Touch display method using virtual keyboard before loading operating system and electronic apparatus thereof

• US 9,128,551 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 09/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Getac Technology Company Limited (MiTAC Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Getac Technology Company Limited (MiTAC Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Chang, Chin-Jung
• Primary Examiner(s): Yang, Kwang-Su
• Application Number:
  US13/840,027
• Publication Number:
  US 20140085228A1
• Time in Patent Office: 907 Days
• Field of Search: 345/173
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0742 in a data processing system embedded in a mobile device, e.g. mobile phones, handheld devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• 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

A touch display method is configured for an electronic apparatus including a touch display module and an embedded controller. The touch display module includes a touch display device and a touch input controller. The method includes following steps: loading a BIOS to perform an initialization operation when the electronic apparatus has not loaded an operating system; defining a virtual input area in the touch display device; and further displaying an input interface on the virtual input area. Generate a touch event when the touch display device is touched and translate the touch event into a coordinate by the touch input controller. If the coordinate is in the input interface, the touch input controller outputs a function signal to the embedded controller through the hardware interface. The embedded controller translates the function signal into a scan code for the electronic apparatus to execute operations corresponding to the scan code.

Claims

1. An electronic apparatus, comprising:

a processor executing an operating system and loading a basic input/output system (BIOS) to execute an initialization program; and

a touch display module, comprising;

a touch display device having a virtual input area, wherein the virtual input area displays an input interface, the touch display device generating a touch event when the touch display device is touched; and

a touch input controller coupled to the touch display device, the touch input controller receiving the touch event and translating the touch event into a coordinate; and

an embedded controller (EC) coupled to the touch input controller through a hardware interface,

wherein, when the electronic apparatus has loaded the initialization program and the electronic apparatus has not loaded the operating system, the virtual input area displays an input interface comprising a virtual keyboard comprising a plurality of functional key icons,

wherein, when the electronic apparatus has loaded the initialization program and the electronic apparatus has not loaded the operating system, and the coordinate is in the input interface corresponding to one of the functional key icons, the touch input controller outputs a corresponding function signal to the embedded controller through the hardware interface, the embedded controller translates the corresponding function signal into a corresponding scan code, and the electronic apparatus executes operations corresponding to the scan code, and

wherein when the coordinate is not in the input interface, the touch input controller transmits the coordinate to the processor.

2. The electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein after the electronic apparatus loads the operating system, the touch display module is defined as a touch screen.

3. The electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the electronic apparatus loads the initialization program to perform an initialization;

wherein, after the electronic apparatus completes the initialization, the processor executes and loads the operating system.

4. The electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the functional key icons comprise navigation keys and an enter key.

5. The electronic apparatus of claim 4, wherein when the coordinate is in a touched functional key icon of the plurality of functional key icons, the touch input controller outputs the corresponding function signal of the touched functional-key icon to the embedded controller.

6. The electronic apparatus of claim 4, wherein when the coordinate is in a touched functional key icon of the plurality of functional key icons, the embedded controller translates the corresponding function signal of the touched functional-key icon into the corresponding scan code and transmits the corresponding scan code to the processor.

7. The electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the hardware interface is a general purpose input/output (GPIO) interface.

8. The electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor executes a functional-key function according to the scan code.

9. The electronic apparatus of claim 1, wherein the functional key icons comprise a plurality of alpha-numeric keys.

10. A touch display method, adapted for an electronic apparatus, wherein the electronic apparatus comprises a touch display module and an embedded controller, and the touch display module comprises a touch display device and a touch input controller coupled to the embedded controller through a hardware interface, the touch display method comprising:

loading a basic input/output system (BIOS) to perform an initialization operation of the electronic apparatus, when the electronic apparatus has not loaded an operating system;

defining a virtual input area in the touch display device;

displaying an input interface comprising a virtual keyboard comprising a plurality of functional key icons on the virtual input area;

generating a touch event when the touch display device is touched;

translating the touch event into a coordinate by the touch input controller;

when the coordinate value is in the input interface corresponding to one of the functional key icons, outputting a corresponding function signal to the embedded controller through the hardware interface by the touch input controller;

translating the corresponding function signal into a corresponding scan code by the embedded controller; and

executing operations corresponding to the scan code by the electronic apparatus,

wherein when the coordinate is not in the input interface, outputting the coordinate, the touch input controller outputs the coordinate to the electronic apparatus.

11. The touch display method of claim 10, further comprising:

loading the operating system of the electronic apparatus; and

defining the touch display module as a touch screen.

12. The touch display method of claim 10, wherein performing the initialization operation of the electronic apparatus comprises:

controlling the electronic apparatus to load an initialization program to perform the initialization operation.

13. The touch display method of claim 10, wherein the functional key icons comprise navigation keys and an enter key.

14. The touch display method of claim 13, wherein when the coordinate is in a touched functional key icon of the plurality of functional key icons, the touch input controller outputs the corresponding function signal of the touched functional-key icon to the embedded controller.

15. The touch display method of claim 13, when the coordinate is in a touched functional key icon of the plurality of functional key icons, the embedded controller translates the corresponding function signal of the touched functional-key icon into the corresponding scan code and transmits the corresponding scan code to the processor.

16. The touch display method of claim 10, wherein the hardware interface is a general purpose input/output (GPIO) interface.

17. The touch display method of claim 10, wherein the step of executing the operations according to the scan code comprises:

executing a functional-key function according to the scan code.

18. The touch display method of claim 10, wherein the functional key icons comprise a plurality of alpha-numeric keys.