nelson Grieb

Context based menus that can be dynamically positioned, laid out, and activated are provided for tap, swipe, and press-and-hold type interactions. Presenting a plurality of executable commands and/or links to submenus, a context based menu may be displayed in various shapes and forms in relation to selected content displayed on a user interface and/or other factors such as available display space, user attributes, and similar ones. Submenus presenting commands within a category may be displayed in place of, adjacent to, or overlapping with a parent context based menu. Menu position, contents, and/or shape may be adjusted in response to changes in selected content, user contact location, changes in user interface, and the like.

Dynamic context based menus

Context based menus are customizable to extend features to meet user demand. An application providing the context based menu reads a custom configuration from an XML file or receives input through a user interface to construct a context based menu. The custom configuration hosts attribute information for placement of controls, visualization or controls, and/or behavior of controls in the menu. Custom configuration is editable and provides features to add and remove controls from a default context based menu.

Providing customization of context based menus

Context based menus are employed for content management through touch or gesture actions, keyboard entries, mouse or pen actions, and similar input. Different actions and combinations of actions enable users to activate sub-menus, execute commands, or collapse context based menus. Gestures associated with the actions are determined through action analysis. The action analysis includes tap action hit target region analysis and swipe action direction, angle, and/or length analysis.

Determining gestures on context based menus

Context based menus are employed for content management through touch or gesture actions, keyboard entries, mouse or pen actions, and similar input. Context based menus may be deployed using a variety of shapes, forms, and content. Different actions and combinations of actions enable users to activate submenus, execute commands, or collapse context based menus. By enabling viewing of menus and execution of commands through context based menus positioned in relation to displayed content user experience is enhanced when interacting with user interfaces with limited display area.

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Andrew T Hockman