DE102017201977A1 - Method and device for entering characters - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for inputting characters by means of a number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5), each key being assigned a group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters, with the following steps a) Actuating (P) a key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) with a first time duration b) Displaying (DP) the group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters of the activated key ( K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) in a graphical representation in the case of a single character or a subgroup (UG) from the displayed group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) a key (K1, K2, K3, K4 , K5) from the number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) c) selecting (S) the single character or the subgroup (UG) by pressing the key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) associated with the character according to the diagram. The invention further relates to a corresponding apparatus.

Description

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for entering characters by means of a number of keys.

Input of text is required in a variety of communication devices, such as control panels such as a remote control.

For example, entering text requires an input of at least 26 letters and 10 digits for the Latin alphabet, which must be provided by the appropriate user interface.

Using a dedicated key for each character is often not possible due to space or cost reasons. This applies to physical keys as well as virtual keys or softkeys that are only displayed on a display and that are operated by touch. There are several approaches that are often not ergonomic.

Many user-interface devices, such as televisions and set-top boxes, but also field devices with displays, have a user interface consisting of at least five buttons. This is usually a four-way button, usually in the form of a directional pad, and a confirmation button, as well as in 1 shown. Sometimes there is another button for recalls.

Even with controls in the field of industrial controls, the input of alphanumeric characters is often required without a separate key is available for each character. For example, the SIMATIC KP300 Mono control panel uses ten keys to enter alphanumeric characters in addition to other keys, four of which are for direction and confirmation. The RFID input device SIMATIC RF650M or RF350 also uses a ten-character keyboard.

Usually, the input of characters in input fields via a so-called on-screen keyboard is performed. The user is presented with a "virtual" keyboard. Navigation via the control keys moves the marking of a character within the displayed alphabet to the desired character, which is selected by pressing another key. The more characters the possible alphabet has for input, the more navigation steps must be performed. One to two dimensions are usually available for navigation, that is, an arrangement in the form of a row or a matrix.

Another way to enter more complex alphabets with a numeric ten-key keyboard is to map multiple letters to number keys. This is the usual input method that is used in mobile phones, for example, for the input of SMS. Letters assigned to numeric keys are selected by repeatedly pressing the numeric key according to the order of letter assignment. An extension for this input method is T9. This provides, using a dictionary, a reduction in key presses by selecting letters based on words likely to be meant.

However, for reasons of efficiency, this method is only applied to devices with a sufficient number of buttons.

It is an object of the invention to provide a way to efficiently enter characters by means of keys.

This object is solved by the independent claims. Advantageous developments are the subject of the dependent claims.

The invention relates to a method for inputting characters by means of a number of keys. Each key is assigned a group of characters. The following steps are carried out:

A key is pressed. Thereupon, the group of characters of the operated key is displayed in a graphical representation in which one key out of the number of keys can be assigned to a single character from the displayed group. A single character is selected by operating the key corresponding to the character according to the graph.

The invention further relates to a corresponding device, computer program product and storage medium.

• 1: Eine Vorrichtung mit 5 Eingabetasten, welche kreuzförmig angeordnet sind ;
• 2: eine schematische Darstellung einer Zuordnung in einer ersten Betätigungsebene einer Gruppe von Buchstaben zu Tasten der Vorrichtung, wobei die Zuordnung auf einer grafischen Anzeige dargestellt wird und wobei die Gruppen räumlich der Tastenanordnung auf der Vorrichtung entsprechend angeordnet sind;
• 3: eine grafische Anzeige, auf der eine Zuordnung der Buchstabengruppe zu einer ersten Eingabetaste der Vorrichtung aus 1 angezeigt wird;
• 4: eine grafische Anzeige, auf der eine Zuordnung der Buchstabengruppen zu einer dritten Eingabetaste der Vorrichtung aus 1 angezeigt wird, wobei eine Zuordnung gemäß 2 vorliegt;
• 5: eine grafische Anzeige, auf der eine Zuordnung von Buchstaben gezeigt wird, wenn nach der dritten die vierte Eingabetaste gedrückt wird und eine Zuordnung von Tasten zu Buchstaben bzw.-gruppen gemäß 4 vorliegt;
• 6: eine schematische Darstellung des Ablaufs mit dem ein Zeichen ausgewählt wird.

