Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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REDUCED KEYBOARD DISAMBIGUATING SYSTEM
This is a division of our co-pending Canadian
Patent Application No. 2,302,595 dated 24 September 1998.
Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to reduced
keyboard systems, and more specifically to reduced keyboard
systems using word-level disambiguation to resolve ambiguous
keystrokes.
Background of the Invention
For many years, portable computers have been
getting smaller and smaller. The principal size-limiting
component in the effort to produce a smaller portable
computer has been the keyboard. If standard typewriter-size
keys are used, the portable computer must be a least as
large as the keyboard. Miniature keyboards have been used
on portable computers, but the miniature keyboard keys have
been found to be too small to be easily or quickly
manipulated by a user.
Incorporating a full-size keyboard in a portable
computer also hinders true portable use of the computer.
Most portable computers cannot be operated without placing
the computer on a flat work surface to allow the user to
type with both hands. A user cannot easily use a portable
computer while standing or moving. In the latest generation
of small portable computers, called Personal Digital
Assistants (PDAs), companies have attempted to address this
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problem by incorporating handwriting recognition software in
the PDA. A user may directly enter text by writing on a
touch-sensitive panel or screen. This handwritten text is
then converted by the
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recognition software into digital data. Unfortunately, in addition to the fact
that
printing or writing with a pen is in general slower than typing, the accuracy
and
speed of the handwriting recognition software has to date been less than
satisfactory.
To make matters worse, today's handheld computing devices which require text
input are becoming smaller still. Recent advances .in two-way paging, cellular
telephones. and other portable wireless technologies has led to a demand for
small
and portable two-way messaging systems, and especially for systems which can
both
send and receive electronic mail ("e-mail").
It would therefore be advantageous to develop a keyboard for entry of text
into a computer that is both small and operable with one hand while the user
is
holding the computer with the other hand. Prior development work has
considered
use of a keyboard that has a reduced number of keys. As suggested by the
keypad
layout of a touch-tone telephone. many of the reduced keyboards have used a 3-
by-4
array of keys. Each key in the array of keys contains multiple characters.
There is
I ~ therefore ambiguity as a user enters a sequence of keys, since each
keystroke may
indicate one of several letters. Several approaches have been suggested for
resolving
the ambiguity of the keystroke sequence.
One suggested approach for unambiguously specifying characters entered on
a reduced keyboard requires the user to enter two or more keystrokes to
specify each
letter. The keystrokes may be entered either simultaneously (chording) or in
sequence (multiple-stroke specification). Neither chording nor multiple-stroke
specification has produced a keyboard havine adequate simplicity and
efficiency of
use. Multiple-stroke specification is inefficient, and chordine is complicated
to ieasn
and use.
Other suggested approaches for determining the correct character sequence
that corresponds to an ambiguous keystroke sequence are summarized in the
article
"Probabilistic Character Disambiguation for Reduced Keyboards Using Small Text
Samples," published in the Journal of the International Society for
Augmentative and
Alternative Communication by John L. Arnott and Muhammad Y. Javad (hereinafter
the "Amott article"). The Arnott article notes that the majority of
disambiguation
approaches employ known statistics of character sequences in the relevant
language
to resolve character ambiguity in a given context. That is. existing
disambiguating
systems statistically analyze ambiguous keystroke groupings as they are being
entered by a user to determine the appropriate interpretation of the
keystrokes. The
3~ Arnott article also notes that several disambiguating systems have
attempted to use
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word-level disambiguation to decode text from a reduced keyboard. Word-level
disambiguation disambiguates entire words by comparing the sequence of
received
keystrokes with possible matches in a dictionary after the receipt of an
unambiguous
character signifying the end of the word. The Arnott article discusses many of
the
disadvantages of word-level disambiguation. For example, word-level
disambiguation
oftentimes fails to decode a word correctly, because of the-li~-nitationg ~in
identifying
unusual words and the inability to decode words that are not contained in the
dictionary. Because of the decoding limitations, word-level disambiguation
does not
give error-free decoding of unconstrained English text with an e~ciency of one
keystroke per character. The Arnott article therefore concentrates on
character level
disambiguation rather than word-level disambiguation, and indicates that
character
level disambiguation appears to be the most promising disambiguation
technique.
One suggested approach based on word-Ievel disambiguation is disclosed in a
textbook entitled Principles o,~' Computer Speech, authored by I. H. Witten,
and
published by Academic Press in 1982 (hereinafter the "Witten approach").
Witten
discusses a system for reducing ambiguity from text entered using a telephone
touch
pad. Witten recognizes that for approximately 92% of the words in a 24,500
word
dictionary, no ambiguity will arise when comparing the keystroke sequence with
the
dictionary. When ambiguities do arise, however, Witten notes that they must be
resolved interactively by the system presenting the ambiguity to the user and
asking
the user to make a selection between the number of ambiguous entries. A user
must
therefore respond to the system's prediction at the end of each word. Such a
response
slows the efficiency of the system and increases the number of keystrokes
required to
enter a given segment of text.
Significant effort has been devoted to minimizing the number of keystrokes
required to enter a segment of text in order to achieve the necessary
e~eiencies for a
reduced, disambiguating keyboard acceptable for use in a portable computer.
One
significant challenge is successfully implementing word-level disambiguating
on the
kinds of hardware platforms on which its use is most advantageous. As
mentioned
above, such devices include two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and other
hand-held
wireless communications devices. These systems are battery powered, and
consequently are designed to be as frugal as possible in hardware design and
resource
utilization. Applications designed to run on such systems must minimize both
processor bandwidth utilization and memory requirements. These two factors
tend in
general to be inversely related. Since word-level disambiguation systems
require a
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large database of words to function, and must respond quickly to input
keystrokes to
provide a satisfactory user interface. Another challenge is compressing the
required
database without significantly impacting the processing time required to
utilize it.
Yet another challenge facing the application of word-level disambiguation is
providing sufbcient feedback to the user about the keystrokes being input.
With an
ordinary typewriter or word processor; each keystroke represents a unique
character
which can be 'displayed to the user as soon as it is entered. But with word-
level
disambiguation this is often not possible, since each keystroke represents
multiple
characters, and any sequence of keystrokes may match multiple words,or word
stems.
This is especially a problem when the user makes a spelling or keystroke
eiror, since
the user cannot be certain that an error has occurred until the complete key
sequence
has been entered and the desired word fails to appear.
A word-level disambiguating system that addresses the above-noted challenges
is disclosed in Patent Cooperation Treaty Application PCT/CTS96/12291, which
is
entitled Reduced Keyboard Disambiguating System and was published on
February 13, as International Publication No. WO 97/05541 (hereinafter the
"WO 97/05541 publication").
The system disclosed in the WO 97/05541 publication includes: a keyboard in
which a plurality of leriers and symbols are assigned to at least several of
the keys; a
memory that stores one or more vocabulary modules; a display on which system
textual output is presented; and, a processor operatively coupled to the
keyboard,
memory, and display. Words and word stems (sequences of letters that
correspond to
the beginning of a word) are stored in the vocabulary modules using a tree
structure
that includes a plurality of interconnected nodes.
During the operation of the word level disambiguating system disclosed in the
WO 97/05541 publication, as the user enters a sequence of keystrokes, the
system
processor accesses the system memory to construct words and word stems that
correspond to the entered keystroke sequence. In particular, each entered
keystroke
sequence corresponds to a node of a vocabulary module tree structure, which,
in turn,
corresponds to a word or word stem. When an additional keystroke is entered,
the
system processor forms a new set of one or more word stems and/or words by
combining the set of words and/or word stems associated with the preceding
keystroke sequence (i.e., a keystroke sequence that does not include the last
keystroke). In the context of the memory tree structure, a set of one or more
word
stems and/or a candidate word is derived by accessing a word and/or word stems
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associated with nodes of the tree structure that are
interconnected with node representing the preceding
keystroke sequence and, in addition, representing all
possible word stems and words that correspond to the
total keystroke sequence.
In accordance with the arrangement disclosed in
the WO 97/05541 publication, words and word stems are
presented on the system display device in accordance
with the frequency of use associated with the displayed
words and word stems. When a list of candidate words is
displayed, the system user operates a designated
keyboard key to select the desired candidate word.
Summary of the Invention
The present invention provides a disambiguating
system for disambiguating ambiguous input sequences entered
by a user, the disambiguating system comprising: (a) a user
input device having a plurality of inputs, each of the
plurality of inputs associated with a plurality of
characters, an input sequence being generated each time an
input is selected by manipulating the user input device,
wherein the generated input sequence corresponds to the
sequence of inputs that have been selected, wherein the
generated input sequence has a textual interpretation that
is ambiguous due to the plurality of characters associated
with each input; (b) a memory containing a plurality of
objects, each of the plurality of objects associated with an
input sequence, wherein each of the plurality of objects in
the memory are further associated with a frequency of use;
(c) a display to depict system output to the user; and (d) a
processor coupled to the user input device, memory and
display, said processor comprising: (i) an identifying
component fox identifying from the plurality of objects in
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the memory at least one object associated with each
generated input sequence and having the highest frequency of
use; (ii) an output component for displaying at least one of
the identified objects associated with each generated input
sequence as a textual interpretation of the generated input
sequence, wherein the objects associated with each input
sequence are displayed in order of decreasing frequency of
use; and (iii) a selection component for selecting one of
the identified objects for entry into a text entry display
location upon detecting one or more manipulations of the
user input device to an unambiguous selection input; wherein
said disambiguating system is characterized in that: at
least one of the plurality of inputs is an ambiguous
punctuation input associated with a plurality of punctuation
characters, and wherein the processor, upon detecting the
selection of the ambiguous punctuation input and appending
it to an input sequence, provisionally outputs the
associated textual interpretation of the input sequence
terminating in one of the associated punctuation characters,
and upon detecting the selection of a next input, wherein
said next input is a member of a first set of designated
inputs, wherein each of said first set of designated inputs
is associated with the output of a next character distinct
from said provisionally output punctuation character,
confirms the previously output punctuation character, and
wherein when said next input is a member of one of one or
more alternate sets of designated inputs, wherein each of
said one or more alternate sets of designated inputs is
associated with the output of a next character distinct from
said provisionally output punctuation character, replaces
the previously output punctuation character with another of
the plurality of punctuation characters associated with the
ambiguous punctuation input wherein the replacing
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punctuation character is determined by the alternate set of
designated inputs of which said next input is a member.
