Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Kenton Allen Shipley

Darren Ray Davis

Patrick Joseph Derks

Ramrajprabu Balasubramanian

William Scott Stauber

Elizabeth Fay Threlkeld

Keri Kruse Moran

Issa Yousef Khoury

Petteri Mikkola

Ryan Pendlay

Giorgio Francesco Sega

Mohammed Kaleemur Rahman

Paul Dykstra

Nathan T Radebaugh

Max Glenn Morris

Marc Christopher Pottier

Khurram Zia

Nishad Mulye

Brian David Cross

Priya Bhushan Dandawate

Michael Neil Loholt

Travis J Martin

Christian Klein

Eric Jonathan Hull

Peter Hammerquist

Bryan Kim Mamaril

Sophors Khut

Jan H Karachale

Cassandra April King

David John Woods

Daniel Edward Stafford

Patrick Derks

Ryan Chandler Pendlay

Jan Harold Karachale

Khurram M Zia

A system for generating a user interface described herein can include a processor to detect a plurality of display characteristics from a user interface manager, wherein the plurality of display characteristics correspond to a type of a device. The processor can also detect a list of applications being executed by the system and generate a user interface container by applying the plurality of display characteristics to each of the applications from the list of applications.

Generating user interface containers

A system for generating a user interface described herein can include a processor to detect a type of the system based on hardware components residing within the system or coupled to the system and determine a user interface manager to execute based on the type of the system. The processor can also execute the user interface manager to generate a user interface for the system, wherein the type of the user interface manager comprises a plurality of rules to indicate a layout of the user interface.

Rules based user interface generation

A technique is described herein for facilitating movement of graphical objects across display screens. In one manner of operation, the method includes: displaying a representation of a first movement as a user moves a graphical object across a source screen; detecting that the user has moved the graphical object into a graphical source portal associated with the source screen; associating the graphical object with two or more graphical destination portals provided by the plural display screens, in addition to the graphical source portal, such that the graphical object is accessible from the graphical source portal and any graphical destination portal; detecting that the user has removed the graphical object from a chosen graphical portal in a chosen screen; displaying the graphical object as having been removed from all graphical portals; and displaying a second movement as the user moves the graphical object across the chosen screen to a final destination.

Facilitating movement of graphical objects across separate screens

Various models may enable a first device to share a device resource with a second device in various contexts, such as sharing computing sessions via terminal services; sharing displays via display mirroring; and sharing input components across devices. However, such techniques often utilize ad hoc sharing models that depend on configuration and/or administrative access of each device; limit the capabilities of such sharing; and/or exhibit security concerns. Instead, a target device may advertise an availability of a target device resource. A host device may request the target device to lend the target device resource to the computing environment of the host device. The target device may reserve the target device resource for the host device, which may then integrate the target device resource into the host computing environment. The model may enable the user to utilize resources even from target devices that the user is not otherwise permitted to use.

Lending target device resources to host device computing environment

In many computing scenarios, a user of a primary device may wish to incorporate an auxiliary device in the presentation of an application. Such incorporation may involve a terminal services session that projects the computing environment of the primary device onto the auxiliary device; mirroring the computing environment of the primary device through the auxiliary device; and/or utilizing applications that interoperate with client applications executing on the second device. However, such techniques may not fully reflect the properties of each device, and/or may only apply to particular applications and/or configurations. Instead, the primary device may adapt the primary computing environment to an auxiliary computing environment according to a device property of the auxiliary device; partition the application into a primary application portion presented within the primary computing environment and an auxiliary application portion presented within the auxiliary computing environment; and transmit the auxiliary computing environment to the auxiliary device.

Partitioned application presentation across devices

Embodiments include processes, systems, and devices for initiating proximity actions upon the activation of a proximity connection. A proximity service receives an indication from a proximity provider that a proximity connection is established, and then determines a joint proximity context of the proximity connection. The proximity service then initiates a proximity action to facilitate a proximity function indicated by the joint proximity context. Joint proximity contexts include indications that an application has queued content to be shared with a proximity device, that an application has registered to publish messages on a namespace, that an application has subscribed to messages on a namespace, that an application has registered to find a peer application on a proximity device to enable multi-user collaboration, and that a device seeks to pair with another device.

Platform-enabled proximity service

A user may interact with a collection of devices that each exhibit particular device properties. Where each device executes and presents an isolated computing environment, inconsistencies may arise in the user interaction by the user with different devices. Alternatively, a terminal server may present a computing environment to various auxiliary devices, but such presentation may fail to utilize some device properties of some devices, and/or may present a computing environment that is not suitable for some devices. Instead, a primary device of the device collection may adapt a primary computing environment to an auxiliary computing environment for each auxiliary device, based upon its device properties. Upon receiving a request to execute an application, the primary device may execute the application within the auxiliary computing environment, and may adapt the application based upon the device properties. The primary device may stream each auxiliary computing environment to the respective auxiliary device.

Presentation of computing environment on multiple devices

In many computing scenarios, a computing environment of a device may present applications through various presentation components, such as displays, speakers, and headphones. However, navigating among the applications currently presented within the computing environment may be difficult for the user; e.g., for a device presenting many applications on many displays that share an application stack, the application that the user wishes to select may be buried deep within the shared application stack. In accordance with the techniques presented herein, the device may generate an application presentation history for each presentation component, indicating applications that have previously been presented through the presentation component. A request to transition a selected presentation component away from a current application presentation may be fulfilled by identifying a second application having an application presentation in the application presentation history of the selected presentation component, and transitioning the selected presentation component to the second application.

Component-specific application presentation histories

Multi-display computing environments are often represented as a unified coordinate space, where each display presents application views within a coordinate region. Such arrangements may enable features such as application views that span multiple displays, but such features may not appeal to users. Additionally, such representations may complicate the application of layouts to particular displays while maintaining relationships among application views. Instead, a view management architecture may generate a user interface collection comprising, for respective displays, an arrangement of view entries for respective views presented on the display. Entries for new views may be added to the arrangement for a particular display, and may be contained within an application container encapsulating all views of an application on the display. This multi-display representation enables display layouts to be applied to the views within a particular display while preserving relationships among views presented by each of several displays of the computing environment.

View management architecture

A mobile computing device has an operating system that configures the mobile computing device by defining at least one user session, wherein the at least one user session includes a plurality of contexts, each context of the plurality of contexts having separate bindings of input and output resources, and separately managed applications. For example, a different context can be associated with each display device. The operating system is further configured to receive information about applications executed in the separate contexts, to receive information about environmental conditions of the computer, and, to selectively limit operation of applications in each context according to the environmental conditions and the applications executed in both contexts.

Dynamic adjustment of user experience based on system capabilities

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Woodinville, WA, United States of America

Kenton Allen Shipley