MOBILE TERMINAL AND CHARACTER INPUT METHOD

• US 20090295750A1
• Filed: 05/27/2009
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Yamazaki, Hitoshi, Anzawa, Kazuya, Kamiya, Toshihiko, Endo, Kentaro
• Application Number:
  US12/473,094
• Publication Number:
  US 20090295750A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• 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

The present invention provides a mobile terminal having a touch panel, which is capable of improving the convenience and operability of character input. The mobile terminal having a touch panel includes an input control unit that detects a switching instruction for switching a screen of the touch panel, the switching instruction being issued by a user, and a screen display control unit that displays a text sheet displaying the character string input by the user on the touch panel, and when the switching instruction is detected by the input control unit, displays a character input sheet having a software keyboard for inputting a character string, on the text sheet in an overlapping manner on the touch panel, and makes the character string displayed on the text sheet visible.

Claims

1. A mobile terminal having a touch panel, comprising:

a character string display control unit for displaying, on the touch panel, an input character string display region in which a character string input by a user is displayed;

an instruction detection unit for detecting a switching instruction for switching a screen of the touch panel, the switching instruction being issued by the user; and

a display control unit for, when the switching instruction is detected by the instruction detection unit, displaying a character input sheet having a software keyboard for inputting the character string, on the input character string display region in an overlapping manner on the touch panel, and making the character string displayed on the input character string display region visible.

2. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein

the character string display control unit further displaying a part of the character input sheet on the input character string display region in an overlapping manner on an end part of the touch panel,

the instruction detection unit detects a contact operation performed on the part of the character input sheet by the user, and further detects a contact movement state following the contact operation, in which a finger of the user moves on the touch panel without having a contact state therebetween disconnected, and

the display control unit displays at least a part of the character input sheet on the input character string display region in an overlapping manner along a direction of the contact movement on the touch panel.

3. The mobile terminal according to claim 2, wherein the character input sheet has a plurality of character input sheets corresponding to character types.

4. The mobile terminal according to claim 3, wherein, after the display control unit displays one of the plurality of character input sheets on the input character string display region in an overlapping manner on the touch panel, when the contact movement of another character input sheet is detected by instruction detection unit, the display control unit displays at least a part of the other character input sheet on the one of the character input sheets in an overlapping manner in accordance with the contact movement on the touch panel, and then makes a character string to be displayed on the input character string display region visible.

5. The mobile terminal according to claim 4, wherein, when the display control unit displays the plurality of character input sheets on the touch panel in a partially overlapping manner, the touch panel receives character input operations performed using all of the plurality of character input sheets.

6. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein, when the instruction detection unit detects the contact movement state that follows the contact operation performed on at least one of the character input sheets displayed on the touch panel, the display control unit makes a part of each of the character input sheets display on the touch panel.

7. A character input method that uses a mobile terminal having a touch panel, comprising:

a character string display control step of displaying, on the touch panel, an input character string display region in which a character string input by a user is displayed;

an instruction detection step of detecting a switching instruction for switching a screen of the touch panel, the switching instruction being issued by the user; and

a display control step of, when the switching instruction is detected in the instruction detection step, displaying a character input sheet having a software keyboard for inputting the character string, on the input character string display region in an overlapping manner on the touch panel, and making the character string displayed on the input character string display region visible.