The invention will be further explained by means of embodiments, which are partially illustrated in the figures. Show it:

• 1 : A device with 5 input keys, which are arranged in a cross shape;
• 2 Fig. 2 is a schematic representation of an association in a first actuation level of a group of letters to keys of the apparatus, the association being displayed on a graphical display, and with the groups spatially arranged corresponding to the key arrangement on the apparatus;
• 3 : a graphical display on which an assignment of the letter group to a first input key of the device 1 is shown;
• 4 : a graphical display on which an assignment of the letter groups to a third input key of the device 1 is displayed, with an assignment according to 2 is present;
• 5 : A graphic display showing an assignment of letters when the fourth enter key is pressed after the third and an assignment of keys to letters or groups according to 4 is present;
• 6 : a schematic representation of the process by which a character is selected.

In 1 a device C is shown with a keyboard T, which has a first button K1, a second button K2, a third button K3, a fourth button K4 and a fifth button K5. According to the described embodiments, the input of characters from an alphabet with the keyboard T is enabled, which has fewer keys than the alphabet has characters, that is, not every key is assigned a key.

The device C is designed as a control unit for at least one electronic device to be operated, thus serving as -ggf. sole operating unit, e.g. a standard remote control, for the device.

An advantage of the various embodiments is to allow the entry of text on devices with the keys, which are inevitable anyway for the operation and therefore provided on the device C.

By means of the keyboard T of the device C can thus be an input for a TV set, a game console, a set-top box, a car entertainment / control system and / or industrial control tasks done at the same time efficient input alphanumeric characters possible be.

The device C can be connectable or permanently connected to the device to be controlled.

Alternatively or additionally, the device C can be used discontinued as a remote control, wherein a signal transmission via a communication interface CI, in particular an interface for infrared, radio or cable is provided, the signal is generated upon actuation of a button using a processor unit CPU.

The signal can be transmitted directly to a display unit or via there intermediate devices, such as other control devices, get there.

When operating the electronic device, the user often has to input letters with the device C configured as a standard remote control. This is necessary, for example, when searching for content via keywords or configuring the system, for example when entering the WPA key.

For example, the device C serves as a remote control for connected to a TV set-top boxes. The standard HDMI CEC, which is now supported by most televisions and set-top boxes, allows the operation of all devices with the remote control of the TV.

However, only five or six buttons are available for this purpose, which, as already explained above, are intended only for directional selection, confirmation and recall. Nevertheless, alphanumeric characters must often be entered on these devices.

The device C according to 1 is set up with the intended five or, according to other embodiments 6 provided keys, an efficient input of 26 letters is enabled.

Alternatively or additionally, more than 26 letters, that is letters in upper and lower case, accents, as well as special characters, possibly other alphabets or characters and numbers can be supported.

According to another embodiment, not shown, the device C is as a set-top box like the Apple TV, version 3 designed to provide the user interface with a remote control with only six buttons. It allows, among other things, the playback of music or videos from libraries such as the iTunes Store or Youtube.

According to further embodiments, device C is designed as a control unit for production systems. An input of alphanumeric characters is also often required for controls in the field of industrial controls. For example, the SIMATIC KP300 Mono operator panel uses ten keys to enter alphanumeric characters in addition to other keys, four of which are for direction and confirmation. According to one embodiment, the ten keys would be superfluous for character input. The RFID input device SIMATIC RF650M or RF350 also uses a ten-character keyboard, the SIMATIC RF680M even a complete alphanumeric keyboard.

Based on 2 will now be an input system for the in 1 described device which allows the input of characters from an alphabet with a keyboard that has fewer keys than the alphabet has characters, that is, not every character is assigned a key.

On the right side here is the device C from 1 shown, which serves as a control, for example, as a remote control for an electronic device.

On the left side, a graphical output unit D is shown, on the respective key corresponding character or character groups are displayed, for example, a mapping or mapping M of the first key K1 to a first group G1, a second key K2 to a second group G2 , a third key K3 to a third group G3, a fourth key K4 to a fourth group G4 and a fifth key K5 to a fifth group G3.

It is envisaged that several keys for the input of a letter must be pressed. On the representation of the graphic output unit D, for example an LCD display of the electronic device, the user knows which key to press, in that the display essentially corresponds to the actual arrangement of the keys.

This graphic output unit D may be attached to the device C. Alternatively or additionally, the graphical output unit is associated with a connected output device, for example a television set or a graphical display for a system control.

Alternatively or additionally, D could also be a pressure which is attached to the housing, for example by displaying it at a location which is clearly visible when the keys are actuated. Alternatively or additionally, this representation is shown in a user manual. This is advantageous if the user does not have a graphical display available and the user performs the input steps without screen display.

To increase security, the user is then displayed in a preferred embodiment, the selected letter on a non-graphical display of the device, for example on an alphanumeric display.

