Patent Application
20150135115
Information handling devices (“devices”), for example laptop computers, tablets, smart phones, e-readers, etc., may be used to accept user inputs in various formats. Among the formats of user inputs currently utilized are “touch” inputs, although this category of inputs includes inputs where physically touching a surface may not be required. For example, gestures proximate to or detectable by an input component may be registered as inputs.
A user input component accepts the touch inputs. Examples of input components include touch sensitive surfaces, such as a touch screen (for direct input) or a digitizer or touch pad (for indirect or separate input from a display). The touch inputs may be provided using various objects, e.g., a writing implement such as a pen or stylus or even finger input. Commonly touch inputs are used in a drawing or handwriting touch input user interface which allows a user to provide handwriting or drawing inputs to another application, e.g., word processing application, email application, etc.
In summary, one aspect provides a method, comprising: accepting, at a touch input component, touch input; rendering, on a display device, the touch input in a touch input interface; determining, using a processor, multi-touch input for modifying an attribute of the touch input rendering; modifying, using the processor, the attribute of the touch input rendering according to the multi-touch input; and thereafter inputting the touch input rendering into an application.
Another aspect provides an information handling device, comprising: a touch input component; a display device; a processor; and a memory device storing instructions executable by the processor to: accept, at the touch input component, touch input; render, on the display device, the touch input in a touch input interface; determine multi-touch input for modifying an attribute of the touch input rendering; modify the attribute of the touch input rendering according to the multi-touch input; and thereafter input the touch input rendering into an application.
A further aspect provides a program product, comprising: a storage medium comprising computer readable program code, the computer readable program code comprising: computer readable program code configured to accept, at a touch input component, touch input; computer readable program code configured to render, on a display device, the touch input in a touch input interface; computer readable program code configured to determine, using a processor, multi-touch input for modifying an attribute of the touch input rendering; computer readable program code configured to modify, using the processor, the attribute of the touch input rendering according to the multi-touch input; and computer readable program code configured to thereafter input the touch input rendering into an application.
The foregoing is a summary and thus may contain simplifications, generalizations, and omissions of detail; consequently, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting.
For a better understanding of the embodiments, together with other and further features and advantages thereof, reference is made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The scope of the invention will be pointed out in the appended claims.
It will be readily understood that the components of the embodiments, as generally described and illustrated in the figures herein, may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of different configurations in addition to the described example embodiments. Thus, the following more detailed description of the example embodiments, as represented in the figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments, as claimed, but is merely representative of example embodiments.
Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” (or the like) means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Thus, the appearance of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment” or the like in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.
Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are provided to give a thorough understanding of embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the various embodiments can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, et cetera. In other instances, well known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obfuscation.
In a touch user input handwriting or drawing interface, such as a text/image editor, conventionally the user needs to use menu command/icons to setup the attribute(s) of the text or image. For example, to modify a size attribute of the text input or image, the user needs to separately select size setting within the editor. Likewise, to rotate, tilt or flip the text or image, the user needs to select the appropriate modification for a rotation attribute within the editor application/user interface. Thus, a user may either set the attributes prior to entering touch inputs, which are then rendered with the previously set (e.g., default) attributes (size, rotation or orientation, etc.); or, the user may provide the touch input to render the text or image, and thereafter modify attributes, again using menu selections in the editor application.
This modal approach is inconvenient for a variety of reasons. For example, since a user needs to switch back and forth between a command mode (for modifying attributes) and a content mode (for inputting touch input to be rendered), the natural flow of input will be disrupted. Additionally, for user interfaces or editors with limited space, e.g., as provided on a smart phone or other space limited form factors, it is challenging to accommodate additional icons/menu commands within the interface for making such modifications. Additionally, while a user may modify/edit (i.e., change an attribute such as size or rotation) an image after it is completed (e.g., re-sizing an image file), the user needs to do this once the image is complete and cannot add to the image thereafter by drawing further inputs. Conventionally there is no way at all to modify handwriting text/character input, leaving the user with limited options.
Accordingly, an embodiment provides a user with an opportunity to easily modify attributes of text and/or image input while using a touch input interface/editor. An embodiment may distinguish between touch input for providing substantive input, i.e., for creating a rendering, and touch input for modifying attributes of the touch input rendering. In an embodiment, a multi-touch input is mapped to a predetermined modification such that, on receipt of such a multi-touch input, the touch input rendering may be modified without the user needing to switch between modes. Thus, users may seamlessly modify attributes (e.g., size, rotation) of touch input renderings without needing to switch between modes using buttons or menu choices within the interface to do so. Additionally, an embodiment permits a user to modify attributes while providing touch input renderings, i.e., prior to completing the touch input for entry into an application.
The illustrated example embodiments will be best understood by reference to the figures. The following description is intended only by way of example, and simply illustrates certain example embodiments.
While various other circuits, circuitry or components may be utilized in information handling devices, with regard to smart phone and/or tablet circuitry 100, an example illustrated in
There are power management chip(s) 130, e.g., a battery management unit, BMU, which manage power as supplied for example via a rechargeable battery 140, which may be recharged by a connection to a power source (not shown). In at least one design, a single chip, such as 110, is used to supply BIOS like functionality and DRAM memory.
