Supplementing a Virtual Input Keyboard

• US 20140075367A1
• Filed: 09/07/2012
• Published: 03/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Abuelsaad, Tamer E., Moore, John E. Jr., Singi, Rajeshkumar N., Wentworth, Robert R.
• Granted Patent: US 9,329,778 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/773
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0233 Character input methods
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/454 Multi-language systems; Localisation; Internationalisation

Abstract

Supplementing a virtual input keyboard is provided. A form and a virtual input keyboard are displayed in a display of a data processing system. An input is received selecting a particular field within the form. One or more character key sets are retrieved corresponding to previous data entries of the particular field selected. A delta set of character keys is determined based on character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard. A set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards is generated based on the delta set of character keys. Then, the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards are displayed in the display.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for supplementing a virtual input keyboard, the computer implemented method comprising:

displaying, by a computer device, a form and a virtual input keyboard in a display of the computer device;

receiving, by the computer device, an input selecting a particular field within the form;

retrieving, by the computer device, one or more character key sets corresponding to previous data entries of the particular field selected;

determining, by the computer device, a delta set of character keys based on character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard;

generating, by the computer device, a set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards based on the delta set of character keys; and

displaying, by the computer device, the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards in the display.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing, by the computer device, the one or more character key sets with the displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard of the computer device; and

selecting, by the computer device, the character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match the displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard as the delta set of character keys.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to the computer device receiving an input selecting another particular input field within the form, removing, by the computer device, the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards from the display.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the computer device, inputs from the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards and the virtual input keyboard to insert characters corresponding to the inputs into the particular field selected within the form.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving, by the computer device, metadata that identifies the particular field selected within the form;

retrieving, by the computer device tem, the previous data entries of the particular field selected from a database based on the metadata identifying the particular field selected; and

retrieving, by the computer device, information about the computer device and user preferences.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining, by the computer device, the one or more character key sets that correspond to the previous data entries of the particular field selected based on the information about the computer device and the user preferences.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein the information about the computer device includes a type of the computer device, an operating system of the computer device, display parameters of the computer device, virtual input keyboard layout of the computer device, and a geographic location of the computer device.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein the user preferences include a preferred language of a user of the computer device and a preferred set of character key sets.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more character key sets is a class of character keys, and wherein the class of character keys includes all character keys associated with a particular class of characters, and wherein the particular class of characters is one of a set of numbers, a set of symbols, a set of punctuation marks, a set of special characters, a set of foreign language alphabetic characters associated with a user preference or a geographic location of the computer device, or a set of accent marks associated with a foreign language.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computer device retrieves all character key sets corresponding to all input fields within the form at a same time.

11. A data processing system for supplementing a virtual input keyboard, the data processing system comprising:

a bus system;

a storage device connected to the bus system, wherein the storage device stores computer readable program code; and

a processor connected to the bus system, wherein the processor executes the computer readable program code to;

display a form and a virtual input keyboard in a display of the data processing system;

receive an input selecting a particular field within the form;

retrieve one or more character key sets corresponding to previous data entries of the particular field selected;

determine a delta set of character keys based on character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard;

generate a set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards based on the delta set of character keys; and

display the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards in the display.

12. The data processing system of claim 11, wherein the processor further executes the computer readable program code to:

compare the one or more character key sets with the displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard of the data processing system; and

select the character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match the displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard as the delta set of character keys.

13. A computer program product stored on a computer readable storage device having computer readable program code embodied thereon that is executable by a data processing system for supplementing a virtual input keyboard, the computer program product comprising:

computer readable program code for displaying a form and a virtual input keyboard in a display of the data processing system;

computer readable program code for receiving an input selecting a particular field within the form;

computer readable program code for retrieving one or more character key sets corresponding to previous data entries of the particular field selected;

computer readable program code for determining a delta set of character keys based on character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard;

computer readable program code for generating a set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards based on the delta set of character keys; and

computer readable program code for displaying the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards in the display.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, further comprising:

computer readable program code for comparing the one or more character key sets with the displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard of the data processing system; and

computer readable program code for selecting the character keys in the one or more character key sets that do not match the displayed character keys on the virtual input keyboard as the delta set of character keys.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, further comprising:

computer readable program code for removing the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards from the display in response to receiving an input selecting another particular input field within the form.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, further comprising:

computer readable program code for receiving inputs from the set of delta character supplemental virtual input keyboards and the virtual input keyboard to insert characters corresponding to the inputs into the particular field selected within the form.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, further comprising:

computer readable program code for retrieving metadata that identifies the particular field selected within the form;

computer readable program code for retrieving the previous data entries of the particular field selected from a database based on the metadata identifying the particular field selected; and

computer readable program code for retrieving information about the data processing system and user preferences.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, further comprising:

computer readable program code for determining the one or more character key sets that correspond to the previous data entries of the particular field selected based on the information about the data processing system and the user preferences.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the information about the data processing system includes a type of the data processing system, an operating system of the data processing system, display parameters of the data processing system, virtual input keyboard layout of the data processing system, and a geographic location of the data processing system, and wherein the user preferences include a preferred language of a user of the data processing system and a preferred set of character key sets.

20. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein each of the one or more character key sets is a class of character keys, and wherein the class of character keys includes all character keys associated with a particular class of characters, and wherein the particular class of characters is one of a set of numbers, a set of symbols, a set of punctuation marks, a set of special characters, a set of foreign language alphabetic characters associated with a user preference or a geographic location of the data processing system, or a set of accent marks associated with a foreign language.