Touch Input Data Handling

• US 20060267957A1
• Filed: 05/21/2006
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dodge, Steven P., Townsend, Reed L., Scott, Bryan D., Kolmykov-Zotov, Alexander J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,928,964 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03545 Pens or stylus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0416 Control or interface arrangements specially adapted for digitisers

Abstract

A system for enabling a tablet input object is described. A tablet input object can take various inputs from touch, a mouse, and a pen and sends their information to an application or operating system. Also, a pen message pathway may also be used to handle touch messages, thereby reusing an existing pen message pathway for messages created by something other than a pen.

Claims

1. A computing system comprising:

a processor, said processor supporting a tablet input object that receives various input information and forwards the input information to an application, said input information including touch input and pen input, and said application processing touch input as pen input.

2. The computing system according to claim 1, said tablet input object including an input service object on a server.

3. The computing system according to claim 1, said tablet input object including an input service on a client.

4. The computing system according to claim 1, said tablet input object passing information to an input sink of said application using out of process remote procedure calls.

5. The computing system according to claim 1, said application differentiating between touch input messages and pen input messages by the signatures of the input messages.

6. The computing system according to claim 5, said tablet input object storing additional information in said mouse event indicating that said mouse event was generated based on touch input.

7. A computing system comprising:

a digitizer responsive to touch input;

a processor that receives information from said digitizer, said processor generating mouse events based on information from said digitizer based on touch input, said mouse events being passed to an application, said application handling said touch events as mouse events.

8. The computing system according to claim 7, said processor modifying a user interface when said mouse events were created from touch input to said digitizer.

9. The computing system according to claim 8, said processor modifying said user interface to include larger grab handles for visual objects.

10. The computing system according to claim 8, said processor modifying said user interface to prevent touch from controlling at least a part of said user interface.

11. The computing system according to claim 7, said processor including an inking client, said processor restarting said inking client.

12. The computing system according to claim 7, said processor including an application programming interface that allows programmatical control when touch is enabled.

13. The computing system according to claim 7, said processor including an application programming interface that allows said processor to handle touch messages as pen messages yet also differentiates the touch and pen messages through an extended signature of the messages.

14. The computing system according to claim 7, said processor including an application programming interface that allows control of touch modes.

15. The computing system according to claim 7, said processor including an application programming interface that allows touch input to be disabled.

16. The computing system according to claim 15, said application programming interface permitting disabling of touch input when additional information in messages indicates touch should be disabled.

17. The computing system according to claim 15, said application programming interface permitting disabling of touch input when a request to disable touch comes from a touch ink stream.

18. The computing system according to claim 15, said application programming interface determining when a user'"'"'s palm has contacted said digitizer and ignoring said contact.

19. The computing system according to claim 15, said application programming interface allowing touch input to be handled as both pen input and mouse input.

20. The computing system according to claim 15, said application programming interface exchanging information using a shared memory.