10 Inventions on scrolling and scrollbars in Graphical User Interface

The processing and memory capability of a computer allows very large documents, tables and images to be created and manipulated using various software programs. However, the size of the display screen is typically very limited and not enough to display these large documents. When the data or document being displayed within the window is larger than the display area or window, some data remains hidden beyond the boundary of the window. There is a need for a mechanism to display and edit large documents in the limited screen space or window. One option to display large documents within the screen is to increase the screen size. But large monitors or display devices are very expensive. Besides there is a physical limitation to expand the monitor size beyond a limit. Another solution to this problem is to reduce the size of the picture or document. But reducing the size of the picture reduces clarity of viewing. The most popular solution to this problem is scrolling. Scrolling refers to selectively moving this hidden portion of data inside the display area. 1.1 Situations needing scrolling operation Sometimes the data or document is too large to be shown within the display area in its entirety. For example, a large graphic image can only be shown partially within the display area. This situation needs a scrolling mechanism to view different parts of the document. Scrolling may be used for container windows to display a large number of objects, which do not fit within the size of the window. Sometimes the user may like to zoom in or magnify an object to get a larger view. The magnified object may not fit within the size of the window, which needs scrolling. 1.2 Different methods used for scrolling The scrolling mechanism may include a vertical scroll bar or a horizontal scroll bar or both to move the contents of the documents up and down or left and right. The navigation keys on the keyboard may be used to move up, down, left and right. There may be navigation buttons on the screen representing the navigation keys on the keyboard. The user can click these buttons to scroll the screen. In some cases just moving the mouse to any direction may implement a scrolling of the screen to that that direction. Another method is to drag the screen by using the " thumb " , as popularly used …