Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Joseph Milan

Patrick John Baumgartner

Wei Huang

Drew Voegele

John Hancock

Hua Wang

Steven Merlin Twitchell

Jennifer Lee Beckmann

Nigel Christopher Wolters

Zheng Mi

File exploration is facilitated by enabling zoom with respect to a thumbnail as a function of an identified point of interest. More particularly, a scaled thumbnail of the same size as a thumbnail can be presented as a function of an identified point of interest. Furthermore, navigation, among other things, is enabled to allow panning with respect to a scaled thumbnail, for instance.

Thumbnail zoom

File exploration is facilitated by enabling zoom with respect to a thumbnail based on an identified point of interest. More particularly, a scaled thumbnail of the same size as a thumbnail can be generated and presented based on an identified point of interest. In one instance, a scaled thumbnail can be generated automatically by repositioning an image based on a point of interest and applying a scaling factor to the image behind a fixed clipping mask of the same size as the thumbnail. Furthermore, navigation, among other things, is enabled to allow panning with respect to a scaled thumbnail.

A VCI (visual context indicator) color is assigned deterministically and proactively at runtime to user data contexts, and is not stored in the database, spreadsheet, or other context. VCI colors can be high contrast friendly colors. The same color is assigned to a given context each time the application runs unless the context's identifying property has changed. Color assignments are not made by users or by the application's designer, but are done instead by hashing from a context's identifying property into a VCI color palette containing, e.g., eight to sixteen colors. Unlike text-selection coloring, VCI coloring is based on the user data context's identifying property. The color assignment visually indicates context by displaying the context's name in the VCI color, or by displaying a graphical element in the VCI color near the context name. VCI color assignment also shows the occurrence and result of changes in user data context.

Deterministic visual indication of user data context

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Mercer Island, WA, United States of America

Joseph Milan