From another aspect, the invention provides a
method for disambiguating ambiguous input sequences entered
by a user, the method comprising: (a) generating an input
sequence from a plurality of inputs, each of the plurality
of inputs associated with a plurality of characters, the
generated input sequence having a textual interpretation
that is ambiguous due to the plurality of characters
associated with each input; (b) storing a plurality of
objects, each of the plurality of objects comprising a
sequence of characters associated with an input sequence and
a frequency of use; (c) identifying from the plurality of
objects at least one object associated with each generated
input sequence and having a highest frequency of use; (d)
displaying at least one of the identified objects having a
highest frequency of use associated with each generated
input sequence as a textual interpretation of the generated
input sequence, wherein the objects associated with each
input sequence are displayed in order of decreasing
frequency of use; (e) selecting one of the identified
objects as the textual interpretation of the generated input
sequence upon detecting one of more selections of an
unambiguous selection input; wherein at least one of the
plurality of inputs is an ambiguous punctuation input
associated with a plurality of punctuation characters and
said method is characterized by the steps of: (a) detecting
the generation of an input sequence that includes an
ambiguous punctuation input; (b) upon detection of the
selection of said ambiguous punctuation input, provisionally
outputting one of the associated punctuation characters;
(c) upon detection of the selection of a next input, wherein
said next input is a member of first set of designated
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inputs, and wherein each of said first set of designated
inputs is associated with the output of a next character
distinct from said provisionally output punctuation
character, confirming the previously output punctuation
character; and (d) upon detection of the selection of said
next input, wherein said next input is a member of one of
one or more alternate sets of designated inputs, and wherein
each of said one or more alternate sets of designated inputs
is associated with the output of a next character distinct
from said provisionally output punctuation character,
replacing the previously output punctuation character with
another of the plurality of punctuation characters
associated with the ambiguous punctuation input wherein the
replacing punctuation character is determined by the
alternate set of designated inputs of which said next input
is a member.
The invention further provides a computer-
readable medium having computer-executable statements stored
therein for carrying out a method for disambiguating
ambiguous input sequences, said method comprising the steps
of: (a) a user input component for processing a plurality
of inputs, each of the plurality of inputs associated with a
plurality of characters, the generated input sequence having
a textual interpretation that is ambiguous due to the
plurality of characters associated with each input; (b) a
storage component for containing a plurality of objects,
each of the plurality of objects associated with an input
sequence and a frequency of use; (c) an identifying
component for identifying from the plurality of objects at
least one object associated with each generated input
sequence and having a highest frequency of use; (d) an
output component for displaying at least one of the
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identified objects associated with each generated input
sequence as a textual interpretation of the generated input
sequence, wherein the objects associated with each input
sequence are displayed in order of decreasing frequency of
use; and (e) a selection component for selecting one of the
identified objects as the textual interpretation of the
generated input sequence upon detecting one or more
selections of an unambiguous selection input; wherein said
computer-executable components for disambiguating ambiguous
input sequences are characterized in that: (a) at least one
of the plurality of inputs is an ambiguous punctuation input
associated with a plurality of punctuation characters;
(b) upon detection of the selection of said ambiguous
punctuation input, provisionally outputting one of the
associated punctuation characters; (c) upon detection of the
selection of a next input, wherein said next input is a
member of a first set of designated inputs, and wherein each
of said first set of designated inputs is associated with
the output of a next character distinct from said
provisionally output punctuation character, confirming the
previously output punctuation character; and (d) upon
detection of the selection of said next input, wherein said
next input is a member of one of one or more alternate sets
of designated inputs, and wherein each of said one or more
alternate sets of designated inputs is associated with the
output of a next character distinct from said provisionally
output punctuation character replacing the previously output
punctuation character with another of the plurality of
punctuation characters associated with the ambiguous
punctuation input wherein the replacing punctuation
character is determined by the alternate set of designated
inputs of which said next input is a member.
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In one preferred embodiment, nine symbol and
letter keys are grouped in a three by-three-array along
with three to six additional special function keys. A
plurality of letters and symbols are assigned to some of
the keys, so that keystrokes on these keys (hereinafter
the "data keys") are ambiguous. A user may enter a
keystroke sequence wherein each keystroke corresponds to
the entry of one letter of a
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word. Because individual keystrokes are ambiguous, the keystroke sequence can
potentially match more than one word with the same number of letters. The
keystroke sequence is processed by vocabulary modules which match the sequence
to
corresponding stored words or other interpretations. Words and word stems that
match the sequence of keystrokes are presented to the user in a selection list
on the
display as each keystroke is received.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, one of the keys is assigned a
plurality of punctuation characters. In one preferred embodiment, the period
'.',
hyphen '-', and apostrophe "' are assigned to one of the keys. The user may
type one
of the characters on the key by a single activation of the key at the point
where the
punctuation character is desired. Because a plurality of punctuation
characters is
assigned to the key, the keystroke is ambiguous. The system of the present
invention
determines from the preceding and following keystrokes which punctuation
character
was intended and generates it automatically. The alternative interpretations
of the
keystroke sequence can also be provided to the user in the selection list.
Preferably, the word interpretations are presented in order of decreasing
frequency of use, with the most commonly used words presented first. Items in
the
selection list are selected by pressing the Select key one or more times.
Keystrokes
can be "undone" by pressing a Backspace key.
To delimit an entered keystroke sequence, the user presses a Select key. After
receiving the Select key, the disambiguating system selects the most
frequently used
word and adds the word to the sentence being constructed. The Select key is
used to
delimit an entered keystroke sequence. A separate explicit Space key is used.
to
generate a space character, and also serves to delimit an entered keystroke
sequence.
In one preferred embodiment, the Select key is "overloaded" with a second
function in
that it also serves to generate a space following the selected word, i.e., the
reduced
keyboard disambiguating system automatically inserts the appropriate spacing
between words.
The Select key is also used to select less commonly used words from the
selection list presented to the user. If the word presented to the user at the
top of the
selection list is not the desired word, the user presses the Select key again
to advance
from the most frequently used word to the second most frequently used word,
and
again to advance to the third most frequently used word, and so on. This
embodiment
of the reduced keyboard disambiguating system has no dedicated "execute" or
"accept" key to act on an entry once it has been selected. Once the desired
word is
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selected by the user, it is automatically "accepted" for output and is added
to the
sentence being composed upon receipt of the next symbol or character
keystroke.
The linguistic database which is used to disambiguate keystrokes includes
information which allows the system to present as the first object a word or
word
ster:~ object which, although not the most frequent word associated with .the
node
corresponding ~to the current keystroke sequence, forms the stem of a longer
word ~ or
plurality of words whose total frequency is greater than that of the most
frequent
word associated with the current node. This "stem promotion" feature is
especially
useful in systems with limited display area such that the selection list can
not be
actually displayed on the screen, where the user is only able to see the word
displayed
at the insertion point, which is the first object from the selection list. The
result is that
the object as whole tends to change much less frequently from keystroke to
keystroke,
presenting a less "jumpy" and consequently less distracting and confusing
interface.
Objects such as words and word stems are stored in one or more vocabulary
modules using a tree structure. In this arrangement, words corresponding to a
particular keystroke sequence are constructed using the set of words and word
stems
associated with the immediately preceding keystroke sequence (i.e., the
particular
keystroke sequence without the last keystroke). Constructing words in this
manner
reduces the storage space of the vocabulary module, since word stems are
stored only
once, at the top of the tree structure, and are shared by all words
constructed from
them. The tree structure also greatly reduces processing requirements, since
no
searching is required to locate stored objects. The words and word stems
stored in
the tree data structure may contain frequency or other ranking information
which
indicates which item is to be displayed first to the user, thus further
reducing
processing requirements. In the practice of the invention, the tree data
structure is
modified using a special algorithm which further compresses the total size
required for
the database without engendering an additional processing burden when it is
utilized
to retrieve objects associated with keystroke sequences. A further aspect of
the
modified tree structure is the automatic identification of generalized rules
for
associating objects to keystroke sequences. With such rules, the vocabulary
module
can with a high probability of success, associate keystroke sequences to word
and
word stem objects which were not initially used in creating it.
The internal, logical representation of the keys in the preferred embodiment
need not mirror the physical arrangement represented by the labels on the
actual keys.
For example, in a database constructed to represent a French vocabulary
rnodule,
three additional symbols (AAA) may also be associated with the key ABC that is
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associated with the unaccented versions of the characters. This allows the
user to
recall and type words containing special accented characters, performing only
one key
activation per character, simply by activating the logically associated
physical key for
the associated accented character.
The combined effects of the assignment of multiple. letters. to keys, the
delimiting of
words using a Select key, the presentation of the most' commonly occurring
word or
word stem as the first word in the selection list, the inclusion of multiple
interpretations in the selection list, the automatic addition of a selected
word to a
sentence by the first keystroke of the following word, the automatic addition
of
spaces, the ability to compress a large database for disambiguation without
incurring
any significant processing penalties, the ability to generate words with
embedded
special accented characters by typing the key associated with the unaccented
version
of the letter, and the ability to automatically disambiguate among multiple
punctuation
characters assigned to a single key based on the context of the keystroke
produces a
surprising result: for many languages, well over 99% of words found in a
representative corpus of text material can be typed on the system with
extremely high
efficiency. For approximately 95% of these words, the same number of
keystrokes is
required to enter a word with the reduced key disambiguating system as for
word
entry with a conventional keyboard. When words include accented characters,
word
entry can often be achieved with fewer keystrokes than with a conventional
keyboard.
When the words are presented in frequency of use order, the desired word is
most
often the first word presented and is frequently the only word presented. The
user can
then proceed to enter the next word with no more than the usual number of
keystrokes. High speed entry of text is therefore achieved using a keyboard
having a
small number of full-size keys.
