KR101454523B1 - Method and device for character entry - Google Patents

Abstract

An autocomplete text input method and apparatus includes: inputting at least one symbol; displaying at least one candidate string predicted from the symbol; And selecting only a portion of the candidate string, the portion of which is not displayed independently as the entire candidate string.

Description

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR CHARACTER ENTRY

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates generally to inputting text to an electronic device, and more particularly to methods of predictive text entry.

The personal devices typically provide autocomplete text input methods that use algorithms to present candidate characters, candidate words, candidate phrases, and / or candidate sequences after at least one character is entered. Examples of such devices include, in response to input of letters and numbers written on a touch screen or keypad, predictions of candidate characters, candidate words, candidate phrases, and / or candidate rows using autocomplete text applications Mobile phones, smart phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

For example, in the case of a letter input mode using the Roman alphabet, the user selects a first symbol (letter) associated with the desired word and, in response, displays a list of candidate words and phrases corresponding to that letter on the display do. The list is based on common usage statistics, for example, so that the most common words appear first and less common words are presented later. The user may select a displayed word or phrase, or continue inputting symbols until a desired word or phrase is presented as a candidate. One advantage of such character input is the use of a relatively small number of symbols (letters A-Z) that can be easily represented on a small keyboard, such as a 3X4 telephone keypad or a standard qwerty keypad.

Chinese characters and other character-based languages are more difficult to accommodate because they do not have a manageable number of alphabet letters that can be overlaid on the numeric keypad. For example, Chinese characters do not use the alphabet, but instead have approximately 5000 to 7000 commonly used characters. Advantageously, a number of speech systems have been developed to standardize the pronunciation of, for example, Mandarin Chinese. These several voice systems, such as Wade-Giles and pinyin systems for Mandarin Chinese, use the Roman alphabet as the voice symbols and the zhuyin for Mandarin Chinese with the 37- Other voice systems, such as systems, use a unique set of voice symbols. Cantonese Chinese also have a Roman-speaking voice system.

Even though there are more than 5000 commonly used Chinese characters, there are only about 400 basic voice syllables in Mandarin Chinese voice. Thus, many different Chinese characters use the same Mandarin Chinese phonetic syllable. An extreme example is the Mandarin Chinese Phineas word "yi", which represents more than 100 different Chinese characters with different meanings.

Mandarin Chinese also distinguishes meanings using four standard tones. Thus, the same negative syllable has different meanings when pronounced using different tones. As an example, by using the spoken word "yi ", at least 20 characters use a first tone, at least 31 characters use a second tone, at least 16 letters use a third tone, and at least 63 Letters use the fourth tone.

Although there are various methods of inputting Chinese characters into a computer system using a general-sized keyboard having keys corresponding to all of the voice symbols and four tones of one voice system among various voice systems, There is a need for a reduced keypad input method of characters for use in portable handheld devices such as personal digital assistants. It is also desirable to provide an expedited input in a manner that uses fewer keystrokes and easier selection with reduced user constraints.

An autocomplete text input method comprises the steps of: inputting at least one symbol; displaying at least one candidate string predicted from the at least one symbol; And selecting only a portion of the at least one candidate string, wherein the portion is not independently displayed as an entire candidate string.

The method may further comprise displaying result candidate characters, which are attached characters corresponding to the selected portion, to facilitate selection of the next character following the selected portion in the text field.

The method may further comprise highlighting a portion with a sustained push, which may be implemented, for example, as a mechanical button press associated with the cursor position or a finger press on the display touch pad.

The method may further comprise the step of committing to a text box when the user continues to the sustained push.

The method may further comprise the step of inputting symbols into a pin-in to generate candidate strings of Chinese characters.

The method may further include the step of selecting one symbol of a symbol input box other than the first symbol of the symbol input box.

The method may further comprise selecting a portion that does not include the first character of the candidate character phrase.

