NAVIGATING WITH DIRECTION KEYS IN AN ENVIRONMENT THAT PERMITS NAVIGATING WITH TAB KEYS

A technique for adapting a GUI which is not able to respond to directional navigation inputs which move a focus by specifying a location and a direction from a location to respond to such navigation inputs. The adaptation is done by means of a function which takes the location and the direction as arguments and moves the focus to the area capable of receiving it that is closest to the location specified in the argument in the direction specified in the argument. The function uses a non-directional navigation technique provided by the GUI to obtain each area which is a candidate for receiving the focus in turn and as each area is received, the function determines whether the area is located in the specified direction relative to the specified location and if the area is, whether it is closer to the specified location than any area as yet found. Once all of the areas have been thus examined, the focus is moved to the closest area. A preferred embodiment is disclosed which adapts a WINDOWS brand operating system manufactured by Microsoft Corporation for use with a directional pointing device such as a TV remote controller with direction buttons.