The reduced keyboard disambiguation system disclosed herein reduces the size
of the computer or other device that incorporates the system. The reduced
number of
keys allows a device to be constructed to be held by the user in one hand,
while being
operated with the other hand. The disclosed system is particularly
advantageous for
use with PDAs, two-way pagers, or other small electronic devices that benefit
from
accurate, high-speed text entry. The system efficiently compresses a large
database
for disambiguating keystroke sequences without requiring additional processing
bandwidth when utilizing the compressed database. The system can provide both
efficiency and simplicity when implemented on a touchscreen based device or a
device
with a limited number of mechanical keys that may also have limited display
screen
area.
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Brief Description of the Drawings
The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention
will become more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by
reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction
with the
5. accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIGURE 1 is a schematic view of a preferred embodiment of a portable
computer incorporating a reduced keyboard disambiguating system of the present
invention;
FIGURE 2 is a hardware block diagram of the reduced keyboard
disambiguating system of FIGURE 1;
FIGURES 3A-3C collectively depict a flow chart of a preferred embodiment
disambiguating software for a reduced keyboard disambiguating system;
FIGURE 4 is a flow chart of a preferred embodiment of software to
determine which text object should be used as the default object in each node
of a tree
data structure for a reduced keyboard disambiguating system;
FIGURES SA-SD show a flow chart of a preferred embodiment of a software
process performed with each keystroke to disambiguate the intended punctuation
character among a plurality of punctuation characters associated with a key of
the
reduced keyboard disambiguating system; FIGURES SA through SC show the
processing performed upon the initial receipt of a keystroke, and SD shows the
processing performed all other processing of a keystroke has been completed;
FIGURE 6 compares the physical association of symbols to keys with an
instance of a logical association including additional accented variations of
the
characters appearing on the physical key;
FIGURE 7 is an example of a table associating logical symbols to key indices;
FIGURE 8A depicts a preferred internal arrangement of data in a node of a
tree of a vocabulary module;
FIGURE 8B depicts the semantic components of a preferred embodiment of
an instruction;
FIGURE 9 depicts four examples of possible internal data items in the
structure of nodes in a preferred embodiment;
FIGURE 10 depicts the preferred tree structure of an uncompressed
vocabulary module;
FIGURE 11 depicts an example state of the object lists which are the preferred
embodiment for intermediate storage of objects in the process of being
retrieved from
the vocabulary modules;
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FIGURE 12 is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process
for retrieving text objects from a vocabulary module given a list of key
presses;
FIGURE 13 is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process
for traversing the tree structure of the vocabulary module given a single key
press and
altering the state of the object lists;
FIGURE 14 is a flowchart of a preferred' embodiiiient of a software process
for building a folded, compressed vocabulary module;
FIGURE 15 is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process
for folding the tree data structure of a vocabulary module;
FIGURE 16 is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process
for locating a second node in a the tree of a vocabulary module which has the
greatest
redundancy in comparison to a given node;
FIGURES 17A and 17B collectively depict the flowchart of a preferred
embodiment of a software process for computing the redundancy between two
nodes
of a tree in a vocabulary module;
FIGURES 18A-18K are schematic views of the preferred embodiment of the
reduced keyboard disambiguating system during representative use.
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Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment
I. Sy_,stem Construction and Basic Operation
With reference to FIGURE 1 a reduced keyboard disambiguating system 50
S formed in accordance with the present invention is depicted incorporated in
a
palmtop portable computer 52. Portable computer 52 contains a reduced
keyboard 54 implemented on a touchscreen display 53. For purposes of this
application, the term "keyboard" is defined broadly to include any input
device
having defined areas including a touch screen having defined areas for keys,
discrete
mechanical keys, membrane keys, etc. Keyboard ~4 has a reduced number of data
entry keys from a standard QWERTY keyboard. In one preferred embodiment. the
keyboard contains sixteen standard full-sized keys arranged in four columns
and four
rows. More specifically, the preferred keyboard contains nine data keys ~6
arranged
in a 3-by-3 array including a punctuation key 63, a left-hand column of three
system
keys 58, including .a Select key 60, a Shift key 62. and a Space key 64. and a
Backspace key 6~ in the upper row 59 to delete previous keystrokes. The upper
row
of system keys ~9 also includes three MODE keys labeled Accent. Numbers and
Symbols for entering modes to type accented characters, numbers, and symbols
respectively.
A preferred arrangement of the letters on each key in the keyboard 54 is
depicted in FIGURE 1. FIGURE 1 also shows a preferred arrangement of the
punctuation characters associated with the ambiguous data key 63 in the
keyboard ~4
for the English language.
Data is input into the disambiguation system via keystrokes on the reduced
kevboard 54. As a user enters a keystroke sequence using the keyboard, text is
displayed on the computer display 53. Two regions are defined on the display
to
display information to the user. An upper text region 66 displays the text
entered by
the user and sen~es as a buffer for text input and editing. A selection list
region 70,
located below the text region, provides a list of words and other
interpretations
corresponding to the keystroke sequence entered by a user. As will be
described in
additional detail below, the selection list region 70 aids the user in
resolving the
ambiguity in the entered keystrokes. In another preferred embodiment, the
system
may be implemented on a device with limited display space, and display only
the
currently selected or most likely word object at the insertion point 88 in the
text
being generated.
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A block diagram of the reduced keyboa:d disambiguating system hardware is
provided in FIGURE 2. The keyboard 54 and the display 53 are coupled to a
processor 100 through appropriate interfacing circuitry. Optionally, a speaker
102 is
also coupled.to the processor. The processor 100 receives input from the
keyboard,
and manages all output to the display and speaker. Processor 100 is coupled to
a
memory 104. The memory includes a combination of temporary storage media, such
as random access memory (RAM), and permanent storage media, such as read-only
memory (ROM), floppy disks, hard disks, or CD-ROMs. Memory 104 contains all
software routines to govern system operation. Preferably, the memory contains
an
operating system 106, disambiguating software 108, and associated vocabulary
modules 110 that are discussed in additional detail below. Optionally, the
memory
may contain one or more application programs 112, 114. Examples of application
programs include word processors. software dictionaries. and foreign language
translators. Speech synthesis software may also be provided as an application
1 S program. allowing the reduced keyboard disambiguating system to function
as a
communication aid.
Returning to FIGURE 1, the reduced keyboard disambiguating system 50
allows a user to quickly enter text or other data using only a single hand.
Data is
entered using the data keys ~6. Each of the data keys has multiple meanings,
represented on the top of the key by multiple letters, numbers. and other
symbols.
(For the purposes of this disclosure. each data key will be identified by the
symbols
in the center row of the data key, e.g., DEF to identify the upper right data
key.)
Since individual keys have multiple meanings, keystroke sequences are
ambiguous as
to their meaning. As the user enters data, the various keystroke
interpretations are
therefore displayed in multiple regions on the display to aid the user in
resolving any
ambiguity. In systems with sufficient display area available, a selection list
76 of
possible interpretations of the entered keystrokes is provided to the user in
the
selection list region 70. The first entry 78 in the selection list is selected
as a default
interpretation and displayed in the text region 66 at an insertion point 88.
In the
preferred embodiment, this entry is displayed with a solid-line box drawn
around i2
both in the selection list 76 and at the insertion point 88. The formatting
establishes
a visual relationship between the insertion point object and the selection
list, and
signifies that this object is implicitly selected by virtue of being the most
frequently
occurring object in the current selection list. Alternatively, no selection
list is
3~ provided. and only the default object (the object that would be displayed
first in the
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selection list prior to any activation of the Select key), or the currently
selected object
if one has been explicitly selected, is displayed at the insertion point 88.
The selection list 76 of the possible interpretations of the entered
keystrokes
may be ordered in a number of ways. In a normal mode of operation, the
keystrokes
are initially interpreted as the entry of letters to spell a word (hereinafter
the "word
interpretation"). Entries 78, 79, and 80 in the selection list are therefore
words that
correspond to the entered keystroke sequence. with the entries ordered so that
the
most common word corresponding to the keystroke sequence is listed first. For
example, as shown in FIGURE 1, a keystroke sequence ABC, GHI, and DEF has
been entered by a user. As keys are entered, a vocabulary module look-up is
simultaneously performed to locate words that have matching keystroke
sequences.
The words identified from the vocabulary module are displayed to the user in
the
selection list 76. The words are sorted according to frequency of use, with
the most
commonly used word listed first. Using the example keystroke sequence, the
words
"age," "aid" and "bid" were identified from the vocabulary module as being the
most
probable words corresponding to the keystroke sequence. Of the three
identified
words, "age" is more frequently used than ''aid" or "bid." so it is listed
first in the
selection list. The first word is also taken as the default interpretation and
provisionally posted as text at the insertion point 88. Prior to pressing the
Select key
60, this first word taken as the default interpretation is posted at the
insertion point 88
and in the selection list 76 using identical formatting. For example, as in
FIGURE 1,
the word appears as text within a box drawn with solid lines that is just
large enough
to contain the word. In systems without sufficient display area to show the
actual
selection list on the screen, the list of potential matching words is kept in
memory,
sorted according to the relative frequency of the matching text objects.
In the preferred embodiment. following entry of the keystroke sequence
corresponding to the desired word, the user simply presses the Space key 64.
The
default word (the first word in the selection list) is immediately output at
the
insertion point, the selection list is cleared, and a space is immediately
output to the
text area at the insertion point 88. Alternatively, any other means which
explicitly
generates an unambiguous character (such as entering Symbols mode and pressing
a
key that is unambiguously associated with a single specific character in
Symbols
mode) can be used to achieve the same result, with the exception that the
specific
unambiguous character (rather than a space) is appended to the output word at
the
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insertion point 88. Alternatively, the punctuation key 63 may be pressed to
generate
a period, hyphen or apostrophe as explained below.
If the first entry in the selection list is not the desired interpretation of
the
keystroke sequence, the user may step through the items in the selection list
by
repeatedly pressing the Select key 60. Pressing the Select key redisplays the
first
entry in the selection list 76 with a box around it drawn with dotted lines,
and also
redisplays the first entry at the insertion point 88 with an identically
formatted box
drawn around it. Conceptually, the change from a solid-line box to a dotted-
line box
indicates that the text is closer to having been accepted into the text being
generated,
having been explicitly selected by virtue of the user pressing the Select key.
