Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Matthew Isaac Worley

Nils Anders Sundelin

Chaitanya Dev Sareen

Jesse Clay Satterfield

Robert J Jarrett

Bret P Anderson

Miron Vranjes

Alice Pritikin Steinglass

Tsz Yan Wong

Richard Fang

David Andrew Matthews

Patrice Lynn Miner

Jennifer Nan

Christopher Doan

Jensen Michael Harris

Richie Fang

Brian S LeVee

Jan-Kristian Markiewicz

Gerrit H Hofmeester

Matthias Baer

Benjamin Salim Srour

Bryan Kim Mamaril

Michael H Krause

Isaiah Ng

Adam Edward Barrus

Abhishek Malani

Garner B Thomas

Cassandra M April

Stephan Hoefnagels

Rolf Arnold Ebeling

Jeremy Monroe Bowen

Tyler Joseph Donahue

Richard W Zarick

Gabriel S DeBacker

Steven James Frederickson

Heiwad Hamidy Osman

Emily Grace Sappington

Andrew Pyon Mittereder

Matthew Kiichi Slemon

Michael Seibert

Oliver R Jones

Nidhi Sanghai

Jason Morris Yore

Jake Sabulsky

Charing Wong (Tsz Yan Wong)

Apurva Jain

Oliver Ross Prosser Jones

Sohit Karol

Robert James Jarrett

Gabriel S Debacker

Alice Steinglass

Chaitanya Sareen

Michael A Seibert

Brian S Levee

Charing Wong

Richard Zarick

Nidhi S Sanghai

Tyler J Donahue

A system for modifying a user interface described herein can include a processor to detect a plurality of display screens electronically coupled to the system. The processor can also detect a first gesture corresponding to an application window displayed in one of the display screens and generate a preview panel in response to detecting the first gesture, the preview panel to be displayed proximate the application window, wherein the preview panel is to display a real-time image comprising content displayed in each of the display screens. Furthermore, the processor can detect a second gesture to move the application window to a different display screen modify the user interface to display the application window in the different display screen.

Application window preview panels

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

User interface modification using preview panel

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

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

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

Assisted presentation of application windows

Systems, methods, computer storage media, and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are provided for combined switching and placement of windows based on a single action. The single action may be moving an element to a hot spot or a snap portion of a display area. In response to the single action, an element is automatically launched, repositioned according to a snap portion or a hot spot that recognized the element, and opened, and a view is automatically switched to a view of at least the element.

Combined switching and window placement

This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling a multi-application environment. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable multi-application environments having combinations of immersive interfaces, windows-based interfaces, and a desktop treated as an immersive interface.

Multi-application environment

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Matthew Isaac Worley