Movement of Position Indicator on Touchscreen

• US 20140362090A1
• Filed: 11/01/2013
• Published: 12/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Langoulant, Brendan J., Shaffer, Joshua H.
• Granted Patent: US 9,524,568 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/467
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04812 Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/20 Drawing from basic elements, e.g. lines or circles
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/203 Drawing of straight lines or curves
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/24 Generation of individual character patterns

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method that displays a document that includes several glyphs on a touch screen display. The method receives a touch input on the touch screen display to activate a zoom tool enabling location of a position indicator within a set of associated glyphs. The method automatically divides a touch screen region for the set of associated glyphs into sub-regions. Each sub-region is associated with a position indicator location between two subsequent glyphs. A first sub-region associated with a location between first and second glyphs has a same width as a second sub-region associated with a location between the second glyph and a third glyph. The first and third glyphs do not have an equal width. The method correlates movement of the touch input across the touch screen display with the equally-spaced sub-regions in order to move the position indicator between the glyphs in the associated set.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

displaying a document comprising a plurality of glyphs on a touch screen display;

receiving a touch input on the touch screen display to activate a zoom tool enabling location of a position indicator within a set of associated glyphs of the document;

automatically dividing a touch screen region for the set of associated glyphs into a set of sub-regions, each sub-region associated with a position indicator location between two subsequent glyphs in the set of associated glyphs, wherein a first sub-region associated with a location between first and second glyphs has a same width as a second sub-region associated with a location between the second glyph and a third glyph, wherein the first and third glyphs do not have an equal width; and

correlating movement of the touch input across the touch screen display with the equally-spaced sub-regions in order to move the position indicator between the glyphs in the associated set.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of associated glyphs is a word of the document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of associated glyphs comprises glyphs of a word in which the position indicator is located that appear to one side of the position indicator location.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of associated glyphs is a first set and the set of sub-regions are a first set of sub-regions of a first touch screen region, the method further comprising automatically dividing a second touch screen region for a second set of associated glyphs into a second set of sub-regions, wherein a third sub-region associated with a location between fourth and fifth glyphs in the second set of sub-regions has a same width as a fourth sub-region associated with a location between the fifth glyph and a sixth glyph, wherein the fourth and sixth glyphs do not have an equal width, wherein the width of the first and second sub-regions is different than the width of the third and fourth sub-regions, wherein the second set of associated glyphs comprises characters of the word in which the position indicator is located that appear after the position indicator location.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein automatically dividing the touch screen region comprises:

identifying (i) a number of glyphs in the set of associated glyphs and (ii) a total width of the set of associated glyphs;

dividing the total width by the number of glyphs to calculate a distance between equally-spaced conceptual glyph boundaries;

defining sub-region boundaries at midpoints between the conceptual glyph boundaries; and

associating each particular position indicator location between two subsequent glyphs in the set with a particular sub-region between two of the defined sub-region boundaries.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein automatically dividing the touch screen region further comprises:

defining a sub-region associated with a position indicator location before a first glyph in the set; and

defining a sub-region associated with a position indicator location after a last glyph in the set.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is an editable document and the position indicator is an insertion marker that indicates where a user may insert or delete text in the document

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the touch input comprises a single uninterrupted touch contact on the touch screen display over the set of associated glyphs.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatic dividing of the touch screen region is performed dynamically upon receiving the touch input to activate the zoom tool.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the touch input is initially located within the first sub-region and the position indicator is located between the first and second glyphs, wherein correlating movement of the touch input comprises:

receiving a movement of the touch input from the first sub-region to the second sub-region; and

in response to the movement of the touch input, moving the position indicator to the location between the second and third glyphs.

11. A method comprising:

receiving a touch input on a touch screen display over a set of associated glyphs;

identifying an initial location within the set of associated glyphs for a position indicator by using a first set of heuristics; and

dividing a touch screen display region within which the set of associated glyphs are located into a set of sub-regions by using a second set of heuristics, wherein each sub-region is associated with a different location between two consecutive glyphs in the set and a first location between a first glyph and second glyph in the set is located within a sub-region associated with a second location between the second glyph and a third glyph.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the second location between the second glyph and the third glyph is located within the sub-region associated with the second location.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the touch input is received within the first sub-region associated with the first location, the method further comprising:

receiving a movement of the touch input from the first sub-region to the second, neighboring sub-region; and

when the touch input location crosses a boundary between the first and second sub-regions, moving the position indicator from the first location to the second location.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein a plurality of the sub-regions each have an equal width.

15. A method comprising:

displaying editable text on a touch screen display;

receiving a touch input on the touch screen display to activate an editing tool that enables location of an insertion marker within a text region of the editable text;

upon receiving the input on the touch screen display over a particular text region comprising a plurality of characters, automatically associating each location between two characters in the particular text region with an equally-sized area of the touch screen display;

when the touch input moves from a first one of the equally-sized areas of the touch screen display to a second one of the equally-sized areas of the touch screen display, moving the insertion marker from a first location between a first character in the text region and a second character in the text region to a second location between the second character and a third character in the text region.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

receiving input to edit the particular text region; and

automatically associating each location between two characters in the edited text region with a new equally-sized area of the touch screen display.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the size of the new areas are different than the size of the areas before receiving the edit.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the edit comprises deletion of a text character from the particular text region.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the edit comprises insertion of a text character from the particular text region.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein a size of each equally-sized area is based on a total size of the text region divided by a number of characters in the text region.

21. The method of claim 15 further comprising, while associating each location between two characters in the particular text region with an equally-sized area of the touch screen display, associating a location prior to a first character in the particular text region with a differently-sized area of the touch screen display.

22. The method of claim 15 further comprising, while associating each location between two characters in the particular text region with an equally-sized area of the touch screen display, associating a location after a last character in the particular text region with a differently-sized area of the touch screen display.

23. A method comprising:

based on a current location of a position indicator within a set of associated glyphs displayed on a touch screen display, assigning sections of the touch screen display to each of the locations between glyphs in the set;

receiving touch input moving from a first section of the touch screen display to a second section of the touch screen display in order to move the position indicator to a new location within the set of associated glyphs; and

dynamically modifying a size of at least one of the sections based on the new location of the text cursor.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the set of associated glyphs is a word and assigning sections of the touch screen display to each of the glyphs in the word comprises:

for each of the locations between two glyphs to the left of the current location of the position indicator, calculating an initial size of the assigned sections by dividing a total size of the glyphs to the left of the position indicator by a number of glyphs to the left of the position indicator; and

for each of the locations between two glyphs to the right of the current location of the position indicator, calculating an initial size of the assigned sections by dividing a total size of the glyphs to the right of the position indicator by a number of glyphs to the right of the position indicator.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein dynamically modifying the size of at least one section comprises updating the calculations for locations between two glyphs to a first side of the position indicator based on at least one glyph moving from a second side of the position indicator to the first side of the position indicator.

26. The method of claim 23 further comprising displaying, around the position indicator, a zoom loupe that magnifies the set of associated glyphs and surrounding text.