If the
first entry in the selection list is the desired interpretation of the
keystroke sequence,
the user continues to enter the next word using the data keys ~6. If the
Select key is
overloaded with a space generation function, then a space is generated prior
to
inserting the text for the next word. Otherwise, the start of the next word
will be
1 ~ concatenated with end of the current word with no intervening space. For
each press
of the Select key, the next entry in the selection list is boxed with dotted
lines, and a
copy of the entry provisionally posted to the insertion point (replacing the
previously
provisionally posted word) and boxed with dotted lines. Provisionally posting
the
next entry to the text region allows the user to maintain their attention on
the text
?0 region without having to refer to the selection list. At the user's option,
the system
can also be configured such that. upon receipt of the first press of the
Select key, the
word provisionally posted at the insertion point can expand (vertically or
horizontally) to display a copy of the current selection list. The user
may.select the
maximum number of words to be displayed in this copy of the selection list.
25 Alternatively. the user may elect to have the selection list always
displayed at the
insertion point, even prior to the first activation of the Select key. The
disambiguating system interprets the start of the next word (signaled by the
activation of an ambiguous data key ~6 or the generation of an explicit
unambiguous
character) as an affirmation that the currently selected entry is the desired
entry. The
30 selected word therefore remains at the insertion point as the choice of the
user, the
surrounding box disappears completely and the word is redisplayed in normal
text
without special formatting.
If the second entry in the selection list is the desired word. the user
proceeds
to enter the next word after two presses of the Select key and the
disambiguating
35 system automatically posts the second entry to the text region as normal
text. If the
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second entry is not the desired word, the user may examine the selection list
and
press the Select key a desired number of times to select the desired entry
before
proceeding to enter the next word. When the end of the selection list is
reached,
additional presses of the Select key causes the selection list to scroll and
new entries
to be added to the end of the selection list. Those entries at the top of the
selection
list are removed from the list displayed to the user. The entry selected by
multiple
presses of the Select key is automatically posted to the text region when the
user
presses any data key 56 to continue to enter.text. Alternatively, following
entry of the
keystroke sequence corresponding to the desired word, the user may select the
desired word from the selection list simply by touching it. The selected word
is
immediately output at the insertion point without adding. a space. and the
selection
list is cleared. The user may then press the Space key to generate a space
that is
immediately output to the text area at the insertion point 88.
In the majority of text entry, keystroke sequences are intended by the user as
letters forming a word. It will be appreciated. however, that the multiple
characters
and symbols associated with each key allow the individual keystrokes and
keystroke
sequences to have several interpretations. In the preferred reduced keyboard
disambiguating system, various different interpretations are automatically
determined
and displayed to the user at the same time as the keystroke sequence is
interpreted
and displayed to the user as a list of words.
For example, the keystroke sequence is interpreted in terms of the word stems
corresponding to possible valid sequences of letters that a user may be
entering
(hereinafrer the "stem interpretation"). Unlike word interpretations, word
stems are
incomplete words. By indicating the possible interpretations of the last
keystrokes.
the word stems allow the user to easily confirm that the correct keystrokes
have been
entered, or to resume typing when his or her attention has been diverted in
the middle
of the word. As shown in FIGURE 1, the keystroke sequence ABC GHI DEF has
been interpreted as forming the valid stems "che" (leading to the words
"check",
"cheer", ete.) and "ahe" (leading to the words "ahead", "ahem'', etc.). The
stem
interpretations are therefore provided as entries 81 and 82 in the selection
list.
Preferably, the stem interpretations are sorted according to the composite
frequency
of the set of all possible words that can be generated from each stem by
additional
keystrokes on the data keys. The maximum number and the minimum composite
frequency of such entries to be displayed may be selected by the user or
configured
3~ in the system, so that some stem interpretations may not be displayed. In
the current
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example, the stems "bif' (leading to the word "bifocals"), "cid" (leading to
the word
"cider"), and "bie" leading to the word "biennial") are not shown. When
listing a
stem interpretation in the selection list, the stem is omitted if a stem
interpretation
duplicates a word that is shown in the selection list. When the stem is
omitted,
however, the word corresponding to the omitted stem may be marked with a
symbol
to show that there are also longer words which have this word as their stem.
Stem
interpretations provide feedback to the user by confirming that the correct
keystrokes
have been, entered to lead to the entry of a desired word.
The operation of the reduced keyboard disambiguating system is governed by
the disambiguation software 108. In one preferred embodiment of the system,
the
Select key is "overloaded" such that it performs both the function of
selecting the
desired object from the selection list. and also generates an explicit space
character
when appropriate. In such systems. the flag "OverloadSelect" (referenced in
blocks
164 and 174A) is set TRUC. In systems with a separate Space key defined to
generate an explicit space character. the flag "OverloadSelect" is set FALSE.
FIGURE 3 is a flow chart of a main routine of the disambiguation software
that generates a selection list to aid the user in disambiguating ambiguous
keystroke
sequences. At a block 150, the system waits to receive a keystroke from the
keyboard 54. Upon receipt of a keystroke. at block I SOA the system performs
pre-
processing required for the punctuation key 63 shown in FIGURE SA, and
discussed
in detail below. At a decision block I S 1. a test is made to determine if the
received
keystroke is a mode selection key. If so. at a block 172 the system sets a
flag to
indicate the current system mode. At a decision block 173, a test is made to
determine if the system mode has changed. If so, at a block 171 the keytops
are
?5 redrawn as needed to reflect the current system mode. If the system mode
has not
changed, or it has changed and the keyfops subsequently redrawn, the main
routine
returns to block 150 and waits for another keystroke.
On the other hand, if block 151 determines the keystroke is not a mode
selection key, then at a decision block 1 ~2, a test is made to determine if
the received
keystroke is the.Select key. If the keystroke is not the Select key, then at
decision
block 153. a test is made to determine if the system is in a special explicit
character
mode such as the explicit Numeric mode. If so, at decision block 166 a test is
performed to determine if any provisionally selected item is present in the
selection
list. If so. at a block 167 the item is accepted and is output as normal text.
If a
3i provisionally accepted item is not in the selection list. or if it is and
has already been
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accepted, then, at a block 168, the explicit character corresponding to the
keystroke is
output to the text area. Next, at decision block 169, a test is made to
determine if the
system mode should be automatically changed, as in the case of Symbols mode.
If
so, execution proceeds to blocks 170 and 171 where the system mode is returned
to
the previously active mode and the keytops redrawn accordingly. Execution then
returns to block 150.
If at block 153 no explicit character mode is active, at a block 154 the
keystroke is added to a stored keystroke sequence. At a block 156, objects
corresponding to the keystroke sequence are identified from the vocabulary
modules
in the system. Vocabulary modules are libraries of objects that are associated
with
keystroke sequences. An object is any piece of stored data that is to be
retrieved
based on the received keystroke sequence. Far example, objects within the
vocabulary modules may include numbers, letters, words, stems, phrases, or
system
functions and macros. Each of these objects is briefly described in the table
below:
IS
Object Corresponding data
Numbers A number, each digit of which corresponds
to a single keystroke,
e.g., the two-digit sequence "42".
Letters A letter or sequence of letters corresponding
to pairs of
keystrokes, e.g., the three letter sequence
"str". Each pair of
keystrokes is used to disambiguate using
the two-stroke
specification method of inputting individual
letters.
Word A word corresponding to single or multiple
keystrokes, e.g., the
four letter word "done".
Stem A sequence of leriers representing a valid
portion of a longer
sequence of letters forming a word, e.g.,
"albe" as a stem of the
word "albeit."
Phrase A user-defined or system-defined phrase corresponding
to single
or multiple keystrokes, e.g., "To Whom it
May Concern:".
System Macro A word and associated code describing a system
or user-defined I
function; e.g., "<clear>" to clear the current
text region. In
addition to the descriptive word, in the
vocabulary module the
system macro object is associated with the
executable code
necessary for performing the specified function.
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While the preferred vocabulary objects are discussed above, it will be
appreciated that other objects may be contemplated. For example, a graphic
object
may be associated with a stored graphic image, or a speech object may be
associated
with a stored segment of speech. A spelling object may also be envisioned that
would link the keystroke sequence of commonly misspelled words and typing
errors
with the correct spelling of the word. For example, words that include the
letter
sequence "ie" or "ei" will appear in the list of words even if the keystrokes
for these
letters are accidentally reversed from their proper sequence. To simplify
processing,
each vocabulary module preferably contains similar objects. It will be
appreciated,
however, that various objects may be mixed within a vocabulary module.
A representative diagram of a single key X40 is depicted in FIGURE 6. The
internal, logical representation of the keys in the preferred embodiment need
not
mirror the physical arrangement. For example X41 is a preferred logical
description
of a key associated with a French vocabulary module. Three additional symbols
542
(AAA) are required in the French alphabet. Also. the symbols are preferably
indexed
543 by order of their decreasing frequency of use in a French lexicon_ By
extension,
FIGURE 7 is a preferred table relating the indices of logical symbols to key
indices
to be used in disambiguation of key presses into French words.
A representative diagram of a word object vocabulary module 110 is depicted
in FIGURE 10. A tree data structure is used to organize the objects in a
vocabulary
module based on a corresponding keystroke sequence. As shown in FIGURE 10,
each node NI, N2, . . . N9 in the vocabulary module tree represents a
particular
keystroke sequence. The nodes in the tree are connected by paths P1, P2, . . .
P9.
Since there are nine ambiguous data keys in the preferred embodiment of the
disambiguating system, each parent node in the vocabulary module tree may be
connected with nine children nodes. Nodes connected by paths indicate valid
keystroke sequences, while the lack of a path from a node indicates an invalid
keystroke sequence, i.e., one which does not correspond to any stored word.
The vocabulary module tree is traversed based on a received keystroke
sequence. For example, pressing the first data key from the root node 111
causes
data associated with the first key to be fetched from inside the root node 111
and
evaluated. then the path P 1 to node N 1 is traversed. Pressing the ninth data
key after
pressing the first data key causes data associated with the ninth key to be
fetched
from node NI and evaluated, then the path P19 to node N19 is traversed. As
will be
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described in greater detail below, each node is associated with a number of
objects
corresponding to the keystroke sequence. As each keystroke is received and the
corresponding node is processed, an object list is generated of the objects
corresponding to the keystroke sequence. The object list from each vocabulary
module is used by the main routine of the disambiguating system to generate a
selection list ?6.
