Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Miron Vranjes

Chaitanya Dev Sareen

Nils Anders Sundelin

Matthew Isaac Worley

Jesse Clay Satterfield

Robert J Jarrett

Christopher Doan

Alice Pritikin Steinglass

Richard Fang

Bret P Anderson

Alex G Snitkovskiy

Tsz Yan Wong

Jeremy Monroe Bowen

Yaou Wei

Michael H Krause

Christopher E Swan

Abhishek Malani

Hirofumi Yamamoto

Lavanya Vasudevan

Brian Daniel Beck

Richie Fang

Steven Joseph Tricanowicz

Oliver R Jones

Mohammed Samji

Song Zou

Steven James Frederickson

Zachary Grant Herman

Christian Klein

Richard Jennings Duncan

Anshul Rawat

Jaclyn Carley Knapp

Megan Lesley Tedesco

Tyler Joseph Donahue

Richard W Zarick

Brian Eric Uphoff

Poorva Singal

Carmen Zlateff

Henri-Charles Machalani

Emily Grace Sappington

Jeff G Arnold

Samuel George Gates

Andrew Pyon Mittereder

Matthew Kiichi Slemon

Nidhi Sanghai

Matthew Neil Akers

Oliver Ross Prosser Jones

Sohit Karol

Matthew N Akers

Brian E Uphoff

Alice Steinglass

Chaitanya Sareen

Richard Zarick

Nidhi S Sanghai

Tyler J Donahue

Jaclyn C Knapp

Megan L Tedesco

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 computer-implemented technique is described herein for efficiently and reliably interacting with a nonconforming application component in a windowing environment. The nonconforming application component corresponds to a type of application (such as, but not limited to, an immersive-type full-screen application) that was not originally designed for presentation of application content in a windowing environment, or was not originally designed for presentation of application content in a windowing environment of a certain type. In some implementations, the computer-implemented technique generates a composite window by: creating a system-owned frame; receiving an application-owned window; and creating the composite window by combining the frame and the application-owned window. The technique can thereafter control the composite window by performing operations on the composite window via its system-owned frame.

Interacting with nonconforming applications in a windowing environment

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

Embodiments disclosed herein are related to systems and methods for implementing a customizable compact overlay window in a display. In one embodiment, a computing system includes one or more processors and a storage device that stores computer executable instructions that can be executed by the processors to cause the computing system to perform the following. The system receives from an application running on the computing system customization parameters that define how the application is to be configured in a compact overlay window. The system generates the compact overlay window so that the compact overlay window is customizable according to the customization parameters. The system positions the compact overlay window in a portion of a display of the computing system.

Customizable compact overlay window

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

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

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

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Miron Vranjes