JPH05204731A - Data processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To define plural work areas and to enable the switch of respective work areas and complete task environment switching synchronous to the switch of a directory for work by changing a current directory into a correspondent directory path name while referring to the contents of a directory storage means for work. CONSTITUTION:When switching into an arbitrary work area is generated by a user input, a work area switching discrimination part 7 selects and discriminates a change into the arbitrary work area held in a work area information table 8 through an input control part 3 corresponding to the user input. Then, a work are display control part 6 executes display switching to the switching destination work area decided by the work area switch judging part 7. At the same time, a directory change part 9 for work instructs the directory path name for work associated from the work area to a file system control part 11 as the directory for work while referring to a directory correspondence table 10.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data processing device, and in particular, a multi-window system is used as a base of a user interface, and a plurality of work areas are defined. The present invention relates to a data processing device for performing processing, which enables complete task environment switching in which the switching of each work region and the switching of a work directory are synchronized when each work region is switched.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent data processing devices, the display screen of a CRT display is divided into a plurality of rectangular areas, and a multi-window system for displaying each information, data, etc. in each rectangular area (window) is used as a user interface. It is provided as a base. Although the multi-window system can refer to a plurality of information at the same time, the total amount of information that can be displayed on the entire display screen of the CRT display is naturally C
It is limited by the display area of the display screen of the RT display. For example, in the user interface disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 64-3730, a group of windows currently displayed on one display screen of a CRT display is defined as one work area, and a plurality of work areas are defined. Define
It provides a manageable interface mechanism. Furthermore,
In this user interface, a user interface that can easily switch and display the work areas is also provided.

By using the function provided by such a user interface, each user can virtually hold a plurality of window display screens as his / her own input / output interface. That is,
The user defines a task composed of a plurality of windows performing processing as one work area, and by using the above-mentioned user interface, a function for switching these work areas is provided. It is possible to easily switch tasks at the same time as changing the window display above.

In the file system of recent data processing devices, directories can be hierarchically defined. For example, Brain Kanihan, Bob Pike "UNIX Programming Environment", Prentice Hall, Inc., 1984 (Brain W Kernlgha)
n, Rob Pike, “The UNIX Programming Environmen
t ”, PRENTICE-HALL, INC., 1984), when using files in program execution, create a file group for a specific task for each directory hierarchy and refer to the files for user work. It is possible to define each directory to hold, etc. These are used as a general work procedure when using files.

Further, in the UNIX operating system, it is possible to define any directory of these hierarchical directories as a currently used directory (current directory), and a function (c) for changing the current directory as an operation for the directory.
d command) is also provided.

[0006]

By the way, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Sho 64-64
In the user interface described in Japanese Patent No. 3730, when the work area is changed, the user must manually change the working current directory after the change. There is no complete task environment switching that synchronizes the switching of the working directories.

More specifically, for example, the user interface disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 64-3730 is taken as an example of switching the work areas when two work areas A and B are used. The characteristic points of are explained. It is assumed that various processing is performed on each file whose file structure has a hierarchical directory structure as shown in FIG. 7, for example. For tasks assigned to work area A, directory path name: / usr / takes
It is assumed that hi / task-A is set as a work directory, and a task assigned to work area B has a directory path name: / usr / takeshi / task-B set as a work directory. As a data file for each task, the directory: / usr / takeshi / task-A
3 files: Jan, Feb, Mar are held, and directory: / usr / takeshi / task-B, 3 files: Apr,
Suppose May and Jun are held. Also, when the user first displays the work area A, the directory: / u
sr / takeshi / task-A is used as the current directory, and work area A and work area B are both UNIX
It is assumed that the SHELL window of is displayed.

In this state, first, the SHEL of the work area A is
When the file list command (ls command) of the current directory is executed in the L window, as a result, three files: Jan, Feb, Mar
Displayed in window. In this case, for example, the user uses the cat command of the file display command and omits the file name "cat Jan" from the SHELL window of this work area to input / usr / takeshi / t.
ask-The contents of Jan's file can be displayed with the A / Jan path.

Here, by the work area switching function provided by the above-mentioned user interface, work area A to work area B
When the display of the display screen of the CRT display is switched to execute a task different from the above, a SHELL window is displayed on the display screen after the work area is switched. From the user's point of view, at this time, the work area was switched to move to a new task.
The working directory is still / usr / takeshi / task-A
As it is, the result of executing the file list command (ls command) from the SHELL window of the work area B is Jan, Feb, Mar.

Therefore, in order to access each file group for a new task after switching the work area,
You have to change the current directory. For this purpose, the current directory must be changed to / usr / takeshi / task-B by a command for changing the current directory, or each file must be specified by a full path name.

That is, the user must manually change the working current directory after changing the working area, and complete task environment switching in which the working area switching and the working directory switching are synchronized. There was a problem that was not realized.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to define a plurality of work areas and to switch each work area and a work directory. It is to provide a data processing device capable of complete task environment switching synchronized with each other.