FIGURE 8A is a block diagram of a preferred data structure 400 associated
with each node. The data structure contains information that links each parent
node
to children nodes in the vocabulary module trce. The data structure also
contains
information (instructions) to identify the objects associated with the
particular
keystroke sequences represented by the node.
The first field in the node data structure 400 is a valid keys bits field 402
that
indicates the number and identity of children nodes that are connected to the
parent
node and which of the nine possible keys are associated with information
I S (instructions) to identify the objects associated with the particular
keystroke
sequences represented by the node. Since there are nine data keys in the
preferred
embodiment, at most nine children nodes may be connected to any parent node,
and
nine valid keys bits are therefore provided in the valid keys bits field to
indicate the
presence or absence of child nodes. Each valid keys bit is associated with a
pointer
field 404a, 404b, . . . 404n that contains a pointer to the respective child
node data
structure in the vocabulary module. Since a child node is only present if the
keystroke associated with the child node is a valid continuation of the
keystroke
sequence associated with the parent node, the number of pointer fields varies
for each
node. For example, valid keys bits field 402 may indicate that only six of the
possible nine keystrokes lead to a valid child node. Because there are only
six valid
paths, only six pointer fields are included in the data structure for the
parent node.
The valid keys bits field 402 is used to ascertain the identity of the pointer
fields
contained within the node data structure. If a keystroke does not lead to a
valid child
node, the associated pointer field is omitted from the node data structure in
order to
conserve the amount of memory space required to store the vocabulary module.
Associated with each node are a number of objects that correspond to the
keystroke sequence represented by the node. Each of the objects is described
by an
instruction in 406 in a packet 408 attached to a particular valid key as
indicated by
the pattern of bits in the valid keys bits field 402 contained in the node
data structure.
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Each instruction in each packet 406 describes one of the objects
con esponding to the keystroke sequence represented by each node. Describing
an
object requires maintaining two object lists. FIGURE 11 depicts representative
object lists created dynamically by the disambiguating software process from a
parent and a child in a vocabulary module tree. Object list 430 is an object
list
containing objects 1-N, associated with a node representing two keystrokes.
Object
list 440 is an object list containing objects I-NZ associated with a node
representing
three keystrokes. Each object list contains a list of all objects that are
associated with
each node. Object list 430 is associated with a parent node representing the
keystroke sequence ABC ABC from the keyboard of FIGURE 1. Object list 440 is
associated with a child node representing the keystroke sequence ABC ABC TUV.
It
will be appreciated that the size of the object list is varied to account for
the actual
number of objects associated with each node.
Each object associated with a child node is constructed by adding a character
1 ~ sequence onto an object that was constructed for the parent node. The
instruction
packet 406 in FIGURE 8A therefore contains an instruction S58 with an OBJECT
LIST-INDEX field ~Sb shown in FIGURE 8B that identifies from a parent node
object list an object that is used to construct the child node object. For
example, with
reference to FIGURE I 1, the first object "ba" in the old object list 430 is
used to
30 construct the second object "bat" in the new object list 440. The previous
object
identifier field OBJECT-LIST-INDEX SS6 therefore provides a link to the
entries in
the old object list to identify the old object used to construct the new
object.
The inswction »8 also contains a LOGICAL-SYMBOL-INDEX field SSS
to indicate the symbol to add to the identified object in order to construct
the new
25 object. The LOGICAL-SYMBOL-INDEX fields therefore specify the letters from
final key in the node's key sequence which will be appended to construct the
new
objects. The letter is specified by a table such as that depicted in FIGURE 7
wherein
the LOGICAL-SYMBOL-INDEX fields correspond the logical symbol indices ~S2
in the first row of table SSO and the raw in which the specified key appears
is
30 identified by the given key index in the first column of the table. For
example, with
reference to FIGURE l I , the first object "CAT" in the new object list 440 is
constructed by using the second object "CA" in the old object list 430 and
adding an
additional keystroke to specify the T. In the logical symbol index table of
FIGURE
7, "T" is the first logical letter on the TUV key, therefore the LOGICAL-
SYMBOL-
3S INDEX field of the instruction which generated the object "CAT" is set to 1
to
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indicate the first letter in the table. Encoding the objects in this manner
makes use of
the known key sequence associated with each node and the known association of
letters to keys to greatly reduce the amount of storage space required for
each
vocabulary module.
The vocabulary encoding technique also allows access to vocabulary module
entries without searching. On receipt of each new valid keystroke the system
executes the instructions associated with the key at the current node to
construct a
new object list from the old, then follows a single pointer to the appropriate
child
. node. Also. rather than having to store every object in the vocabulary
module, a new
object is defined using the logical-symbol-index field to add onto an old
interpretation. Thus a word stem that is shared by a plurality of objects in
the
vocabulan~ module is only stored once and is used to create all of the objects
derived
from it. 'The disclosed storage method requires maintaining an object list
from a
parent node in the vocabulary module tree in order to construct an object list
of the
1 S child node.
The entries in the logical symbol index table such as that depicted in
FIGURE 7 need not be single characters - arbitrary sequences may occupy a
single
entry. For example, the ASCII string "tlike" might be added to the second
object "ca"
from the old object list to form the word "catlike". In this manner, the
length of an
entered keystroke sequence does not necessarily directly correspond to the
length of
an associated object. An ASCII sequence stored at an entry in the symbol index
table
would allow a vocabulary object to be identified by an arbitrary key sequence.
i.e..
stored at an arbitrary location within the vocabulary module tree.
The capability of storing objects with an arbitrary keystroke sequence is used
2~ to speed system processing of abbreviations and contractions. Abbreviations
and
contractions can be identified by a keystroke sequence that corresponds to
their pure
alphabetic content, ignoring punctuation. The result is that abbreviations and
contractions are easily accessed by the user without entering punctuation,
resulting in
a significant savings in keystrokes. For example, the user can enter the
keystroke
sequence for "didn't" without typing an apostrophe between the "n" and the
"t". The
instruction in the vocabulary module that corresponds to the keystroke
sequence
"didnt" references an ASCII sequence with an apostrophe between the "n" and
the "t"
as a single symbol in a table. The disambiguating system will therefore
automatically display to the user the correct word "didn't", without requiring
the user
to enter the punctuation mark. The disambiguating system uses the same table
to
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properly display foreign words having unique characters (such as "U". which
may be
entered as a single keystroke on the TW key). . Capitalization may be handled
in a
similar manner. Words that should always be used in all capital letters, with
an
initial capital letter, or with a capital letter in the middle may be
associated with
S keystroke sequences which omit keystrokes indicating capitals, eliminating
the need
for the user to enter such capitalization. An object type field may also be
included in
each instruction 558 to specify additional information about the object being
constructed. The object type field may contain a code to specify whether the
generated object is a word, a word stem, or any other object. The object type
field
therefore allows different types of objects to be mixed within a given
vocabulary
module. Moreover, the object type field may also include information regarding
the
part of speech of the word, information about how the object is capitalized,
or
information needed to construct various inflections and endings. A reduced
keyboard disambiguating system using a vocabulary module having the part of
speech information may use the additional information to implement syntactical
analysis to improve the disambiguation process. The object type field may also
contain a unique code to allow transmission of text in a compressed form. The
unique code would be transmitted to a remote terminal instead of transmitting
the
entered keystroke sequence or the associated disambiguated characters.
One of the key features of the preferred vocabulary module tree data structure
is that the objects associated with each node are stored in the node data
structure 400
according to their frequency of use. That is. the object constructed by the
first
instruction in packet 406 has a higher frequency of use than that constructed
by the
second instruction (if present) in 40b, which has a higher frequency of use
than the
2~ third instruction (if present). In this manner. the objects are
automatically placed in
the object list so that they are sorted according to decreasing frequency of
use. For
purposes of this description. frequency of use of a word object refers to the
likelihood
of using a given word within a representative corpus of use, which is
proportional to
the number of times that each word occurs in the corpus. In the case of word
stem
objects. frequency of use is determined by summing the frequencies of all
words
which share the same stem.
Storing frequency of use or other rank information at each node avoids the
need to determine and sort on the rank of each object when the system is in
use. This
has important implications in the word object vocabulary, since the stored
objects
36 may include shared stems common to a very large number of longer words.
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Determining the relative rank of these stems dynamically would require
traversing
the entire tree of children nodes and accumulate information about each stem,
adding
significant processing overhead for a portable computing device. Determining
this
information in advance and storing it in the vocabulary data thus reduces the
S processing overhead. Moreover, when the frequency of use or rank is
represented
implicitly by the ordering of objects 406 in the node, no additional storage
space is
required for this information.
While preferably the objects are stored within the node data structure 400 in
order according to their frequency of use, it will be appreciated that a
frequency of
use field could also be associated with each instruction. The frequency of use
field
would contain a representative number that corresponds with the frequency of
use of
the associated object. The frequency of use between different objects would be
determined by comparing the frequency of use field of each object. The
advantage of
using the latter construction that associates a frequency of use field with
each object
packet is that the frequency of use field could be changed by the
disambiguating
system. For example, the system could chance a frequency of use field to
reflect the
frequency with which a user used certain objects within the vocabulary module
during representative text entry.
Returning to FIGURE 3, at block 1 ~6 those objects that correspond to the
received keystroke sequence are identified in each vocabulary module. FIGURE
12
is a flow chart of a subroutine 600 for analyzing the received keystroke
sequence to
identify corresponding objects in a particular vocabulary module. The
subroutine 600 constructs an object list for a particular keystroke sequence.
Block
602 clears the new object list. Block 604 initiates the traversal of the tree
110 at its
root node 111. Block 604 gets the first key press. Blocks 608 to 612 form a
loop to
process all available key presses. Block 608 calls subroutine 620 in FIGURE
13.
Decision block 610 determines whether all available key presses have been
processed. If any key presses remain unprocessed. block 612 advances to the
next
available one. If all key presses have been processed. block 614 returns the
completed object list. It will be appreciated that if the main routine calls
subroutine 600 repeatedly with new keystroke sequences. each with one more key
than the last and all keys but the last being the same as in the previous
invocation,
then the initialization blocks 602 and 604 may be bypassed if subroutine 620
is called
directly to process only the most recent key press.
