Menu trails for a portable media player
AssigneeVaria Holdings LLC
InventorJonathan Nelson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A software and/or hardware facility for generating menu trails for a portable media player. A menu trail is a visual cue to a user, repeated on each menu item in the media player navigation interface, that highlights a path for the user to follow to a content item stored on or accessible by the media player, or to a capability of the media player. Menu trails may highlight new content and capabilities, or may highlight existing content or capabilities. A user using the media player may easily follow the visual cues through the player's menus in order to navigate to the content item or capability.
Claims39
A method of generating a trail of visual cues to a target item on a portable media device, the method comprising:
- selecting a target item that is accessible via a navigation structure comprised of a plurality of nodes in a portable media device;
- identifying one or more nodes in the navigation structure that are traversable to reach the selected target item;
- and
- displaying to the user a visual cue with menu items that correspond to each of the identified one or more nodes and with the selected target item, so that a user may traverse a trail of menu items having visual cues in order to reach the target item.
A system for generating a trail of visual cues to a target item on a portable media device, the system comprising:
- a trail creation component for:
- selecting a target item that is accessible via a navigation structure comprised of a plurality of nodes in a portable media device;
- and
- identifying one or more nodes in the navigation structure that are traversable to reach the selected target item;
- and
- a presentation component for displaying to the user a visual cue with menu items that correspond to each of the one or more nodes identified by the trail creation component and with the selected target item, so that a user may traverse a trail of menu items having visual cues in order to reach the target item.
A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to perform a method of generating a trail of visual cues to a target item on a portable media device, the method comprising:
- selecting a target item that is accessible via a navigation structure comprised of a plurality of nodes in a portable media device;
- identifying one or more nodes in the navigation structure that are traversable to reach the selected target item;
- and
- displaying to the user a visual cue with menu items that correspond to each of the identified one or more nodes and with the selected target item, so that a user may traverse a trail of menu items having visual cues in order to reach the target item.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.