[0013]

In order to achieve the above object, the data processor of the present invention defines each work area by work area information (8; FIG. 1) including display control information corresponding to a plurality of work areas. A data processing device having a processing control section (4, 6, 7; FIG. 1) for managing, switching each work area according to a work area switching instruction, and controlling data processing in each switched work area, Refer to the contents of the working directory storage means (10; FIG. 1) for storing the directory path name that designates the files in the working area for each work area, and the contents of the work directory storage means when the work area is switched. Then, file management means (9, 11; FIG. 1) for changing the current directory to the corresponding directory path name is provided.

[0014]

In the data processor of the present invention, the processing control section (4, 6, 7; FIG. 1) uses the work area information (8; FIG. 1) including the display control information corresponding to a plurality of work areas. Manages work areas and controls data processing in each work area. Each work area is switched by a work area switching instruction, and data processing control in each of the switched work areas is performed. In order to associate the work area for the data processing task with the work directory, here, further, the work directory storage means (10; FIG. 1) and the file management means (9, 11; FIG. 1). And are provided. The work directory storage means (10; FIG. 1) stores a directory path name that designates a file in the work area for each work area. When the work area is switched according to the instruction from the user, the file management means (9, 11; FIG. 1)
Changes the current directory to the corresponding directory path name by referring to the stored contents in the working directory storage means (10; FIG. 1).

As a result, when the work area for a certain task is switched, at the same time, the work directory associated with the new work area is set as the current directory. Therefore, when the user gives an instruction to switch the work area for the purpose of switching the task, the current directory is simultaneously switched to the working directory corresponding to the task. Therefore, when working with files in the work area, it is not necessary to instruct the operation of switching the current directory to the optimum directory, so that task switching is performed without interruption and the efficiency of data processing work is improved. improves.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a main part of a data processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a keyboard, 2 is a pointing device such as a mouse, and 3 is an input control unit. 4 is a program processing unit, 5 is a CRT display, 6 is a work area display control unit, 7 is a work area switching determination unit, 8 is a work area information table, 9 is a work directory changing unit, 10 is a directory correspondence table, 11 is File system control unit, 12
Is a disk device.

The input control unit 3 distributes the information from the input device using the keyboard 1 and the pointing device 2 to the program processing unit 4 and the work area switching determination unit 7, respectively. The program processing unit 4 uses, for example, SHEL
The L process or the like is executed, and according to the information from the input control unit 3, the work area display control unit 6 is instructed to display a character string or the like. Also, the file system control unit 11 is requested to execute such as file access. When the input from the input control unit 3 is a work area switching instruction, the work area switching determination unit 7 determines which work area to switch to,
The work area name is transmitted to the work area display control unit 6 and the work directory changing unit 9. The work area display control unit 6 obtains work area information associated with the work area name obtained from the work area switching determination unit 7 from the work area information table 8 and, based on the work area information, displays the CRT display 5 on the basis of the work area information. Controls the display of windows on the display screen.

The work directory changing unit 9 refers to the directory correspondence table 10 by the work area name obtained from the work area switching judging unit 7 to obtain the associated work directory path name, and the work directory path name. The file system control unit 11 is instructed to set the current directory as the current directory. The file system control unit 11 sets the working directory path name instructed by the working directory changing unit 9 as the current directory. As a result, when a file access instruction is issued from the program processing unit 4, the set current directory is treated as a default value, and the disk device 12 is accessed.

As described above, the work area information table 8 stores work area information for managing a plurality of work areas,
The work area display control unit 6 controls the display on the display screen based on the work area information currently selected from the work area information stored in the work area information table 8. Further, the directory correspondence table 10 holds a work directory path name associated with the work area selected by the user input. Therefore, here, when the switching to the arbitrary work area occurs due to the user input, the work area switching determination unit 7 stores the work area information table 8 in accordance with the user input via the input control unit 3. When the change to the arbitrary work area held in is selected and determined, the work area display control unit 6 performs the display switching to the switching destination work area determined by the work area switching determination unit 7. At the same time, the work directory changing unit 9 sets the work directory path name associated with the work area to the directory correspondence table 10.
To the file system control unit 11 as a working directory. As a result, the file system control unit 11 controls the file access to the disk device 12 according to the changed working directory of the current directory.

FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of work area information in the work area information table, and FIG. 3 is a view showing an example of work directory path name registration information in the directory correspondence table. As shown in FIG. 2, in the work area information table 8, the work area name 21 and window objects such as windows W1 and W2 for displaying the work area are associated with each other, and the window list 22 of each work area information is associated. Is registered as. Further, in the directory correspondence table 10, as shown in FIG. 3, each work area name 31 and the work directory path name 32 in each work area are stored in association with each other. In the directory correspondence table 10 here, for the work area A, the work directory path name “/ usr / takeshi / task-
“A” is associated with the work area, and the work directory path name “/ usr / takeshi / task-B” is associated with the work area B and stored.

Next, an example of the work area switching processing operation will be described with the information in the work area information table 8 as shown in FIG.
A case where the work area is switched based on the information of the directory correspondence table 10 as shown in FIG. 3 will be described as an example.

