Multi-page Sorting for Handheld Menu Items
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Solution Overview
Problem
Organizing and sorting a large number of applications on handheld devices becomes challenging as the number of items increases, with existing methods often causing frustration due to items being moved to different pages during sorting, and existing solutions do not effectively manage sorting across multiple pages.
Innovation Solution
The system performs sorting across multiple pages by treating all pages as a single data storage unit, applying sort criteria consistently across visible and hidden pages, allowing users to dynamically sort items based on various criteria, including random or pseudo-random options, ensuring consistent navigation and re-sorting across all pages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual organization of icons on multiple pages is used, then users can organize applications on each page, but the organization becomes challenging when the number of items increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically sorts menu items across multiple pages based on user-selected criteria without requiring manual intervention. The sorting algorithm independently organizes items by applying the chosen criterion consistently across all pages, eliminating the need for users to manually arrange each icon while managing large numbers of applications.
2Productivity
If sorting is applied to items on visible pages only, then sorting is simple and fast, but items move to different pages causing user frustration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple pages into a single continuous data structure for sorting purposes. Instead of sorting each page independently, the system combines all items from all pages into one unified list, applies the sorting criterion across the entire list, then redistributes sorted items back to pages. This ensures items remain on the same page before and after sorting, eliminating user frustration while maintaining efficient sorting performance.
3Stability of the object's composition
If sort criteria are applied across multiple pages, then consistent ordering is achieved, but the sorting process becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the multi-page sorting problem into three distinct phases: (1) extracting all items from multiple pages into a unified list, (2) applying the sort criterion to the unified list, and (3) redistributing sorted items back to their respective pages. This segmentation simplifies the overall complexity by breaking down the complex multi-page sorting task into manageable, sequential steps that can be efficiently implemented.
Data Source
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AI summary
For a user interface, sorts are performed not just on the items currently visible, but across multiple pages or parts of pages some of which may not be currently visible. In one exemplary illustrative non-limiting implementation, all pages are virtually joined in the same data storage "bucket." Sorts performed by the computer may thus be applied across multiple pages some of which are currently visible and some of which may not be. By sorting displayed information, the sort criteria can be applied across and maintained across multiple other pages. In this way, the user sees expected functionality on the page she is currently viewing, and the computer works behind the scenes to consistently sort other items currently hidden from view so that when the user selects those pages they will already have been similarly sorted in a coherent manner.