KR20050012617A - Mobile communicator comprising touch sensor on key button and key signal input method using it - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A mobile communication terminal comprising touch sensors on key buttons and a key signal inputting method using the mobile communication terminal are provided to install touch sensors on key buttons for selecting a menu displayed on a screen or inputting data, and to supply the menu by distinguishing an input signal produced when a key button is pressed from an input signal produced when the key button is touched, thereby reducing the number of pressing times of the key buttons. CONSTITUTION: A key input unit(30) comprises plural key buttons. A touch sensor(50) is installed on each key button, and senses a key button touch of a user. A controller(10) supplies a menu corresponding to a key button according to a signal inputted by pressing the key button and a touch signal sensed from the touch sensor(50). A memory(20) stores lower menus corresponding to the plural key buttons, respectively, and stores a program and data for displaying the touch signal and the inputted signal on a display(40) under control of the controller(10).

Description

Mobile communicator comprising touch sensor on key button and key signal input method using it}

The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal, and more particularly, a touch sensor is installed in a key button for inputting data or selecting a menu displayed on the screen, and when a user's finger presses a key button of the terminal. The present invention relates to a mobile communication terminal equipped with a touch sensor in a key button for reducing the accuracy of selection and the number of key button presses by providing a menu by dividing an input signal when the input signal is provided.

Recently, due to the increase in color and capacity of mobile communication terminals, the graphical user interface (GUI) and complexity of software and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) menus mounted on terminals have increased.

In the conventional key signal input method for displaying and selecting a menu for setting various functions provided by a mobile communication terminal, there has been a submenu method in which submenu information having a sequence of numbers is displayed on a screen by pressing a menu key. . In order to select a function desired by the user, the user presses a numeric key on the keypad corresponding to the corresponding number of the displayed submenu or moves the cursor displayed on the screen by pressing a key button and then presses a select key. It is to select the menu.

1 is a view for explaining a method for selecting a menu with a GUI of a conventional mobile communication terminal.

Referring to FIG. 1, in order for the terminal user to select a bell, a terminal key button 5 corresponding to a 'funny function' having a 'bell selection' function as a sub menu among six icon menus displayed on a menu initial screen may be used. By pressing, you could move to the bell selection function.

According to the conventional menu selection method, when the terminal user does not memorize that the icon corresponding to the key button 5 is an icon representing 'funny function', the terminal user has the 'bell selection' function as a sub menu. In order to find the 'funny feature', there was a troublesome problem of pressing the buttons by selecting the six icons displayed on the screen one by one.

In addition, when the user writes a message on the screen in order to send a message to another terminal user, as shown in FIG. 2, in order for the user to display the sentence 'hello', the key button corresponding to the first consonant 'ㅇ' '8' and then press the key button '3' corresponding to the vowel 'ㅏ', and then press the key button '2' corresponding to the 'b' to display the first letter 'no'. In order to complete it, the keys corresponding to the letters in the key button of the terminal were repeatedly inputted a total of 17 times.

This is an inconvenient problem of pressing the same key pad several times in order to input a desired consonant or vowel because the key button is shorter than the number of the corresponding letters, and a problem that consumes a lot of time to make a sentence. there was.

Therefore, the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, the object of the present invention is to attach a touch sensor to the key button of the mobile communication terminal when the user moves only the cursor to move the finger to the key button to select, By providing various sub-menus that can be selected when selecting items, the mobile terminal equipped with a touch sensor on the key button can reduce the inconvenience of having to press the button several times to enter the menu selected by the user and using the same. It is to provide a key signal input method.

A mobile communication terminal having a touch sensor in a key button for achieving the above object of the present invention, a key input unit having a plurality of key buttons, and installed in each of the plurality of key buttons to detect a user's key button touch A control unit for providing a display unit with a menu corresponding to a corresponding key button according to a touch sensor unit, a touch signal sensed by the touch sensor unit and a signal input by pressing a key button, and corresponding to each of the plurality of key buttons And a memory unit in which sub-menus are stored, and programs and data for displaying a touch signal sensed by the touch sensor unit and a signal input by pressing a key button are displayed on the display unit under the control of the controller.

Key signal input method of a mobile communication terminal equipped with a touch sensor in the key button for achieving the object of the present invention, when the terminal user presses the menu button under the control of the control unit to display an icon corresponding to the menu button on the display unit A display unit, determining whether the input signal corresponding to the icon is a key press signal or a touch signal, and display the corresponding information and sub-menu selected according to the key input signal selected by the key press signal or the touch signal. And a step of repeating the step of inputting the key signal when there is no confirmation key signal by judging the confirmation key input signal of the key signal.