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FIGURE 13 is a flowchart of a subroutine 620 called from subroutine 600. In
the main routine shown in FIGURE 3, a keystroke was detected.by the system at
block 150. The receipt of a new keystroke causes a downward traversal in the
vocabulary module uee, if a valid path exists to a child corresponding to the
S keystroke. At a block 621 in FIGURE 13, the valid keys bits field of the
node 400
data structure is therefore examined to determine if valid instructions and a
pointer
correspond to the received keystroke. At a decision block 622, a test is made
of the
valid keys bits field to determine if a valid packet 408 consisting of
instructions 406
and a pointer field such as 404a exists corresponding to the entered
keystroke. If no
valid packet corresponds to the keystroke, at a block 624 the old object list
is
returned to the main routine to generate the selection list because the
received
keystroke is part of an invalid keystroke sequence that does not correspond to
any
object within the vocabulary module. 'Ihe branch of the subroutine 620 that
comprises blocks 622 and 624 therefore ignores any invalid keystroke sequences
and
returns the object list generated at the parent node for possible inclusion in
the
selection list generated by the disambiguating system.
If a valid packet exists corresponding to the received keystroke at decision
block 622, the subroutine proceeds to a block 626 where the new object list is
copied
to the old object list. As noted above, to construct a new object list the
disambiguating system starts with a copy of the old object list. At a block
62b. the
object list from the prior node is therefore stored so that it may be used to
construct
the new object list.
Block 628 fetches the first valid instruction associated with the given key.
Block 630 initializes the iterator NEW-INDEX to 1 so that the first
instruction will
generate the first item in the new object list. The subroutine then enters the
loop
comprised of blocks 632 through 642 to construct the object list associated
with the
valid instructions. At block 632 the OBJECT-LIST-INDEX field 5~6 is examined
and the corresponding object loaded from the old object list. At block 634,
the
LOGICAL-SYMBOL-INDEX field 555 is examined and the appropriate symbol
(associated with the received keystroke through a logical symbol index table
like SSD
shown in FIGURE 7) is appended to the end of the identified object. It will be
appreciated that an ASCII sequence of length greater than one may be appended
to
the identified object at block 634 if the entry in the symbol table 550 at the
given key
1 and logical symbol index 552 holds a character sequence. At a block 636, the
combined object and symbol are stored as a new object in the new object list.
At a
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block 638, a test is made to determine if the subroutine has processed the
last valid
instruction associated with the given key at the given node. If the last valid
instruction has not been processed, at block 640 the next valid instruction is
fetched.
At block 642 NEW-INDEX is incremented.
If the test at decision block 638 indicates that all of the objects have been
constructed for the node, the subroutine proceeds to a block 644 and follows
the
associated pointer to a child node. At block 646 the new object list is
returned to the
main routine in order to generate the selection list. It will be appreciated
that the
subroutine 600 for generating the object fist associated with each node is
performed
for each keystroke received from the user. No "searching" of the vocabulary
modules is performed as the user enters a new keystroke sequence, since each
keystroke merely advances the subroutine one additional level within the
vocabulary
module tree. Since a search is not performed for each keystroke, the
vocabulary
module returns the list of objects associated with each node~with minimal
processing
overhead.
It will be appreciated that the relationship between vocabulary module objects
and keystroke sequences is an implementation detail of the vocabulary module.
When processing the node associated with the current input key sequence,
additional
child nodes may be traversed to identify candidate objects having a keystroke
sequence starting with the entered keystroke sequence, and that occur with a
relative
frequency greater than a certain threshold. This threshold may be dynamically
adjusted based on characteristics of the current node, such as whether it
generates
enough objects to fill the selection list region 70 on the display. The
objects are
idemified by traversing downward in the vocabulary module tree along valid
paths
until the objects are identified. Such candidate objects can be identified at
the time
the database is constructed from the input word list, and the node and
instruction
corresponding to the completion of a candidate word can be marked in such a
way as
to enable the system to recognize when a traversal of that node corresponds to
the
generation of the candidate word. The special marking is required since the
same
node and instruction may be traversed in processing different input key
sequences
corresponding to different words after the tree structure has been transformed
in the
compression process described below. Only enough infomrtation need be added to
distinguish the candidate word's sequence from other sequences, such as the
sequence length or specific key values at known positions in the key sequence.
3~ Alternatively, terminal nodes for candidate words may be specially marked
in such a
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way that they are not merged with nodes used for other words as described
below.
The disambiguating software can then search ahead within a defined
neighborhood of
the descendants of the current node for these candidate objects, which if
found can
then be placed in the selection list before all the keystrokes corresponding
to the
objects are ~ entered. These objects are included in addition to the objects
that are
directly associated with the input keystroke sequence. Displaying objects
associated
with longer keystroke sequences in the selection list (referred to as the
"look-ahead"
feature) allows the user to optionally select the objects immediately, without
having
to complete the remaining keystrokes to specify the object.
Returning to FIGURE 3, at blocks 158-165 the objects found by looking up
the keystroke sequence in the vocabulary modules are prioritized and displayed
to the
user in the selection list 76. To determine the sequence of objects displayed
in the
selection list, priorities are established between each vocabulary module and
also
between the returned objects from each vocabulary module.
To prioritize the object lists identified from the various vocabulary modules.
at block i 58 the mode of operation of the reduced keyboard disambiguating
system is
examined. As discussed above, in a normal mode of operation the word
interpretations are displayed first in the selection list. The object list
from a word
vocabulay module would therefore be assigned a higher priority than the object
list
from the other vocabulary modules. Conversely, if the disambiguating system is
in
the numeric mode of operation. the numeric interpretations would be assigned a
higher priority than the other vocabulary modules. The mode of the
disambiguating
system therefore dictates the priority between vocabularv_ module object
lists. It will
be appreciated that in certain modes, the object lists from vocabulary modules
may
be omitted from the selection list entirely.
Object lists generated from vocabulary modules may contain only a single
entry, or they may contain multiple entries. At block 160, the priority
between the
objects from the same vocabulary module is therefore resolved if the object
list
contains multiple entries. The objects that match a particular keystroke
sequence that
are looked-up in a given vocabulary module are also given a priority that
determines
their relative presentation with respect to each other. As noted above,
preferably the
default presentation order is by decreasing frequency of use in a
representative
corpus of usage. The priority data associated with each object is therefore
used to
order the objects in the selection list. Since the selection list region 70 is
limited in
3~ the number of entries that may be displayed, objects that fall below a
predetermined
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minimum frequency of use may be omitted from the initial display of the
selection
list. The omitted objects may be later added to the selection list when the
user scrolls
beyond the end of the displayed list. The selection list is scrolled
automatically so
that the currently selected object is always visible. The user may also use
dedicated
scroll buttons to manually scroll additional objects into view, in which case
the
currently selected object may scroll out of view. Alternatively, all objects
in the
selection list may be displayed simultaneously in a "drop-down" list at the
user's
request.
Many of the properties associated with the presentation of the objects looked-
up in a vocabulary module are user-programmable by accessing appropriate
system
menus. For example, the user can specify the order of individual objects or
classes of
objects in the selection list region. The user may also set the priority level
that
determines the priority between vocabulan~ modules and between the objects
identified from each vocabulary module. In this manner. the number of entries
presented to the user in the selection list region may be kept to a minimum.
Additional entries in the selection list region may always be scrolled into
view by
repeated presses of the Select key.
After the priorities between the objects have been resolved, at a block 165 a
selection list is constructed from the identified objects and presented to the
user. As
a default interpretation of the ambiguous keystroke sequence entered by the
user, the
first entry in the selection list is provisionally posted and highlighted at
the insertion
point 88 in the text region 66. The disambiguating software routine then
returns to
block 150 to wait for the next keystroke.
Returning to decision block 152, if the detected keystroke is the Select key
60, the "yes" branch is taken from decision block 15? to decision block 163,
where a
test determines if the current selection list is empty. If so, at a block 164,
if the
OverloadSelect flag is set TRUE, an explicit space is generated and
immediately
output to the text area. The OverloadSelect flag is a system flag that is set
TRUE in
systems that do not include an explicit Space key 64, and in which a space
character
is generated for the first activation of any continuous sequence of
activations of the
Select key, or if the selection list is empty at the time the Select key is
activated.
Following this initial processing of the received keystroke, at block 164B the
system
performs post-processing required for the punctuation key 63 shown in FIGURE
SB,
and discussed in detail below. Execution then returns to block 150. If at
decision
3~ block 163 the selection is not empty, the "no" branch is taken to a block
174A. At
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block i 74A, if the OverloadSelect flag is set TRUE, a space is added to the
end of
each text item in the selection list and at the insertion point. At block 174,
the solid-
line box around the first entry in the selection list (and also at the
insertion point
where it has been provisionally posted) is changed to a dotted-line box. At a
S block I75 shown in FIGURE 3, the system then waits to detect the next
keystroke
entered by the user. Upon receipt of a keystroke, at block 175A the system
performs
pre-processing required for the punctuation key 63 shown in FIGURE SA, and
discussed in detail below. At a decision block l 76, a test is made to
determine if the
next keystroke is the Select key. If the next keystroke is the Select key, at
a
block 178 the system advances to the next entry in the selection list and
marks it as
the currently selected item. Following this initial processing of the received
keystroke, at block 178B the system performs post-processing required for the
punctuation key 63 shown in FIGURE SB, and discussed in detail below. At block
179, the currently selected entry is provisionally displayed in the selection
list and at
I S the insertion point with a dotted-line box around the entry. The routine
then returns
to block 17S to detect the next keystroke entered by the user. It will be
appreciated
that the loop formed by blocks 17S-179 allows the user to select various
interpretations of the entered ambiguous keystroke sequence having a lesser
frequency of use by depressing the Select key multiple times.