Further, an apparatus in which the present method is provided is described.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals designate like or functionally similar elements throughout the different drawings, are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, together with the description which follows, and in which: And further serve to explain various principles and advantages of these embodiments.
Figure 1 shows a mobile handset.
Figure 2 shows the display of a cellular phone according to Figure 1 after additional user actions.
Figure 3 shows the display of a cell phone according to Figure 2 after additional user actions.
Figure 4 shows the display of a cellular phone according to Figure 3 after additional user actions.
Figure 5 shows an alternative interface.
Figure 6 shows another alternative interface.
Figure 7 illustrates a method according to one embodiment.
It will be appreciated that the elements of the figures are shown for brevity and clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale. For example, to help improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements.
Having thus described specific details only with reference to an understanding of the embodiments of the invention, rather than to obscure the description with details that will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of this description, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 > symbols < / RTI >

The present invention allows a user to quickly enter symbols and popular phrases to create a target candidate list of candidate character fields that are more relevant to the desired character output and then generate a string of characters that appear in the candidate character field to process the selection process more quickly To select an arbitrary portion of < / RTI >

The communication device 100 (Figure 1) includes a display 102 with an associated touch screen device. The communication device includes circuits, not shown, that enable operation. For example, the device 100 may include a controller, such as a transceiver, an antenna, a microprocessor, a memory, a microphone, a speaker, and a battery, or other conventional components. An exemplary device 100 is as is known in the art and includes a touch screen associated with the display 102 that may be implemented using resistors and / or capacitor sensors, as is typical for mobile phone devices. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the device may be capable of displaying a display and a typical mechanical keypad and navigation keys (not shown), as found in Motorola RAZR or other handsets using poppel keys, or any other suitable input mechanism, ≪ / RTI > The device may include other additional circuitry or a portion of the circuitry. In any case, the device 100 includes applications stored in memory that are executed by the controller to perform the methods described herein. The illustrated apparatus also includes a speaker port 160, a microphone port 162, and three mechanical buttons 164, 166, 168, which are provided for illustrative purposes.

More particularly, the display 102 shown uses a touch screen to enable direct finger control of the images presented on the display, for example. The display includes a text field 104, a symbol input box 106, and a candidate text field 108. The display also includes a simulated keypad 110 that presents a 3x4 matrix keypad of the type found in a telephone handset that presents numbers and letters in a manner that is familiar to those using the phone. The display also includes a dynamic pinned character and word key set 112. The dynamic pin-in character and word key set presents the user with a pin-in to select by tapping the display. The display also includes a keypad selection key 120 that is shown to include a delete key 114, an enter key 116, a space key 118, Lt; / RTI > The keypad selector allows, for example, a user to toggle the keypad between the qwerty and telephone keypads.

The display shown includes an address field 128 for the message recipient to be entered in the text field 104. [ The user enters the message recipient into the address field in a conventional manner. The text field 104 is a field in which the text being constructed is presented to the user and may be a social networking post such as a short message, such as used in a short message service (SMS), an email message, a status message, Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 > 100 < / RTI >

Symbol input box 106 displays the user's input, such as symbols, words or columns, which are pins input by the user in the illustrated example. As used herein, Pinyin words, characters, or columns are individual phonetic characters for sounds associated with Chinese characters and will be referred to herein as Pinyin words. Phinetic verses refer to a plurality of Phinetic words with appropriate spaces between words. The symbol input box 106 provides the user with feedback to facilitate symbol input and confirms to the user that the device application is using the correct words or phrases to generate candidate characters in the candidate character field 108. [ Although the application is shown using pin-in, which is beneficially used to create Chinese characters, the symbol input box will include any type of text the user is typing through the keypad, which can be selected by Zhuyin or by the user And may include any other desired input languages supported by the device 100 application.

Candidate character field 108 is a contiguous field that presents the user with consecutive input candidate characters, words, columns and / or phrases corresponding to the symbols input and displayed in symbol input box 106. Candidate characters may be a string of words, such as a common phrase or a combination of words, as shown in Figure 1, where the characters displayed in the candidate character field 108 correspond to the pinned phrase "wo men dou you shi &Quot; can correspond to the words of a word of a word such as a plurality of characters corresponding to the word "yi ". In addition, the candidate field includes arrow keys 122, 124 that allow the user to scroll to candidate characters that are not displayed in the field, thus extending the number of characters available to the user for selection. For example, as described above, when a user only enters the word "yi" in the symbol input box 106, 100+ characters correspond to this word. The device application will present the most common characters in the candidate character field 108, but the user can scroll through all 100+ characters corresponding to the word "yi" using the arrow keys.

