CONTEXTUALLY-SPECIFIC AUTOMATIC SEPARATORS

• US 20140108990A1
• Filed: 03/04/2013
• Published: 04/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhai, Shumin, Partridge, Kurt Edward, Bi, Xiaojun, Ouyang, Yu
• Granted Patent: US 9,557,818 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/773
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0237 using prediction or retrieval techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• 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

Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to techniques for outputting a graphical keyboard comprising a group of keys, wherein each key in the group of keys is associated with a respective, different display region, receiving an indication of a gesture to select a sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard, determining that the selected sequence of keys corresponds to a character string that is identifiable by at least one format source, wherein the format source is associated with a syntax, determining, based at least in part on the syntax, that at least one separator character is associated with the character string, and in response to determining that the at least one separator character is associated with the character string, outputting the character string and the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

outputting, by a computing device and for display at a presence-sensitive display, a graphical keyboard comprising a group of keys, wherein each key in the group of keys is associated with a respective, different region of the presence-sensitive display;

receiving, at the computing device, an indication of a gesture to select a sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard;

determining, by the computing device, that the selected sequence of keys corresponds to a character string that is identifiable by at least one format source, wherein the format source is associated with a syntax;

determining, by the computing device and based at least in part on the syntax, that at least one separator character is associated with the character string; and

in response to determining that the at least one separator character is associated with the character string, outputting, by the computing device and for display at the presence-sensitive display, the character string and the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one separator character comprises a first separator character, wherein the location is a first location, wherein the format source is a first format source included in a plurality of format sources, the method further comprising:

receiving, at the computing device, an indication of a second gesture to select a second sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard;

determining, by the computing device, that the second selected sequence of keys corresponds to a second character string that is identified using a second format source of the plurality of format sources;

determining, by the computing device and based at least in part on the syntax, that a second separator character is associated with the second character string; and

in response to determining that the second separator character is associated with the second character string, outputting, by the computing device and for display at the presence-sensitive display, the second character string and the second separator character at a second location proximal to the second character string.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting the at least one separator character at the location proximal to the character string comprises:

determining, by the computing device whether the gesture selects a macro key; and

responsive to determining that the gesture selects the macro key, outputting, by the computing device and for display at the presence-sensitive display, the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the selected sequence of keys corresponds to the character string that is identified using the format source comprises:

sending, by the computing device, a request message to a remote service for data associated with the format source;

receiving, by the computing device, a reply message from the remote service that includes the data associated with the format source, wherein the format source is associated with the syntax.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the data associated with the format source that is included in the reply message from the remote service comprises a regular expression, wherein the syntax comprises a character pattern specified by the regular expression, the method further comprising:

applying, by the computing device, the regular expression to the character string to determine whether the character string matches the character pattern specified by the regular expression.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string further comprises appending the at least one separator character to the character string.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string further comprises prepending the at least one separator character to the character string.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the syntax comprises at least one of:

a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) syntax, wherein the URL syntax includes a set of separator characters associated with a URL;

a date syntax, wherein the date syntax includes a set of separator characters associated with a date; and

a time syntax, wherein the time syntax includes a set of separator characters associated with a time of day.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the syntax comprises the URL syntax, and wherein the at least one separator character includes at least one of:

“

.com”

,

a slash (“

/”

) character,

a period character (“

.”

),

and “

www.”

.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the computing device, an indication of a user input to select a value that corresponds to a setting, wherein outputting the at least one separator character comprises outputting the at least one separator character based on the value that corresponds to the setting.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the character string is a first character string and the syntax is a first syntax, the method further comprising:

receiving, by the computing device, a second character string;

determining, by the computing device, based on the second character string, a second syntax, wherein the second syntax comprises at least one character pattern,

wherein determining that the second selected sequence of keys corresponds to a second character string that is identifiable using the format source comprises;

determining, by the computing device, whether the second character string matches the at least one character pattern.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the format source comprises at least one of a dictionary and a lexicon.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the computing device, syntax information associated with a user interface element of an application of the computing device; and

determining, by the computing device, the format source and the syntax associated with the format source based at least in part on the syntax information associated with the user interface element.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining the syntax, outputting, by the computing device and for display at the presence-sensitive display, a graphical indication of the syntax.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the syntax is a first syntax, the method further comprising:

receiving, at the computing device, an indication of a second syntax; and

changing, by the computing device, the first syntax to a second syntax responsive to receiving the indication of the second syntax.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the format source comprises a regular expression, wherein the syntax comprises a character pattern specified by the regular expression, the method further comprising:

applying, by the computing device, the regular expression to the character string to determine whether the character string matches the character pattern specified by the regular expression,

wherein determining, based at least in part on the syntax that the at least one separator character is associated with the character string further comprises;

determining, by the computing device, whether the character string matches the character pattern specified by the regular expression.

17. A device comprising:

at least one processor;

a presence a presence-sensitive display;

a gesture module operable by the at least one processor to;

output for display at a presence-sensitive display operatively coupled to the device, a graphical keyboard comprising a group of keys, wherein each key in the group of keys is associated with a respective, different region of the presence-sensitive display;

receive an indication of a gesture to select a sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard;

determine that the selected sequence of keys corresponds to a character string that is identifiable by at least one format source, wherein the format source is associated with a syntax;

determine, by the computing device and based at least in part on the syntax, that at least one separator character is associated with the character string; and

output the character string and the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string in response to determining that the separator character is associated with the character string.

18. The device of claim 17, wherein the at least one separator character comprises a first separator character, wherein the location is a first location, wherein the format source is a first format source included in a plurality of format sources, wherein the gesture module is further configured to:

receive, at the computing device, an indication of a second gesture to select a second sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard;

determine, by the computing device, that the second selected sequence of keys corresponds to a second character string that is identified using a second format source in a plurality of format sources;

determine, by the computing device and based at least in part on the syntax, that a second at least one separator character is associated with the second character string; and

in response to determining that the second separator character is associated with the second character string, output, by the computing device and for display at the presence-sensitive display, the second character string and the second separator character at a second location proximal to the second character string.

19. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed, cause at least one processor of a computing device to:

output, by the computing device and for display at a presence-sensitive display, a graphical keyboard comprising a group of keys, wherein each key in the group of keys is associated with a respective, different region of a presence-sensitive display;

receive, at the computing device, an indication of a gesture to select a sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard;

determine, by the computing device, that the selected sequence of keys corresponds to a character string that is identifiable by at least one format source, wherein the format source is associated with a syntax;

determine, by the computing device and based at least in part on the syntax, that at least one separator character is associated with the character string; and

in response to determining that the separator character is associated with the character string, output the character string and the at least one separator character at a location proximal to the character string.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the at least one separator character comprises a first separator character, wherein the location is a first location, wherein the format source is a first format source included in a plurality of format sources, and wherein the computer-readable storage medium further comprises instructions that, when executed cause the at least one processor to:

receive, at the computing device, an indication of a second gesture to select a second sequence of keys that are each included in the group of keys of the graphical keyboard;

determine, by the computing device, that the second selected sequence of keys corresponds to a second character string that is identified using a second format source in a plurality of format sources;

determine, by the computing device and based at least in part on the syntax, that a second at least one separator character is associated with the second character string; and

in response to determining that the second at least one separator character is associated with the second character string, output, by the computing device and for display at the presence-sensitive display, the second character string and the second separator character at a second location proximal to the second character string.