System 100 typically includes one or more of a WWAN transceiver 150 and a WLAN transceiver 160 for connecting to various networks, such as telecommunications networks and wireless Internet devices, e.g., access points. Additionally, one of the additional devices 120 is commonly a short range wireless communication device, such as a BLUETOOTH radio. Commonly, system 100 will include a touch screen 170 for data input and display, e.g., for accepting touch inputs. System 100 also typically includes various memory devices, for example flash memory 180 and SDRAM 190.
The example of
In
In
The system, upon power on, may be configured to execute boot code 290 for the BIOS 268, as stored within the SPI Flash 266, and thereafter processes data under the control of one or more operating systems and application software (for example, stored in system memory 240). An operating system may be stored in any of a variety of locations and accessed, for example, according to instructions of the BIOS 268. As described herein, a device may include fewer or more features than shown in the system of
Information handling device circuitry, as for example outlined in
As illustrated in
As described herein, in order to modify an attribute, e.g., a size attribute of a touch input rendering, a user normally would have to select a menu choice with the touch input interface 302 to resize the rendering 303. According to an embodiment, however, a user may modify the size of the rendering 303 by providing a multi-touch input to the input component 301.
Therefore, referring to
Likewise, referring to
As will be appreciated form
In an embodiment, the modified attribute of the touch input rendering, e.g., modified size or rotation of renderings 304 and 305, respectively, may be retained on converting the touch input rendering into machine text. As an example, a user may provide a multi-touch rotation input to rotate a rendered text character, e.g., similar to 305, to italicize or rotate it slightly (e.g., less than the 90 degree rotation illustrated for rendering 305). Accordingly, the machine input text may be in the form of an italicized character input into the underlying application (e.g., email application).
The touch input rendering need not be converted, e.g., to machine text. Thus, the handwriting input may be directly imported to another application, e.g., retaining the modified attributed. To illustrate this, a drawing or image input is illustrated in
As shown, a user may provide touch input to a surface 401 for rendering in a touch input interface 402. Similar to the text character input 303, an image 403 is rendered in the touch input interface 402. In a similar way, an embodiment may allow a user to provide a multi-touch input to the input component 401, as for example a pinch or zoom multi-touch input as illustrated in
When the user is satisfied both with the touch inputs themselves and the attributes (e.g., size, rotation, etc.) the user may commit the inputs to an application, e.g., email, word processing or like applications.
For example, referring to
As described herein, an embodiment will automatically interpret such multi-touch gestures as attribute modifying input, e.g., as mapped to a predetermined number of multi-touch gestures for modifying attributes, at 504. If such a predetermined multi-touch input has been received, as determined at 504, an embodiment may modify the attribute(s) according to the received multi-touch inputs at 505. Otherwise, an embodiment may not modify the attributes and permit the user continue providing touch input for rendering. Notably, an embodiment permits the user to modify an attribute using a multi-touch gesture, and thereafter seamlessly return to providing additional touch inputs, e.g., to continue drawing or providing handwriting inputs. For example, an embodiment detects that the multi-touch gesture has finished and that a single touch or single point gesture is thereafter provided. The single touch or single point gestures will thereafter be rendered, similar to the inputs provided at 501.
Once the user has finished providing touch inputs for rendering and providing multi-touch inputs for modifying attribute(s) of the touch input renderings, an embodiment may provide the finished input renderings to an underlying application. As described herein, this may include additional steps, e.g., converting the modified touch input renderings into associated machine text, symbols, drawings or the like.
As described herein, an embodiment provides a user with an opportunity to easily modify attributes of text and/or image input while using a touch input interface/editor. An embodiment provides seamless transitioning between providing touch input for rendering and providing multi-touch input for modifying attributes of the rendering, and automatically switching there-between. Thus, users may seamlessly modify attributes (e.g., size, rotation) of touch input renderings without needing to switch between modes using buttons or menu choices within the interface to do so. Additionally, this reduces the amount of necessary menu options that need to be provided within the touch input interface, which often are provided in small devices where space is at a premium.
As will be understood by one skilled in the art, various aspects may be embodied as a system, method or device program product. Accordingly, aspects may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment or an embodiment including software that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, aspects may take the form of a device program product embodied in one or more device readable medium(s) having device readable program code embodied therewith.
Any combination of one or more non-signal device readable medium(s) may be utilized. The non-signal medium may be a storage medium. A storage medium may be, for example, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples of a storage medium would include the following: a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a storage medium is not a signal and “non-transitory” includes all media except signal media.
Program code embodied on a storage medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, et cetera, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.
Program code for carrying out operations may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on a single device, partly on a single device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on single device and partly on another device, or entirely on the other device. In some cases, the devices may be connected through any type of connection or network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made through other devices (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider), through wireless connections, e.g., near-field communication, or through a hard wire connection, such as over a USB connection.
Aspects are described herein with reference to the figures, which illustrate example methods, devices and program products according to various example embodiments. It will be understood that the actions and functionality may be implemented at least in part by program instructions. These program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose information handling device, a special purpose information handling device, or other programmable data processing device or information handling device to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via a processor of the device implement the functions/acts specified.
As used herein, the singular “a” and “an” may be construed as including the plural “one or more” unless clearly indicated otherwise.
This disclosure has been presented for purposes of illustration and description but is not intended to be exhaustive or limiting. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The example embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain principles and practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the disclosure for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
Thus, although illustrative example embodiments have been described herein with reference to the accompanying figures, it is to be understood that this description is not limiting and that various other changes and modifications may be affected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure.