In the illustrated example, the user enters symbols by touching the display in the keys of the keypad 110 (Fig. 1), as shown in box 702 (Fig. 7). For example, the user can enter the pinned column "wo" by repeatedly pressing the "9wxyz" key until "w" is displayed in the input field. As shown in block 704 (FIG. 7), a list of candidate characters will appear in the candidate character field 108. Thereafter, the user can repeatedly press the "6mno" key until "o" appears in the symbol input box 106 after "w ". At this time, a plurality of characters corresponding to the pin-in column "wo" will appear in the candidate character field 108. The user can select one of the characters by tapping a finger on the desired character so that the selected desired character is written to the text field 104 as the next character.

Alternatively, if the user wishes to enter a phrase such as a common phrase beginning with a pinned column "wo ", after" wo "is displayed in the symbol entry box 106, the user can press the space key 118 have. In the example shown, the user can then repeatedly press the "6mno" key until the "m" key appears in the symbol input box 106. [ The user continues to input symbols and spaces using the keys 110 in the same manner until the phrase "wo men dou you shi" is displayed in the symbol input box 106, as shown in Figure 1 . The candidate character string may be "Our nation is owned" highlighted in the candidate character field 108 in FIG. If this string is the desired string that the user wants to input as text, the user can simply tap in the highlighted area of the candidate character field, and the entire highlighted phrase will be selected and written in the text field 104 .

However, if the user wishes to input "our private property" instead of the candidate character column "our private property", the user can select and list only "our private property". This is accomplished by the user placing a finger over the first character " I " and holding the finger down to move across "conventional" The partial selection is represented by box 706 in FIG. The device application may include a bubble 130 (FIG. 2) that displays the selected column as each character is crossed until the bubble displays the last consecutive character of the candidate string to be selected, as shown in FIG. 3, In response to the successive presses. When the user raises his or her finger after continuous pressing, the device application writes a string of bubbles in the text field 104. Characters and columns corresponding to the selected characters will be removed from the symbol input box 106 and therefore "wo men dou you" is removed from the field.

A new list of candidates corresponding to "shi ", which is the pin of the unselected symbol input box 106, will be displayed. Since "shi" was in the symbol entry box but the corresponding character was not selected, the candidate characters for "shi" reflect the characters attached to the previous selection. Thus, candidate characters with the highest probability will be presented to the user, as indicated in box 708, when associated with a previously described phrase. In other words, the most likely candidates for "shi" would be those matching "wo men dou you". Other characters that correspond to "shi" but are less likely when considering phrases will be accessible using arrows. Thus, the user can continue to select "things" from Chinese character candidates for the pin "shi" by simply tapping the "what" symbol in the candidate field 108.

If the user does not select a character for "shi " as described in the previous paragraph and continues to enter pinned words adjacent to" shi " in the symbol input field, The prediction candidate string will be changed in response to the prediction candidate string.

Thus, in the above example, it can be seen that the start word is the first word touched by the user who is followed by a permanent touch (continuous push). The application can be changed from the variable input mode (only characters or characters selected by the user are selected and listed) to the tap selection mode (regardless of where the highlighted area is touched by the user, the entire highlighted candidate string is selected and listed) Respond to continuous push to change. The variable mode uses a character from the beginning to the end of a continuous push, uses a single character if the cursor does not move during the held touch, and displays the characters to be selected when the user raises the finger in the pop-up bubble. It is anticipated that the time threshold may be used as a trigger to change from a tap selection mode to a variable mode.

In addition, as the user moves his / her finger, he or she selects (as shown by bubble 130 changing from "My Friend" in FIG. 2 to " Change. When the user raises his or her finger, the selected candidate "我們 都有" is described in the text field. Next, a candidate for the remaining pin "shi" is displayed in the candidate character field. The target character "thing" is the third item, and is represented by a red circle in Fig. The user taps this character for easy entry into the text field 104, as shown in FIG.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a user can select a particular character from a pin-in phrase using this method. For example, if a pinned word, or column, has a large number of associated characters, so that the selection requires scrolling in multiple candidates, the method may allow the user to enter a popular phrase containing the desired character associated with the pinned word I can do it. To achieve this, the user enters a pin-in phrase in the symbol input box 106 as described above. For example, if the user wishes to enter "not " in the text field 104, the user may select the candidate character field 108 of FIG. 1 until the bubble on the candidate field displays" The user can raise the finger and only "yes" will be moved to the text field 104. The user then continues to enter the text .