1 is a view for explaining a method for selecting a menu with a GUI of a conventional mobile communication terminal,

2 is a diagram illustrating a text message creation process according to a key input of a conventional mobile communication terminal;

3 is a schematic block diagram of a menu selection system according to a key input of a mobile communication terminal of the present invention;

4 is a flowchart of a method for inputting a key signal of a mobile communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a view for explaining a process of selecting an icon menu according to a keypad number key selection of the present invention;

6 is a view for explaining a process of selecting a short message according to the keypad number key selection of the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

10: control unit 20: memory unit

30: key input unit 40: display unit

50: touch sensor unit

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

3 is a schematic block diagram of a menu selection system according to a key signal input of a mobile communication terminal of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 3, the mobile communication terminal includes a plurality of numeric keys and function keys in a main body, a key input unit 30 for selecting a menu corresponding to a plurality of key buttons, and the plurality of key buttons. Installed in each of the touch sensor unit 50 to sense a touch of a key button of a user and provide a touch input signal, and by pressing the touch input signal or a key button of the user by sensing the touch sensor unit 50. The control unit 10 which provides a menu corresponding to the corresponding key button to the display unit 40 according to the input signal, and sub-menus corresponding to each of the plurality of key buttons are stored and sensed by the touch sensor unit 50. The memory unit 20 stores a program and data for displaying a touch signal and a signal input by pressing a key button on the display unit 40 under the control of the controller 10. The touch sensor unit 50 is installed at one side of each key button and connected to the control unit 10 in parallel to detect the user's touch on the touch sensor unit 50 during a set time by timing. Key input signal).

4 is a flowchart illustrating a key signal input method of a mobile communication terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 5 and 6 are diagrams for explaining an icon menu and a short message selection process according to a key button selection of the present invention. The key input selection method of FIG. 4 will be described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6 as follows.

When the user of the mobile communication terminal presses a menu button (S100), the controller 10 displays a menu that can be provided as an icon on the terminal display unit 40 (S110). If the user places a finger on a key button to find an icon having a function desired by the user as a submenu among icons provided on the display unit 40, the touch sensor unit 50 detects a user's touch and transmits the control to the controller 10. Send a touch signal. Then, the controller 10 outputs the data corresponding to the key detected by the touch sensor unit 50 to the display unit 40 according to the program stored in the memory unit 20 by the touch signal input by the user's touch. do.

In this case, the data displayed on the display unit 40 additionally explains the function of the icon as a balloon help, so that the function of each icon can be quickly identified.

For example, as illustrated in FIG. 5, when a user touches a key button corresponding to the icon on a key button, the user presses a finger on a key button to find an interesting function having a 'bell selection' function as a sub menu in the six icon menus displayed on the display unit. By displaying the function of the icon on the display unit 40 in advance with the balloon help, the user can easily find that the icon corresponding to the key button 5 is an interesting function without pressing the button one by one.

Here, the key input signal by the touch of the key button can be detected when the user is close to the time set in the corresponding key button to transmit the signal to the controller, by setting the set time to about 0.1 ~ 2 seconds, the key It can be distinguished from input signal by pressing button.

Subsequently, when the user presses the key button 5 of the terminal corresponding to the icon in order to select an icon having a fun function (S160), the controller 10 controls the key button 5 by a key input signal by pressing a button. Go to the lower menu of the icon corresponding to the time and outputs the display unit 40 provided with the 'bell selection' function. The 'bell selection' function displayed on the display unit 40 may be selected by pressing a button 2 corresponding to a key button to display a menu desired by the user on the display unit 40 (S170).

On the other hand, when the key button is pressed, a submenu of a menu icon corresponding to the position of the input key button is provided on the display unit 40 or a corresponding character is displayed on the display unit 40 as the button key is pressed. The sentence is written (S130).

In the next step, the control unit 10 determines the input of the confirmation key from the user, and if there is an input of the confirmation key, provides the next sub-menu selected.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 6, when the user forms a text message on the display unit 40 by pressing a text message writing key in a menu to transmit the text message to another user, a text message using a character corresponding to the numeric key is used. Is written on the display unit 40.