Over a sequence of operations of the five keys, a specific letter is selected. Each letter has a different sequence of actions.

The sequences of operations are determined so that each letter can be selected with as few key presses. This allows the fastest possible execution of the input. The user learns the correct sequence for entering a letter via the display of the device. Here, letters or letter groups are assigned to the physical keys as in 2 shown. Selecting groups of letters reduces the number of possible selectable letters until the user can ultimately select a single letter.

In the example of a 26-letter alphabet on a five-key keyboard, an example flow is as follows:

The user sees a screen output that corresponds to the schema in 2 equivalent.

The book groups or groups G1, G2, .. G5 are assigned to physical keys K1, K2, .. K5. This can be done by the graphical arrangement of the letter group connected to appropriate visualization elements, such as a stylized keyboard representation, on the display, such as in the assignment in 2 shown. Alternatively or additionally, this assignment is provided on the housing of the device or in a user's handwriting.

In order to enter the letter "C", the user actuates the first key K1 as well as in the schematic sequence in FIG 6 shown. The display now changes from the in 2 shown assignment to the in 3 shown mapping, so a representation of the group G1 and this is displayed DP. The user now presses the fifth key K5 and S thus selects the letter "C" now clearly and this is processed. The system goes back to the starting point, ie the display for the keyboard input now corresponds to the one in 2 shown illustration.

To enter 'Y', the sequence is as follows and schematically in 6 represented by the dotted arrows:

The user presses P the third key K3, the display changes from a representation according to 2 and an indication DP of a display of the group G3 is made in accordance with FIG 4 ., In which a subgroup UG consisting of the characters "X" and "Y" of the fourth key is assigned. The user now presses fourth key K4 and S selects the subgroup UG, the display changes to a representation according to 5 , indicating DP is thus again after selecting S, as indicated by the dashed arrow. The user actuates the second key K2 and thus selects the letter 'Y'.

According to a further development, it is provided to repeat the steps of actuating, for example, pressing a key, and displaying the group and subgroup UG associated with the key, so often that the group or subgroup is resolved into individual characters, i. only one character is assigned to a key.

In order to select characters from alphabets of more than 26 letters, the procedure may be modified in which keys are pressed longer to effect a mode change or the number of key presses may be increased.

According to one embodiment, a small C, "c" is selected in which the first key is pressed longer in the input in the first step, the mode changes over to lower case. For the input of an umlaut or an accented letter, on the other hand, the key is pressed longer in the last step, a 'U' then becomes an 'Ü'.

According to a further embodiment, the input of digits in the first step is changed by a long keypress between different input modes, in particular between capitalization, digits, lowercase, special characters.

Alternatively or additionally, the methodology for efficient selection of letters and / or numbers according to the previous embodiments is used for efficient selection of system functions.

Another embodiment of the exemplary embodiments takes into account in particular a simple operability or / and learnability of the assignment of the letters and groups of letters to the respective keys by an efficient, i. especially fast, key input enable.

Depending on the size of the alphabet, eg AZ or AZ, az, 0-9 and the number of available physical keys, different grouping options are possible.

In order to enhance the ease of operation, it is advisable to consider the order of the characters in the alphabet for the grouping and not to regroup on the basis of symbol frequency, for example in the frequently used character, e.g. a, e, n could be achieved with shorter key sequences, which would mean that the key sequence is harder to determine due to the non-intuitive order. This would worsen the catchiness.

For a 26-character alphabet configuration with five available keys, this training will be grouped according to 2 proposed. This is catchy, as it follows the order of the Latin alphabet and assigns approximately equal group size to the keys.

Given the intuitive and controlled operation, the time saved over a conventional method results from the expected number of keystrokes per character. For a given alphabet of 26 characters, the method underlying the invention will generally result in two keystrokes. For two characters (here X and Y) three key presses are necessary. On average for any character so 2.08 key presses are necessary.

An extra keystroke for the confirmation is not necessary in the embodiment shown, but is additionally provided according to developments.

In the following, advantages of the invention shall be pointed out by comparison with already known methods, by whose analysis the inventor has come to the possibilities of improvement mentioned in the context of the invention:

In a traditional method that does not underlie this invention, the characters are arranged in a matrix, selected with a d-pad and confirmed with an enter key. For the following arrangement, an average of 3.58 keystrokes per character is required when the character K is selected as the home position. A B C D e F G H I J K L M N O P Q R s T U V W X Y Z

Detached from the matrix arrangement presented above, the size of the supported alphabet in this invention increases exponentially based on the number of physical keys, with the number of key presses being the exponent. In five buttons and two keystrokes 25 characters are thus 5 ² thus selectable. With three key presses would be 5 ³ so 125 characters possible.