If the next keystroke is not the Select key, from decision block 176 the
routine continues to a block 180 where the provisionally displayed entry is
selected
as the keystroke sequence interpretation and is converted to normal text
formatting in
the text region. At a block 184, the old keystroke_ sequence is cleared from
the
system memory, since the receipt of an ambiguous keystroke following the
Select
2S key indicates to the system the start of a new ambiguous sequence. The
newly
received keystroke is then used to start the new keystroke sequence at block
154.
Because the word interpretation having the highest frequency of use is
presented as
the default choice. the main routine of the disambiguation software allows a
user to
continuously enter text with a minimum number of instances where additional
activation's of the Select key are required.
As noted above, in the normal mode of operation the entries in the selection
list 76 corresponding to words are presented first in the list. In other
circumstances,
it may be desirable to have other keystroke sequence interpretations presented
first in
the list. For example, in systems where there is not sufficient display area
to support
3S the display of a literal selection "list'' on the display screen, the set
of possible
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matching objects from the database is stored internally by the software and
only the
default object or explicitly selected object (following one or more
activations of the
Select key) is displayed at the insertion point.
In such systems, the object displayed at the insertion point may tend to
change significantly with each keysvoke added to the input sequence. since the
most
frequent word corresponding to the new keystroke sequence may bear little or
no
resemblance to the most frequent word corresponding to the previous input
sequence.
The result can be that the object displayed at the insertion point can appear
"jumpy"
to the user, and its constantly changing appearance can be distracting,
especially to a
new or unfamiliar user. To reduce this "jumpiness" at the insertion point. the
system
can be configured so that, rather than always displaying the most frequent
word
object corresponding to the current key sequence. a word or word stem object
may be
displayed if it corresponds to a longer word or plurality of words with a
total
frequency that exceeds a threshold. The result of this "stem promotion" is
that
1 ~ changes in the word displayed at the insertion point frequently consist of
simply
appending an additional letter to the text object previously displayed. For
example,
in typing the frequent word "this", the user presses the four keystrokes TUV,
GHI,
GHI, PQRS. Without performing stem promotion, the system would display the
following sequence of objects (one at a time) at the insertion point: ''t",
"vi", "ugh",
''this". When stem promotion is performed, the system displays: ''t", "th",
"thi",
"this". The result is that a new or unfamiliar user tends to have more
confidence that
the disambiguating system will correctly interpret his or her keystrokes. The
flowchart in FIGURE 4 shows how the system determines which object to display
at
a given node for a given keystroke sequence.
FIGURE 4 is a flow chart of a routine of the software program that generates
a database of words in the tree structure of nodes where each node corresponds
to an
ambiguous keystroke sequence. At each node, a number of word objects are
generated corresponding to possible words or word stems that are generated by
the
keystroke sequence. At a block 190, a threshold "MinFactor" is set. This
threshold
corresponds to the minimum factor by which the total frequency of a text
object must
exceed that of the most frequent word object at a node in order to be promoted
over
that word object (i.e., to be the default object displayed first in the
selection list for
that node). The total frequency of a word object is the frequency of the word
itself
plus the sum of the frequencies of all the longer words of which the word is
the stem
(i.e. corresponds to the initial letters of the longer words). At block 191, a
second
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threshold "MaxWordFreq" is set which corresponds to the maximum relative
frequency of a word over which another stem may be promoted. At block 192, all
of
the nodes in the tree are traversed and marked as unprocessed. At block 193,
the
routine determines if all nodes of the tree have been processed. If so, the
routine
S halts, otherwise at block 194, the system fetches the next unprocessed node,
and
determines the frequency of the most frequent word object {MostFreqWord), the
total
frequency of that word together with all words of which that word is a stem
(MostFreqWordTot), and the object for which the total frequency of all words
of
which that object is a stem is highest among ail objects associated with the
node
(MostFreqStemTot). At block 195, the system tests whether MostFreqStemTot
exceeds the value MostFreq WordT'ot by at least a factor of MinFactor. If not,
the
default object associated with the node is left unchanged, and the system
returns to
block 198, where the node is marked as already processed before returning to
block 193. if at block 195 MostFreqWordTot is exceeded by at least a factor of
1 S MinFactor: then at block 196, the system tests whether the frequency of
the current
default object associated with the node (MostFreqWord) exceeds the maximum
value
of a word over which another object may be promoted (MaxWordFreq). If so, the
default object associated with the node is left unchanged, and the system
returns to
block 198. If not, at block 197 the node is modified so that the object
associated with
MostFreqStemTot is designated as the default object associated with the node
before
returnine to block 198.
The test at block 196 is needed to prevent very common stems from being
promoted over common words. For example, the stem "fo" of the word "for"
occurs
with a very high frequency, so that for reasonable values of MinFactor (e.g.,
a value
of 1.5), the test at block 195 would be satisfied even though the common word
"do"
also occurs at the same node. The word "do" obviously occurs with a relatively
high
frequency, and it would be a significant detriment to the efficiency of the
disambiguating system if "do" did not appear as the default object for that
node.
II. Advanced System Features
1. Disambiguation of Punctuation
FIGURE 1 shows one preferred embodiment of the present invention, in
which the upper left key of the data keys 56 (the ''punctuation key") is
associated
with the punctuation characters period, hyphen, and apostrophe. All of these
characters are commonly used in a number of languages, for example both
English
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and French. Other sets of characters (for example, the characters comma,
hyphen,
and long dash) may be assigned to the key and disambiguated using the same
principles of the approach as the disambiguating system of the present
invention.
The system uses the context of the keystrokes surrounding a keystroke on the
punctuation key 63 to determine which punctuation character is intended. The
default behavior of the punctuation key 63 is also modified to handle certain
special
cases presented by certain languages.
The flowcharts in FIGURE SA and FIGURE SB show how the system
determines which character to generate for a given activation of the
punctuation key.
Different text objects created using different punctuation characters
associated with
the punctuation key 63 are added to the selection list. The default
interpretation of
the activation of the punctuation key 63 is determined by which object is
added as the
first object in the selection list. Alternate interpretations may also be
selected by
activating the Select key, or by tapping the desired interpretation in a
displayed
selection list. FIGURE SA shows the routine which processes each keystroke
received by the system prior to the normal system processing shown in FIGURE 3
in
which the system adds the keystroke to the current input keystroke sequence,
determines which words correspond to the new input sequence, and generates an
updated selection list based on the new sequence. The processing depicted in
FIGURE SA occurs at blocks 1 SOA and 175A in FIGURE 3. FIGURE ~B shows the
routine that then post-processes the newly generated selection list. The
processing
depicted in FIGURE SB occurs at blocks 164B and 178B in FIGURE 3. All flags
are
assumed to have been cleared at system initialization time.
In starting to pre-process each keystroke. at block 200 in FIGURE SA the flag
ClearPunctMode is checked. The flag ClearPunctMode is set (at block 262) to
indicate that all punctuation key related flags and buffers should be cleared
at the
start of processing the next keystroke. If at block 200 the flag is found to
be set then
at block 202 all flags and buffers exclusively used for punctuation key 63
processing
are cleared. These same flags and buffers are also cleared at system
initialization
time. The curPunctWord buffer is used to save the text object to which the
punctuation key software will append punctuation characters to create objects
that are
added to the selection list. The pState flag saves the current state of the
punctuation
key software and differentiates between the different possible cases for the
context in
which the punctuation key 63 was activated. If at block 204 the current key
being
pre-processed is the punctuation key 63, then at block 206 the current default
(or
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explicitly selected object) is saved in the curPunctWord buffer, and at block
208 the
flag pState is set to PUNCT KEY, indicating that the punctuation key 63 was
the last
key received. Block 212 represents the normal processing of the keystroke as
depicted in FIGURE 3 starting at block 151 or 176. Execution then continues
with
the post-processing shown in FIGURE SB, starting from connector D.
If at block 204 the current key is not the punctuation key, then at block 220
if
the pState flag is not set, then at block 222 all flags and buffers
exclusively used for
punctuation key processing are cleared, and normal processing of the keystroke
continues at block 212. If at block 220 the pState flag is set to a non-zero
value, then
at block 230 if the current ke ~ is one of the ambiguous data keys 56. then
the system
proceeds to block 232 test whether the system flag Apostrophe_S is set. The
Apostrophe S flag is set TRUE only for languages such as English where it is
common to concatenate an apostrophe followed by the letter 's' to the end of a
word
(to form a possessive or a contraction with the word "is"). If the Apostrophe
S flag
is set TRUE. then if at block 234 the pState flag is found to be set to PUNCT
KEY
(showing that the previous key activation was the punctuation key) and if at
block 236 the current key is found to be the data key associated with the
letter 's' (the
PQRS key in FIGURE 1 ), then at block 238 the pState flag is set to APOS_S
indicating that the punctuation key 63 has been received and that the special
case of
an apostrophe followed by 's' has been recognized. If either test (block 234
or
block 236) fails. then at block 237 the pState flag is set to PUNCT RCVD
indicating
that the punctuation key 63 has been received and the punctuation key
processing
should be performed, but that no special case currently applies (such as
recognizing
apostrophe followed by 's'}. In either case, after pState is set, normal
processing of
the keystroke continues at block 212.
If at block 230, the current key is determined not to be an ambiguous data
key, then at block 250 the system determines whether the current key is the
Backspace key. If so, then at block 252, all punctuation key related flags and
buffers
are restored to their states prior to the deleted keystroke, after which
normal
processing of the keystroke (the Backspace key) continues (via connector C) at
block 212. if at block 250 the current key is not the Backspace key, then at
block 260, a test is performed to determine whether the current key is a MODE
key,
the Select key or the Shift key (i.e. a key that will not result in the
current word being
''accepted" and output to the text buffer). If so, normal processing of the
keystroke
continues (via connector C) at block 212. Otherwise, at block 260 the key is
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determined to be one that will cause the current word to be accepted, and at
block 262 the pState flag is cleared and the CIearPunetMode flag is set so
that all
punctuation key related flags and buffers will be cleared on receipt of the
next
keystroke at block 202.
