Typing candidate generating method for enhancing typing efficiency

• US 8,364,468 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2006
• Issued: 01/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Academia Sinica (Government of The Republic of China)
• Original Assignee: Academia Sinica (Government of The Republic of China)
• Inventors: Hsu, Wen-Lian
• Primary Examiner(s): Godbold, Douglas
• Application Number:
  US11/535,497
• Publication Number:
  US 20080077396A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,316 Days
• Field of Search: 704/1, 704/9, 715/257
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/232 Orthographic correction, e.g. spell checking or vowelisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/274 Converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs

Abstract

For relieving typing burdens caused by incorrect spellings, typing errors, unknown spellings, and characters with diacritical marks, and for enhancing a typing efficiency of a typist with some simplified techniques, several candidate generating methods are provided for assisting the typist to pick a candidate word from a list of generated candidate words, or for selecting a candidate word from said list of generated candidate words in an automatic-selection manner. A proper-designed user interface may also be utilized for implementing the candidate generating methods.

Claims

1. A method for processing sentence text input from a user using an interactive text entry interface, the method comprising:

maintaining a text storage representing words and word sequences accepted as sentence text input from the user;

accepting a text input from the user through the interface, the text input consisting of an input sequence of letters that represents a subsequence of less than all the letters from a desired sequence of one or more words of the sentence text input;

searching the text storage for one or more candidates in which the input sequence represents a subsequence of less than all of the letters from the candidate without requiring that the subsequence form an initial portion of the candidate; and

determining the desired sequence of one or more words from the candidates;

wherein searching the text storage is performed without requiring prior specification of the candidate as a possible result of the searching.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the desired sequence of one or more words consists of a desired single word, and the accepted text input consists of a subsequence of less than all of the letters of the desired single word, and wherein searching the text storage comprises searching the text storage for candidate words that include the input sequence of letters as a subsequence of less than all of the letters from the candidate word.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the desired sequence of one or more words consists of a desired sequence of two or more words, and each letter of the input letter sequence of letters is the first letter of a corresponding one of the words of the desired sequence of two or more words, and wherein searching the text storage comprises searching the text storage for candidate word sequences in which each letter of the input sequence of letters is the first letter of one of the words of the candidate word sequence.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the text storage comprises a word dictionary.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the word dictionary stores URLs or e-mail addresses or both URLs and e-mail addresses.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the text storage comprises a storage for text input previously accepted through the interface from the user.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the desired sequence of one or more words from the candidates further includes generating a list of candidates if it is determined that a plurality of candidates exist and selecting the desired sequence of one or more words from the list of candidates.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein a user interface is utilized for selecting the desired sequence of one or more words from the list of candidates.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the desired sequence of one or more words from the list of candidates is selected automatically.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising replacing the input sequence of letters with the selected desired sequence of one or more words from the list of candidates.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein searching the text storage for candidates that include the input sequence of letters further includes applying semantic properties of words in the text storage to identify candidates.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein applying the semantic properties of words in the text storage includes applying word frequencies stored in the system.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein applying the semantic properties of words in the text storage includes applying characteristics of user word sequences.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the text input represents letters with diacritical marks.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the text input includes a string representing at least one Asian character from the desired sequence of one or more words.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein searching the text storage comprises searching recent paragraphs input by the user.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the subsequence of less than all the letters from a desired sequence of one or more words comprises a non-contiguous subsequence of the letters from a desired word.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein searching the text storage comprises searching for a word sequence previously typed by the user corresponding to an acronym input by the user.