Assisted punctuation of character strings

• US 9,965,454 B2
• Filed: 01/19/2015
• Issued: 05/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Azose, Benjamin Albert
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Chau T
• Application Number:
  US14/599,801
• Publication Number:
  US 20150149880A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,205 Days
• 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 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/232 Orthographic correction, e.g. spell checking or vowelisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/242 Dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/274 Converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs

Abstract

A computing device receives one or more indications of user input to enter a character string. In response, the computing device determines, based on a corpus that includes punctuated character strings previously entered by a user of the computing device, one or more punctuated versions of the character string. Each of the one or more punctuated versions of the character string includes one or more punctuation marks not present in the character string. The computing device outputs, for display, at least one of the one or more punctuated versions of the character string.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, one or more indications of user input of a character string that comprises one or more non-punctuation characters and a plurality of instances of a generic punctuation mark character, the generic punctuation mark character being a stand-in for, and different than, any punctuation mark in a plurality of non-generic punctuation marks, the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks including a comma, a period, a colon, a semicolon, a question mark, a hyphen, a forward slash, a backslash, and an exclamation point;

outputting, by the computing device, for display, the character string;

responsive to receiving an indication that the user has finished entering the character string, for each respective instance of the generic punctuation mark character of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark characters in the character string, output a plurality of punctuation marks for display, wherein each of the plurality of punctuation marks is one of the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks;

receive an indication of a user selection of a respective punctuation mark from among the plurality of punctuation marks; and

responsive to receiving the indication of the user selection of the respective punctuation mark from among the plurality of punctuation marks, output, for display, a respective version of the character string including the respective punctuation mark in place of the respective instance of the generic punctuation mark character.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to receiving the one or more indications of user input of the character string, outputting, by the computing device, for display, a graphical keyboard comprising keys for characters and a key for a generic punctuation mark character; and

receiving the one or more indications of user input of the character string comprises;

receiving, by the computing device, at least one of;

an indication of a movement of an input object over regions of a presence-sensitive screen associated with ones of the keys for letters of the character string;

or

a series of tapping gestures at regions of the presence-sensitive screen associated with ones of the keys for letters of the character string; and

receiving, by the computing device, a tapping gesture at a location of the presence-sensitive screen associated with the key for the generic punctuation mark character.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

outputting, by the computing device, for display, a graphical keyboard, the graphical keyboard including keys associated with each of the non-generic punctuation marks from the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication that the user has finished entering the character string comprises an indication of user input to send to another computing device, a message that includes the character string.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the computing device, a ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks for the generic punctuation mark character in the character string; and

outputting, by the computing device, for display, a suggestion element that includes a highest-ranked non-generic punctuation mark of the ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining the ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks comprises:

determining, by the computing device, a rank of a suggested non-generic punctuation mark based at least in part on data regarding a number of times that the user of the computing device has inputted or otherwise selected the non-generic punctuation mark in punctuated versions of the character string.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein determining the rank of the suggested non-generic punctuation mark comprises:

identifying, by the computing device, in a corpus, punctuated versions of the character string; and

determining, by the computing device, based on a number of times that the user of the computing device has selected a punctuated version of the character string that includes the suggested non-generic punctuation mark at a location that corresponds to the location of the generic punctuation mark character, a ranking order of the suggested non-generic punctuation mark.

8. A computing device comprising one or more processors configured to:

receive one or more indications of user input of a character string that comprises one or more non-punctuation characters and a plurality of instances of a generic punctuation mark character, the generic punctuation mark character being a stand-in for, and different than, any punctuation mark in a plurality of non-generic punctuation marks, the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks including a comma, a period, a colon, a semicolon, a question mark, a hyphen, a forward slash, a backslash, and an exclamation point;

output the character string for display;

responsive to receiving an indication that the user has finished entering the character string, for each respective instance of the generic punctuation mark character of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark characters in the character string, output a plurality of punctuation marks for display, wherein each of the plurality of punctuation marks is one of the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks;

receive an indication of a user selection of a respective punctuation mark from among the plurality of punctuation marks; and

responsive to receiving the indication of the user selection of the respective punctuation mark from among the plurality of punctuation marks, output, for display, a respective version of the character string including the respective punctuation mark in place of the respective instance of the generic punctuation mark character.

9. The computing device of claim 8, wherein:

the one or more processors are configured such that, prior to receiving the one or more indications of user input of the character string, the one or more processors output, for display, a graphical keyboard comprising keys for characters and a key for a generic punctuation mark character; and

the one or more processors are configured to;

receive at least one of;

an indication of a movement of an input object over regions of a presence-sensitive screen associated with ones of the keys for letters of the character string;

or

a series of tapping gestures at regions of the presence-sensitive screen associated with ones of the keys for letters of the character string; and

receive, for each of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark character, a respective tapping gesture at a location of the presence-sensitive screen associated with the key for the generic punctuation mark character.

10. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to:

output a graphical keyboard for display, the graphical keyboard including keys associated with non-generic punctuation marks.

11. The computing device of claim 8, wherein:

the one or more processors are configured to determine a respective ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks for each of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark character in the character string; and

the one or more processors the configured to output, for display, a respective suggestion element for each of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark character that includes a highest-ranked non-generic punctuation mark of the respective ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are configured such that when determining the respective ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks for each of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark character, the one or more processors:

determine a rank of a suggested non-generic punctuation mark based at least in part on data regarding a number of times that the user of the computing device has inputted or otherwise selected the non-generic punctuation mark in punctuated versions of the character string.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause one or more processors of a computing device to:

receive one or more indications of user input of a character string that comprises one or more non-punctuation characters and a plurality of instances of a generic punctuation mark character, the generic punctuation mark character being a stand-in for, and different than, any punctuation mark in a plurality of non-generic punctuation marks, the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks including a comma, a period, a colon, a semicolon, a question mark, a hyphen, a forward slash, a backslash, and an exclamation point;

output the character string for display;

responsive to receiving the indication that the user has finished entering the character string, for each respective instance of the generic punctuation mark character of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark characters in the character string, output a plurality of punctuation marks for display, wherein each of the plurality of punctuation marks is one of the plurality of non-generic punctuation marks;

receive an indication of a user selection of a respective punctuation mark from among the plurality of punctuation marks; and

responsive to receiving the indication of the user selection of the respective punctuation mark from among the plurality of punctuation marks, output, for display, a respective version of the character string including the respective punctuation mark in place of the respective instance of the generic punctuation mark character.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium of claim 13, wherein, the instructions cause the one or more processors to:

output a graphical keyboard for display, the graphical keyboard including keys associated with non-generic punctuation marks.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium of claim 13, wherein:

the instructions cause the one or more processors to determine a respective ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks for each of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark character in the character string; and

the instructions cause the one or more processors to output, for display, a respective suggestion element for each of the plurality of instances of the generic punctuation mark character that includes a highest-ranked non-generic punctuation mark of the respective ranked set of suggested non-generic punctuation marks.