Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Chaitanya Dev Sareen

Jesse Clay Satterfield

Robert J Jarrett

Bret P Anderson

Nils Anders Sundelin

Matthew Isaac Worley

Miron Vranjes

Patrice Lynn Miner

Tsz Yan Wong

Alice Pritikin Steinglass

Jennifer Nan

Stephan Hoefnagels

Christopher Doan

David Andrew Matthews

Richard Fang

Jensen Michael Harris

Jeremy Monroe Bowen

Michael H Krause

Michael Philip Arcuri

Alex G Snitkovskiy

Sean Erik McAteer

Kent Rogers Lowry

Lavanya Vasudevan

Raymond J Chen

Leroy B Keely

Harold S Gomez

Jan-Kristian Markiewicz

Gerrit H Hofmeester

Samuel J Moreau

Mohammed Samji

Song Zou

Jason Glenn Silvis

Benjamin Salim Srour

Brian Eric Uphoff

Eric J Horvitz

Steven T Kaneko

Christian Klein

Johnson T Apacible

Timothy P McKee

Richard Jennings Duncan

Mirko Mandic

Tony Edward Schreiner

Weidong Zhao

Brian S LeVee

Richie Fang

Shaheeda Parveen Nizar

Paul Daley

Theresa B Pittappilly

Jennifer Amy Sadler

Erin Megan Riley

Ravishankar Shanmugam

Christopher Cameron White

Radu Bacioiu

Abhishek Malani

Clara Graham

Louisa Chi Yan Lee

Yaou Wei

Adam Edward Barrus

Anthony Joseph Beeman

Zachary Grant Herman

Oliver R Jones

Michael Seibert

Aleita Downer, Legal Representative

Jixin Wu

Daryl Tanghe

Anshul Rawat

Jaclyn Carley Knapp

Megan Lesley Tedesco

Rebecca J Deutsch

Scott M Stiles

Benjamin Betz

Poorva Singal

Raja Charu Vikram Kakumani

Jonathan Ian Gordner

Carmen Zlateff

Brian Kramp

Steven James Frederickson

Jenny Kam

Heiwad Hamidy Osman

Henri-Charles Machalani

Helen Elizabeth Drislane

Christopher E Swan

Latika Kirtane

Jeff G Arnold

Joel Wayne Downer

Rob Jarrett

Matthew Neil Akers

Jared C Simpson

Jonathan Eric Foster

Jason Morris Yore

Jason D Farnsworth

Gregory Alexander Lett

Julie Madhusoodanan

Jake Sabulsky

Charing Wong (Tsz Yan Wong)

Apurva Jain

Matthew N Akers

This document describes techniques and apparatuses for managing an immersive interface in a multi-application immersive environment. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable a user to alter sizes and/or a layout of multiple immersive interfaces with as little as one selection.

Managing an immersive interface in a multi-application immersive environment

An application window divider control is shared by a first application window and a second application window in a user interface. Based on a received directional instruction that moves the application window divider control along an axis of the user interface, placement of the first application window and the second application window may be positioned across a range of consistently spaced points along an axis of the user interface. Placement adjustment can also impact other application windows in the user interface. The application window divider control may also snap to provide 'magnetic' points along the axis when certain conditions are satisfied.

Application window divider control for window layout management

Described herein are techniques for automatically forming groups of application windows. The techniques may be performed with a computing device executing a windowing system, the windowing system having a user interface element that can be interacted with by a user to manage applications executing on the computing device. Each application may correspond to a separate process and application window. It may be determined that an operation has occurred that will evict the application windows of target applications from the display, and in response an application group may be automatically formed. The application group may have indicia of the evicted target applications. The application group may be provided to the user interface element, and when the user interface element is interacted with by the user the user interface element displays user-selectable graphic application indicators for both the application group and applications other than the target applications.

Auto-grouping of application windows

A user can select content on an interface screen and provide an associated directional placement instruction to launch a new application window that displays the selected content or information associated with the selected content. The directional placement instruction may indicate an area of the screen where the user prefers to display the new application window. Responsive to the initiation of the directional placement instruction, a conversion module converts the selected content into a placeable representation of the new application. Responsive to receipt of the directional placement instruction, a window management system presents the new application window in the user interface in a location based on the directional placement instruction.

Content-based directional placement application launch

Described herein are embodiments that relate to implementation of multi-stage gestures, using multi-stage gestures to control applications, and allowing, under certain conditions, invocation of an open operation (which would normally only open an application or bring an application to the fore) to cause a target application to terminate before being newly opened. A multi-stage gesture may be used to invoke different functions at respective gesture stages of a same input stroke. The functions may be different forms of application 'closing', such as backgrounding or suspending an application, terminating an application, and restarting an application. The restarting (including termination) of an application when the application is opened may be termed a 'smart-restart', which may involve interpreting from specific user activity that a user intends to restart an application.

Closing, starting, and restarting applications

This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling dynamic joint dividers for application windows. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable sizing and positioning of application windows to provide an optimized layout of application windows.

Dynamic joint dividers for application windows

A clipboard component provides a multi-item clipboard store. The clipboard component uses a technical strategy that facilitates its efficient adoption and use by end users and application developers. From an end user's standpoint, the clipboard component provides a new user experience which is easy for the users to discover, learn and use, due, in part, to the use of ergonomic control mechanisms for activating paste and copy operations. From a developer's standpoint, the clipboard component provides a way of allowing existing legacy applications to interact with a multi-item clipboard store, even though these applications were not originally created to provide that type of interaction. The clipboard component can also, upon instruction by a user, apply one or more supplemental operations to a copied content item, such as transferring the item to a target computing device.

Interacting with a clipboard store

Techniques are described herein that are capable of providing universal back navigation for multiple windows. Universal back navigation allows universal back functionality to transition between operating in an in-application context and a cross-application context. In the in-application context, operation of the universal back functionality is restricted to functionality of an application (e.g., a single application) to which user instructions are to be currently directed by default. In the cross-application context, operation of the universal back functionality is not restricted to functionality of the application to which user instructions are to be currently directed by default.

Universal back navigation for multiple windows

Customizable bladed applications are described herein. A device platform is configured to provide a simultask mode that enables combined user access to multiple applications of the platform via respective chrome portions. When simultask mode is active, arrangement of chrome elements within a user interface is controlled to generate a bladed view that provides a compact representation for one application in conjunction with an expanded view that provides principal chrome for a different application. The platform makes the bladed view available for any displayable application of the platform. The bladed view may also include application-specific elements that are populated using customizations designated via metadata of the application, or using default information for applications in the absence of designated customizations. Further, the platform may implement a notification system that operates on behalf of applications to obtain and apply updates for dynamically updatable content incorporated into bladed views.

Customizable bladed applications

Techniques for an experience mode transition are described. Generally, an experience mode refers to a visual and functional arrangement that is presented to a user of a device. Different experience modes present different visual and functional arrangements to a user. According to various embodiments, a computing device is configured to operate in multiple experience modes and may transition between different experience modes and based on a variety of different triggering events. Generally, a transition between different experience modes causes a visual and/or functional reconfiguration of a user experience on a device.

Experience mode transition

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Chaitanya Dev Sareen