Smart filtering with multiple simultaneous keyboard inputs

• US 7,675,435 B2
• Filed: 08/31/2006
• Issued: 03/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Filner, Aaron, Thairu, Timothy M., Mejia, Juan Jose, Gachet, Kelly, Bui, Timothy L., Deng, Peter, Sun, Ray
• Primary Examiner(s): Edwards, Jr.; Timothy
• Application Number:
  US11/513,562
• Publication Number:
  US 20080068226A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,286 Days
• Field of Search: 341/22, 341/26, 345/168, 700/84, 710/67, 719/321, 719/328
• US Class Current: 341/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0233 Character input methods

Abstract

Keyboard entries by users are tracked and filtered to reduce ambiguity in translating the entries to characters and predicting text based on the entries in a multiple keyboard environment. Key tables such as an equivalence table mapping characters to a base character value, a digit mapping table mapping characters to a digit between 0 and 9 are used to determine possible matches in text prediction. A letter accumulator UI is employed along with a number accumulator UI to provide users feedback on tracked letters.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for filtering inputs from a plurality of keyboards, comprising:

receiving a first keyboard input;

determining an applicable key mapping table from a plurality of key mapping tables, wherein the applicable key mapping table is associated with a keyboard from which the first input is received;

determining a first set of characters mapped to the received first input; and

tracking the determined characters in an accumulated data structure for ascertaining possible matches between the first set of characters in the accumulated data structure and textual data associated with an application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a second input from another keyboard;

determining another applicable key mapping table associated with the other keyboard;

determining a second set of characters mapped to the received second input; and

tracking possible combinations of the first set of characters and the second set of characters for ascertaining possible matches between the combinations of characters in the accumulated data structure and the textual data associated with the application.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

in response to identifying possible matches between the combinations of characters and the textual data associated with the application, providing a list of suggested matches to a user of the computing device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of key mapping tables include at least one from a set of:

an equivalence table for mapping a character to a base character value, a digit mapping table for mapping a character to one of a set of digit between 0 and 9, and a dynamic custom table for mapping a character that has already been mapped by the equivalence table to an alternate character.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

modifying contents of at least one of the equivalence table, the digit mapping table, and the dynamic custom tables in response to a modification request.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the modification request is received from a user of the computing device as part of a customization process.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the modification request is received as part of a configuration update process.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a feedback to a user of the computing device based on the tracked characters.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality of keyboards includes at least one from a set of:

a standard keyboard, an enhanced keyboard, a reduced keyboard, a soft keyboard, and a 12-key telephonic keypad.

10. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for providing smart filtering of keyboard inputs in a multi-keyboard environment, the instructions comprising:

in response to receiving a keyboard input that includes one or more characters, determining one or more matching portions of a list of textual entries in a list;

tracking at least one from a set of;

a starting character of each matching portion of the list of textual entries, a number of characters in each matching portion of the list of textual entries, the characters of the keyboard input, and a number of the characters of the keyboard input that cause a match;

mapping each character of the keyboard input to a character of each of the matching portion of the list of textual entries based on the tracking; and

displaying on an accumulator UI the mapped matching portions of the list of textual entries.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the instructions further comprise:

if a new matching portion is similar to a previous matching portion caused by the same keyboard input, discarding the new matching portion; and

if a mapping table used for mapping the characters of the keyboard input to the characters of the matching portions of the list of textual entries is modified, discarding all matching portions and remapping the characters of the keyboard input.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the instructions further comprise:

storing the matching portions in an accumulator data structure, and wherein the accumulator data structure includes one of a predetermined number of arrays and a dynamic number of arrays of characters mapped from the keyboard input that cause a match to the list of textual entries.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the list of textual entries includes a contacts list comprising names.

14. A system for filtering inputs from a plurality of keyboards, comprising:

a plurality of device drivers configured to provide an initial key mapping table for the plurality of keyboards;

a smart filter API configured to;

manage one or more mapping tables to determine matches between characters received from keyboard inputs to characters in a list of textual entries, to map each received character to a character in a matching textual entry, and to track possible combinations of characters for determining the matches.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more mapping tables include at least one from a set of:

an equivalence table for mapping a character to a base character value, a digit mapping table for mapping a character to one of a set of digit between 0 and 9, and a dynamic custom table for mapping a character that has already been mapped by the equivalence table to an alternate character, and wherein the mapping tables are stored in one of a binary file and a registry to be distributed to at least one client process for use by the smart filtering API.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more mapping tables are arranged to be modified in the registry in response to an update from one of a system administrator and a configuration manager.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the dynamic custom table is arranged to be updated in a volatile registry in response to one of addition and removal of a keyboard, and wherein the at least one client process is updated based on the changes to the dynamic custom table by a monitor and update module.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a character accumulator UI configured to provide feedback to a user of the system based on the tracked possible combinations of characters.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the character accumulator UI is further configured to display combinations of characters that match any one of the textual entries.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the character accumulator UI is displayed in conjunction with a number accumulator UI configured to display digits corresponding to the keyboard inputs.