IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS AND METHOD OF DISPLAYING MULTILINGUAL KEYBOARD USING THE SAME

• US 20080150900A1
• Filed: 12/13/2007
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: S-Printing Solution Co., Ltd. (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: HAN, Chang Min
• Granted Patent: US 8,164,572 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/171
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus

Abstract

An image forming apparatus and method of displaying a multilingual keyboard uses an identifier of a language-specific entity, such as a country-code top-level domain of a domain name in an e-mail address to automatically output an input device configuration, such as a keyboard configuration, in accordance with stored keyboard table information corresponding to country identification information of a target recipient using the e-mail address of the target recipient, thereby increasing the convenience of use. The image forming apparatus receives an input email address of a target recipient, detects country identification information in the email address, searches stored keyboard information for that corresponding to the detected country identification information, and displays the keyboard in the language corresponding to the country identification information found in the searching of the stored country identification information.

Claims

1. A method of displaying a multilingual keyboard using an image forming apparatus, the method comprising:

inputting an e-mail address of a target recipient;

detecting country identification information in the input e-mail address;

searching stored keyboard information for that corresponding to the detected country identification information; and

displaying the keyboard in a language corresponding to the country identification information found in the searching of the stored keyboard information.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

composing an e-mail using the keyboard.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein, if the keyboard information corresponding to the detected country identification information is not found in the searching of the stored keyboard information, a warning message indicative thereof is displayed.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein, if the keyboard information corresponding to the detected country identification information is not found in the searching of the stored keyboard information, the keyboard information is manually selected by a user.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the displaying of the keyboard includes displaying a plurality of items of keyboard information corresponding to the country identification information.

6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein a user selects and inputs one item of the keyboard information from among the plurality of items of displayed keyboard information.

7. An image forming apparatus comprising:

a storage unit to store a plurality of items of country identification information and plurality of items of keyboard information corresponding to the country identification information;

a detection unit to detect the country identification information in an e-mail address of a target recipient;

a control unit to search whether the detected country identification information is stored in the storage unit, and if the detected country identification information is stored in the storage unit, retrieves the keyboard information corresponding to the country identification information from the storage unit to be displayed; and

a display unit to display a keyboard with the retrieved keyboard information corresponding to the country identification information.

8. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein the control unit provides a message indicating that the detected country identification information is not stored in the storage unit.

9. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein the display unit displays the items of country identification information and the items of keyboard information corresponding to the country identification information.

10. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 9, further comprising:

an input unit to be manipulated by a user to select country identification information of a target recipient from among the items of country identification information.

11. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the input unit includes a control to be manipulated by the user to select desired keyboard information from among the items of keyboard information, if the detected country identification information is not stored in the storage unit.

12. An image forming apparatus comprising:

an input unit to receive a string of characters in a predetermined format, the input unit including input controls to be configured in any of a plurality of languages;

a detection unit to determine whether the string of characters includes an identifier of a language-specific entity; and

a control unit to configure the input controls in one of the plurality of languages corresponding to the identifier of the language-specific entity.

13. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 12 further comprising:

a storage unit to store a database of input control language configurations and respective identifiers of the language-specific entity associated therewith.

14. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein the control generates an error message responsive to the identifier of the language-specific entity absent the corresponding input control language configuration in the database.

15. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 12 further comprising:

a display unit to generate an error message responsive to the identifier of the language-specific entity being undetected by the detection unit.

16. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 12 further comprising:

a display unit to display a list of the plurality of languages responsive to the identifier of the language-specific entity being indeterminate by the detection unit.

17. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the predetermined format of the character string complies with Internet domain name standards.

18. The image forming apparatus as claimed in claim 17, wherein the identifier of the language-specific entity is a country code top-level domain.

19. A method of configuring an input device of an image forming apparatus in a language of a language-specific entity, the method comprising:

providing an input unit including input controls to be configured in any of a plurality of languages;

receiving a string of characters in a predetermined format;

determining whether the received string of characters includes an identifier of the language-specific entity; and

configuring the input controls in one of the plurality of languages corresponding to the identifier of the language-specific entity.

20. The method of configuring an input device as claimed in claim 19, wherein the determining whether the string of characters includes the identifier further comprises:

determining whether a predetermined segment of the character string is compliant with a predetermined format of the identifier.

21. The method of configuring an input device as claimed in claim 20, further comprising:

comparing the predetermined segment with stored identifiers of the language-specific entity responsive to the predetermined segment being compliant with the predetermined format; and

generating an error message responsive to the predetermined segment being non-compliant with the predetermined format.

22. The method of configuring an input device as claimed in claim 21, wherein the predetermined format of the character string complies with Internet domain name standards.

23. The method of configuring an input device as claimed in claim 22, wherein the predetermined segment of the character string is a top level segment of the Internet domain name and the predetermined format of the identifier is a format of a country code top-level domain.

24. The method of configuring an input device as claimed in 19, further comprising:

generating a list of the plurality of languages responsive to the identifier being indeterminate; and

selecting the one of the plurality of languages from the generated list.