For a selected alphabet, ie a fixed number of characters, the number of key presses is fixed. The key presses and thus grow logarithmically with the size of the alphabet, the base of the logarithm being the number of keys. In the example above, for 125 characters and 5 keys, lg ₅ 125 = 3 key presses are required.

A traditional method does not scale over the number of keys, but is more time consuming the bigger the alphabet is. The number of keystrokes increases in a matrix arrangement over the root of the number of characters, even proportionally in a linear array. This results in a higher number of actions to be taken by the user than logarithmic growth.

The underlying mechanism of the invention, on the one hand, improves the efficiency of inputting characters. This leads to a general increase in the number of characters to be entered per unit time. In addition to simplification, this results in significant time savings in repetitive inputs. When used in a professional field, e.g. In industrial control this can lead to an operational advantage. This can reduce service times for maintenance personnel.

The possibility of complex inputs being made possible by a few physical keys makes operating concepts simpler for devices that have previously been designed for convenience, i.e., for convenience. a full keyboard, e.g. a complete alphabet, comprehensive control panel. The reduction in the number of physical keys reduces unit cost, the number of consumables, and possibly the size of the housing, which in turn leads to cost savings. This can lead to a housing reduction and also to further advantage due to reduced weight and space requirements.

The invention is particularly advantageous for such devices in which inputs via touch-sensitive displays can not be considered, for example because the haptic feedback is necessary, regulations or gloves must be used.

Although the invention described in the context of a preferred embodiment for an input system that allows for the 26-character Latin alphabet via a five-character keyboard, is alternatively or additionally an extension for character sets including alphabets, numbers, syllables, special characters with any one Number of characters provided, as well as the support of keyboards with more or fewer characters is in further embodiments. Likewise, combinations or modifications of described embodiments, be it completely or in individual aspects provided for all embodiments.

Claims (14)

Method for entering characters by means of a number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5), each key being assigned a group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters, comprising the following steps: a) actuating (P) a key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) with a first time duration; b) displaying (DP) the group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters of the operated key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) in a graphical representation in which a single character or a subgroup (UG ) from the displayed group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) a key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) is assigned from the number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5); c) selecting (S) the single character or subgroup (UG) by actuating the key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) associated with the character according to the graphical representation. Method according to Claim 1 in which the graphic representation of the group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters comprises a two-dimensional arrangement of the characters, in particular on a display unit (D). Method according to Claim 2 in that the two-dimensional arrangement of the characters on the display unit (D) substantially corresponds to an arrangement of at least one of the number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) on a device (C). Method according to one of the preceding claims, in which steps b) and c) are carried out until a subgroup (UG) contains only a single character. Method according to one of the preceding claims, in which the number of characters in a group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) associated with a key corresponds to the number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5). Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein for the assignment to a group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters - an order in an alphabet, or / and - an order in a group of digits or / and - an order in a group of special characters is taken into account. Method according to one of the preceding claims, in which the actuation of a key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) is provided for confirming an input of a character. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein for an input at least two input modes are provided, in particular upper / lower case and / or digits and / or special characters and / or system functions, and a change from a first input mode to a second input mode by pressing a button (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) with a period of time which is longer than the first period of time. Method according to one of the preceding claims, in which the assignment of each key (K1, K2, K3, K, K5) to a group (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5) of characters takes place in one or more of the following ways: a) Representing the assignment on a graphic display (D) or / and b) Representing the assignment on the device to which the buttons are attached and / or c) Representation of the assignment in a user's handwriting. Apparatus (C) for inputting characters comprising - number of keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) arranged on the device (C); a communication interface (CI) for exchanging data with a display unit; a processor unit (CPU) arranged such that - When pressing (P) a key (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) a signal via the communication interface (CI) to a display unit (D) is sent, which on the display unit (D) a representation of this key (K1 This representation essentially corresponds to the arrangement of the keys (K1, K2, K3, K4, K5) on the device (D). Device after Claim 10 in which the display device (D) is attached to the device (C) or spatially separated from the device (C). Device according to one of Claims 10 or 11 in which the data exchange via the communication interface (CI) takes place directly or indirectly with the display unit (D). A computer program product directly loadable into a memory of a digital computer comprising program code portions adapted to perform the steps of the method of any one of Claims 1 to 9 perform. Disk tracking the computer program product Claim 13 stores.

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