In the work area information table 8, two entries of work area name A and work area name B corresponding to task A and task B are set, and the window object and window in each work area are the elements of each entry. the position is,
It is held as a window list 22 in the work area information table 8. The window object here is program data including window display control data including a window lower left X coordinate value, a window lower left Y coordinate value, a window width, and a window height.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen when the work area A is displayed, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen when the work area B is being displayed. For the work area A, as shown in FIG. 4, two window screens 41 and 42 are displayed on the display screen 40 as work areas, and for the work area B, shown in FIG. As described above, the window screens 51 and 52 for the work area B are displayed as the display screen 50, and processing is performed in each work area. In each of the display screens 40 and 50, the commands for switching the work area are displayed in the menu windows 43 and 53, respectively.

In this case, the display screen 4 for the work area A
0, the window W1 and the window W2 are respectively window objects (20, 20, 200, 20).
0) attribute data and window object (250,
130, 100, 100) and the position and height with attribute data (FIG. 4), when the work area is switched from work area A to work area B, work area B is displayed as shown in FIG. And the window W3 and the window W4 for the work area B are the attribute data of the window object (20, 20, 200, 200) and the window object (250, 130, respectively).
(100, 100) attribute data and the position and height are displayed, and the work area is switched. In addition, here, it is assumed that each work area is displayed in a corresponding window, but the display of each work area is not limited to the window display, and may be the entire display screen depending on the work content. ..

Before the work area is switched, the display screen 40 of the CRT display 5 has a window screen 41 and a window W2 of the window W1 for the work area A.
The window screen 42 is displayed, and the work area A is the current work area. In this state, the current directory is "/ usr / takeshi / task-A". A procedure for switching from such a state to the work area B will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

When the user selects the "GOTO B" menu on the command menu screen 43 displayed on the display screen 40 of the CRT display 5 by the pointing device 2, this event is detected and the process is started. First, in step 61, when the input control unit 3 detects the selection of the “GOTO B” menu, this user input is transmitted to the work area switching determination unit 7 by the input control unit 3 and the work area switching determination unit 7 It is determined that the user input is a display switching event to the work area B. Then, the work area display control unit 6 is instructed to switch the display to the work area B, and the work directory changing unit 9 is instructed to switch the current directory to the work directory for the work area B. To do.

Next, in step 62, the work area display control unit 6 displays the screen of the CRT display on the basis of the information of the window list held in the entry associated with the work area name B from the work area information table 8. Four
The display screen 50 is switched from 0 to the display screen 50 for work and the work display screen for the work area B is constructed. Then, in step 63, the working directory changing unit 9 further refers to the directory correspondence table 10 and holds the working directory path name “/ usr / takeshi /” held in the entry associated with the work area name B. When "task-B" is obtained, the file system control unit is instructed to set the path name as the current directory. After this setting, when accessing the file from the program processing unit 4, the current directory is recognized by the file system control unit 11, and, for example, the display of the file Apr is displayed in the window W3.
From the disk unit 12 by simply instructing "cat Apr" from
File held in Apr (/ usr / takeshi / task-B /
Apr) contents will be displayed.

As described above, when the user instructs the switching of the work area for the purpose of switching the task, the current directory of the file system (file system control unit 11) is also switched to the directory corresponding to the task at the same time. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to issue a current directory switching operation instruction to an appropriate directory when working with a file in the work area. Therefore, when the user performs data processing by an operation on the display screen, task switching is performed without interruption and work efficiency is improved.

[0029]

As described above, according to the data processor of the present invention, when the work area is switched for a certain task, at the same time, the new work area name in the directory correspondence table is associated. The working directory is set as the current directory. For this reason, when the user instructs the switching of the work area for the purpose of switching the task, the current directory is also switched to the directory corresponding to the task at the same time, which is suitable for the work using the file in the work area. It is not necessary to give an instruction to switch the current directory to the directory. Therefore, task switching is performed without interruption, and work efficiency is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a main part of a data processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention,

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of work area information in a work area information table;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of registration information of a working directory path name in a directory correspondence table,

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen when a work area A is displayed,

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen when a work area B is displayed,

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a procedure for switching the work area from work area A to work area B;

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hierarchical directory structure in a file system.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Keyboard, 2 ... Pointing device device, 3 ... Input control unit, 4 ... Program processing unit, 5 ... CR
T display, 6 ... Working area display control section, 7 ... Working area switching determination section, 8 ... Working area information table, 9 ... Working directory changing section, 10 ... Directory correspondence table, 1
1 ... File system control unit, 12 ... Disk device, 2
1, 31 ... Work area name, 22 ... Window list information, 3
2 ... Working directory path name, 40, 50 ... Display screen, 41, 42, 51, 52 ... Work area window screen,
43, 53 ... Menu window.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A work area is managed by work area information including display control information corresponding to a plurality of work areas, each work area is switched by a work area switching instruction, and data processing of each work area is switched. A data processing device having a processing control unit for controlling, wherein for each work area, a working directory storage means for storing a directory path name for designating a file in the work area, and a switching of the work area, A data processing apparatus, comprising: a file management means for changing the current directory to a corresponding directory path name by referring to the contents of the working directory storage means.