As shown in FIG. 6, when the user touches the key button 8 corresponding to the first syllable '0' in order to write the letter 'hello' to the display unit 40, the memory corresponds to the key button 8. Some frequently used short sentences in which the first syllable stored in the book starts with 'ㅇ' are displayed on the display unit 40. When the user presses key 2 in the key button to select 'hello' corresponding to the key button 2 among the short sentences displayed on the display unit 40, the sentence 'hello' is made by pressing one button on the display unit 40. You can write

In this case, when the sentence desired by the user is not stored, the user directly presses the key button 8 to display the letter 'ㅇ' corresponding to the number key 8 on the display unit 40 to create a desired sentence. Can be.

That is, the key signal input through the user's key input or the touch by the sensor is displayed on the display unit 40 corresponding to the signal input by the controller 10. The key input signal When is pressed by a button, a submenu of a menu icon corresponding to the position of the input key button is provided on the display unit 40, or a character corresponding to the key button is created on the display unit 40, and the key input signal is When the touch signal is detected by the sensor in the function of creating a text message, when the sensor unit 50 senses the user's touch and transmits a key input by the touch signal to the controller 10, the key button is connected to the key button. Providing a corresponding pre-stored short message to the display unit 40, if the user has a desired message among the stored messages, press a key button corresponding to the message to display the message. Will be displayed. In addition, when the key input signal is a sensor detection touch signal for explaining an icon selection cursor and a function, when the sensor unit 50 detects a user's key button touch and sends an input signal to the controller 10, the selected signal is selected. The cursor is moved to an icon corresponding to the key button, and the function of the icon is provided to the display unit 40 in advance using the balloon help.

Therefore, it is possible to solve the troublesome problem of avoiding unnecessary pressing of the button and pressing the cancel key again by wrongly pressing the key button by the information of the icon provided in advance.

As such, when the user touches the key button of the mobile communication terminal with a finger, the touch sensor 50 attached to each key button controls the function description and the additional description corresponding to the key button provided from the memory unit 20. The display unit 40 displays the display unit 40 through 10. The user can easily grasp and select the function corresponding to each key button through the description displayed on the display unit 40, so there is no need to check the function by pressing the buttons one by one, thereby reducing the user's hassle by reducing the number of button presses. This has the advantage of shortening the time.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present invention as claimed in the claims. Of course, any person skilled in the art can make various modifications, and such changes are within the scope of the claims.

As described above, according to the present invention, when the user moves the finger to the key button corresponding to the icon to be selected by the user of the mobile communication terminal for a set time, the cursor moves to the selected icon, and various functions available when selecting the icon menu are performed. By providing the user, the user can easily recognize which menu to select, and the user can select the menu by detecting the user using the touch sensor with the advantage of obtaining information on the menu that he / she wants to select in advance. This can reduce the number of times the button is pressed.

Claims (6)

A key input unit having a plurality of key buttons; A touch sensor unit installed at each of the plurality of key buttons to sense a touch of a key button of a user; A controller configured to provide a display unit with a menu corresponding to a corresponding key button according to a touch signal sensed by the touch sensor unit and a signal input by pressing a key button; Sub-menus corresponding to each of the plurality of key buttons are stored, and a program and data are stored to display a touch signal detected by the touch sensor unit and a signal input by pressing a key button to be displayed on the display unit under the control of the controller. A mobile communication terminal provided with a touch sensor in a key button, characterized in that comprising a memory unit. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory unit The mobile communication terminal having a touch sensor on the key button, characterized in that a short message corresponding to the key button is stored. The method of claim 1, wherein the touch sensor unit A mobile communication terminal having a touch sensor on the key button, characterized in that the user can detect when the user's key button touch is more than a set time. If a user presses a menu button, displaying an icon corresponding to the menu button on a display unit under control of a controller; Determining whether an input signal corresponding to the icon is a key press signal or a touch signal; Displaying corresponding information and a submenu selected according to a key input signal selected by the key press signal or a touch signal on a display unit; And And determining the key input signal of the key signal and repeating the step of inputting the key signal if there is no key signal. Key signal input method using. The method of claim 4, wherein the inputting of the key signal by the touch is performed. The direction of the cursor moves according to the touch of the user's key button, and provides a function of a menu corresponding to the selected key button and a pre-stored short message. Signal input method. The method of claim 4, wherein the inputting of the key signal by the touch is performed. A key signal input method using a mobile communication terminal equipped with a touch sensor in the key button, characterized in that for detecting the key input signal when the user's key button touch is more than a set time.