5 shows a display according to an alternative embodiment. In this embodiment, the user uses the QWERTY keypad 502 to enter character symbols. As shown, the user types symbols "it is" directly into the text box 504 by tapping the keys on the QWERTY keypad. At the same time, the candidates are displayed in the candidate list 506. The user may tap all candidate words from the list 506, or the user may use a continuous push and slide to select a portion of the candidate word (such as "vehi") from the list. The user selection is described in the text field when the user's finger is released following the held touch.

Figure 6 shows another alternative embodiment. In the present embodiment, for example, when the symbol "F" is input using the QWERTY keyboard, the symbol F appears in the symbol input box 602. [ Multiple verses appear as candidate phrases. A user using a computer mouse can move the cursor at any location on the candidate phrase to select the entire phrase by clicking on it and thus can start searching for the entire candidate sequence in a search engine such as a Google ^TM search site. In this way, the user can initiate a search for "Food network" by clicking anywhere on the row "Food network ". Alternatively, the user can slide the cursor down to highlight any portion of the candidates in the candidate list 604, such as the desired column "food net" or the word "network". When the user releases the right push of the right mouse button, a Google search for the highlighted portion is initiated. Therefore, it can be seen that a navigation device such as a mouse can be used instead of the touch screen.

The methods and apparatus described herein provide the ability for a user to select a complete character string or a Chinese character that is part of one candidate character string in a candidate list without repeated input of symbols to write a symbol string. The method and apparatus may also allow Chinese words between the beginning and ending characters to appear in the selection and text, allowing the user to indicate the beginning and end of the Chinese character string, referred to herein as the phrase. The method and apparatus enable users to select a portion of candidate characters by highlighting the characters that the user desires. The application may highlight any character or string of consecutive characters within the sequence of consecutive character candidates. When the user releases the finger from the touch screen or releases it from the stylus control (e.g., the button associated with the right button of the mouse or the trackpad), the highlighted content will be described as text to be generated.

Existing input methods can estimate the result when the user presses the keys one by one and generates a real-time candidate list to be used for selection. However, when the device prompts the user to select from the candidate list, the user may select only the complete column from the candidate list. Existing applications prevent users from selecting partial columns. There are a number of reasons why this requirement limits users. Because the desired characters or characters are not commonly used, they are not candidates of high probability, so that the user can force the user to scroll through a very wide candidate list or enter the entire string. Also, the user may not be able to press the key correctly (e.g., the wrong key when entering characters using the 3 x 4 telephone keypad, known as "Bell Keypad" The key is missed when using the pad), so that the candidate strings may not meet the user's expectations.

The known systems do not provide the user with the flexibility to select a portion of the entire item as an exact result that degrades the user experience - especially in Chinese sentence continuous input mode. When the user finds only the part of the Chinese characters in the candidate character field, the user forcibly scrolls the candidate field to search for the desired character, or writes the character, and repeatedly inputs each remaining Chinese character until the text is completed , Search, discover and record.

In the foregoing description, specific embodiments have been described. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the description and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all variations are intended to be included within the scope of the present teachings.

Any element (s) capable of causing, or causing any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur, or become more pronounced, to be present in the claims, advantages, solutions to problems, And will not be construed as critical features or elements. The present invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of the present application and all equivalents of the published claims.

Claims (7)

As a method of predictive text,
Inputting at least one symbol;
Displaying at least one candidate string predicted from the at least one symbol; And
Selecting only a portion of the at least one candidate string, the portion not being displayed independently as an entire candidate string,
≪ / RTI > The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising displaying the result candidates corresponding to the selected portion to facilitate appending the result character to the selected portion. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein said selecting includes highlighting said portion by an associated sustained push. The method of claim 3,
And the portion is described in a text box when the user continues to the sustained push. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the at least one symbol comprises pinyin words and the at least one candidate character string comprises Chinese characters. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the step of inputting at least one symbol comprises inputting at least one symbol to a symbol input box, wherein the selected portion comprises only one symbol in the symbol input box other than the first symbol in the symbol input box Corresponding method. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the selected portion does not include a first character of the candidate string.

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