If at block 232, it is detetrnined that the Apostrophe S flag is not set, then
at
block 270 the system determines whether the Apostrophe Term flag is set, and
at
block 272, whether the pState flag is set to PUNCT APOS indicating that the
punctuation key 63 has been received and that the special case has been
recognized
of a word ending in an apostrophe having been added to the selection list. The
Apostrophe Term flag is set TRUE for languages such as French where it is
common
to concatenate various words ending in apostrophe (e.g. 1', d', etc.) with a
following
word without typing a space between the two words. In such languages, it is
very
convenient to have the system automatically generate an implicit "Select" in
order to
enable the user to immediately begin typing the following word with out having
to
1 ~ explicitly activate the Select key. If the tests at both block 270 and 272
are satisfied.
the current default or selected word is accepted and output to the text buffer
as if the
Select key had been activated. Then at block 276, the current keystroke list
is
cleared, and execution proceeds to block 262, where the pState flag is cleared
and the
CIearPunctMode flag is set. On the other hand, if at block 270 the system
determines
that the Apostrophe Term flag is not set. or at block 272 that the pState flag
is not set
to PUNCT APOS, then at block 278 the pState flag is set to PUNCT RCVD. and
normal processing of the keystroke continues (via connector C) at block 212.
Following the normal processing of a keystroke represented by block 212 in
FIGURE SA (and shown in detail in FIGURE 3), post-processing is performed as
2s shown in FIGURE SB, starting from connector D. At block 300, if the pState
flag is
not set. no post-processing is required and the subroutine simply returns in a
block 320. Blocks 302, 304, and 306 check whether the Apostrophe Tetm flag is
set, the pState flag is set to PUNCT KEY, and the current default word ends
with an
apostrophe. If all three conditions are met. at block 308 the pState flag is
set to
PUNCT_APOS, otherwise the system proceeds to block 310 without setting a new
value for pState. 1f at block 310 the pState flag is set to PUNCT APOS or
PUNCT KEY, then at blocks 312. 314. and 316 the text object saved in the
curPunctWord buffer is added to the selection list after appending a period.
hyphen.
and apostrophe, respectively. If the test at block 310 fails. and if at block
330 pState
3~ is found to be set to APOS S, then at block 332 the text object saved in
the
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curPunctWord buffer is added to the selection List after appending an
apostrophe and
an 's'. Then at blocks 334, 336, 338, and 340 the text object saved in the
curPunctWord buffer is added to the selection list after appending a hyphen
followed
by each of the letters associated with the PQRS key. The pState flag is then
set to
S PUNCT RCVD in a block 342.
If at block 330 the pState flag is not set to APOS S, then at block 352 the
system checks whether the current selection list is empty. If not, then one or
more
objects have been found in the database which explicitly match the current key
sequence in the keystroke buffer (which includes at least one activation of
the
punctuation key). In this case, the subroutine simply returns in a block 364
without
changing the contents of the keystroke buffer so that the database object can
be
spelled if that is the user's intention. Othervvise, as soon as there are no
more
matching objects in the database. at block 356 the text object saved in the
curPunctWord buffer is output as accepted text after appending a hyphen to it.
At
1~ block 3~8, keystrokes are deleted from the start of the keystroke buffer up
to and
including the keystroke for the punctuation key. Then at block 360 the
database is
queried and an updated selection list is generated based on the modified
keystroke
buffer. Finally at block 362. all buffers and flags for the punctuation key
are cleared
prior to returning from the subroutine.
2. A~aiimi:ing Performance While Minirnizirtg Storage of h'ocabulary
Modules
Inherent in the combination of the keystroke to object identification software
process of subroutine 620, depicted in FIGURE 13 operating on the tree data
structure 110 depicted in FIGURE 10, lie several novel means to retrieve a
larger
vocabulary of objects while using less storage for the vocabulary module
without
increasing the processing time of subroutine 620.
By ordering the symbols in each row of the logical symbol index table 550 of
a given vocabulary module according to their frequency of use in the input
lexicon. a
large majority of the instructions S58 of all nodes 400 in the tree data
structure 110
can be made to have their LOGICAL-SYMBOL-INDEX fields 5» equal to one.
Similarly, by ordering the inswctions 568 of all packets like 406 in all nodes
400 so
that the stem and word objects are generated in the object list 440 in
decreasing order
of their use in the language, a large majority of the instructions 558 of all
nodes 400
in the tree structure 110 can be made to have their OBJECT-LIST-INDEX fields
SSb
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equal to one. Thus, much of the data in the tree 110 are redundant.
Systematically
identifying the redundancies and eliminating them by redirecting the paths
linking
parent nodes to child nodes and deleting child nodes no longer referenced
leads to a
highly folded or wrapped data structure containing far fewer nodes, far fewer
inswctions. and far fewer links than the original tree, yet which still
retrieves every
object retrievable from the original tree. Furthermore, distinct instances of
paths
through the original tree whose instructions generate similar objects in the
object
list 440 are merged into common paths in the folded tree which hence forth
function
. as generalized (as opposed to specific) object constructing rules, enabling
the reduced
structure to generate far more objects than were originally used to define the
tree 1 I O
of a given vocabulary module. For example. an unfolded vocabulary tree
generated
from a list of 30,000 English words might contain over 78,000 instructions in
a
preferred embodiment. After folding by a preferred embodiment of the folding
process, the modified tree might contain fewer than 29,000 instructions. a
number
less than the number of word objects the structure is capable of retrieving
given the
ambiguous keystroke sequences and the retrieval process embodied in a
preferred
manner in the flow chart of FIGURE 12. A remarkable and novel result, since
each
instruction only alters one object in the object list 430 by appending a
single symbol
in response to a key press. This is a consequence of the folded tree and
software
retrieval process re-using common sequences of instructions as general object
construction rules.
The nodes depicted in FIGURE 9 are examples. Node 560 has two valid keys
as indicated by the "1 "s in its valid keys field X62 "010100000". In a
preferred
embodiment the positions of the "1 "s indicate that the 2"d and 4'f' keys are
valid paths
and have packets of instructions and pointers to child nodes associated with
them 566
and 568. Packet 566 contains three instructions "( 1, I ,0)", ''( 1,2,0)". and
"(2,1, I )"
followed by a pointer "P" linking X60 to a child node. If subroutine 600 has
processed a list of key strokes leading to node 560, then subroutine 620 were
called
to process a "2" key, which is the ABC key in a preferred embodiment, the
following would happen. Instruction X61 would append the 15' logical symbol of
key
ABC (an "a") to the old object at index 1 to build the new object at index I.
The
third field of 561, "0", is the false value of the STOP-FLAG 557. indicating
that this
is not the last instruction of the current packet, so the next instruction 563
is
interpreted. Instruction 563 would append the 1 S' logical symbol of key ABC
(an
''a") to the old object at index 2 to build the new object at index 2. The
index of the
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new object will be 2 because the indices of the new objects being built are
implicit in
the order of the instructions themselves, e.g. the 2"a instruction always
builds the 2"a
object. The third field of instruction 563, "0", is the false value of the
STOP-FLAG
557, so the next instruction 56? is interpreted. Instruction 567 would append
the 2"a
logical symbol of key ABC (a "c") to the old object at index 1 to build the
new object
aI index 3. The third field of instruction 567, "1 ", is the true value of the
STOP-
FLAG 557, indicating that this is the last instruction of the current packet,
so
execution of subroutine 620 would pass from block 638 to block 644.
It is possible to combine two or more nodes containing different instruction
packets 408 into a single node which can serve the same purpose as the
multiple
nodes separately, which means that certain nodes in a vocabulary tree 110 are
redundant in a novel sense. For the purpose of this invention the word
''redundant" is
used with respect to two nodes in the sense that one node can be dispensed
with by
the operations of the software processes which are depicted in a preferred
I ~ embodiment in FIGURES 14-17.
For example, compare node 560 to node 574 in FIGURE 9. The instruction
packets 566 and 571 on key 2 agree exactly, but instruction 570 on key 4 of
node 560
conflicts with instruction 572 on key 4 of node 574, so neither can do the
work of the
other, nor can the two nodes be combined into one which would do the work of
both.
Compare node 560 to node 576. The instruction packets 566 and 577 associated
with
key 2 on each node agree exactly. Inswctions 569 and 578 are different in the
settings of their STOP-FLAG fields 557, but that difference does not cause
them to
conflict. The essential result of the object retrieval process of subroutine
620 in
FIGURE 14 is the new object list created by executing the set of instructions
at a
node for a given key. Additional objects can be appended to the end of an
object list
without detriment to the correct processing of any of that node's children.
Thus, no
errors would be caused in the processing of the children of node 576 by the
execution
of an additional instruction after 578. The essence of the process would be
disturbed
only if the wrong instruction were to execute or if too few instructions were
to
execute. Similarly, the presence of a valid key on key 9 of node 576 does not
conflict with the absence of a valid 9 key in node 560. Therefore, nodes 560
and 576
are redundant acrd can be merged into a new node 582 which achieves the net
effect
of both. and functions correctly as a parent node of the children of both. It
will be
appreciated that the pointers also play a role in defining redundancy. At the
last
3s keystroke of sequences in the tree associated with words which do not
continue to
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form the stems of longer words, the pointers in the valid key packets 408 have
a
special value, NULL, in a preferred embodiment to indicate that there are no
further
children. Such nodes are called "terminal nodes." For two nodes with child
nodes
on valid keys in common to both nodes, the respective child nodes must be
redundant
for their parent nodes to be redundant, and so on to the nodes descending from
the
children, until terminal nodes are reached, or until there are no more
descendants on
valid keys sequences common to the nodes being compared.
FIGURES 14 to 17 depict flow charts of preferred embodiments of software
processes for the compression and folding of vocabulary module trees similar
to
tree 110 shown in FIGURE 10. FIGURE 14 is a flowchart of preferred embodiment
of a software process to build a compressed vocabulary module. In block 652 a
lexicon is scanned to identify any necessary additional ambiguous symbols
other
than those appearing on the physical keys, such as in FIGURE 6 for a French
vocabulary module. In blocks 654-656 the symbols are assigned their logical
indices
on their respective keys in decreasing order of their frequency of use in the
input
lexicon, as in the example of FIGURE 7. Given a lexicon of objects with
frequencies, it will be obvious to someone skilled in the art how block 658
builds a
vocabulary tree of the form 110. In block 660, redundant nodes are identified
and
merged together to minimize duplication of data and. hence. turn isolated
instruction
sequences associated with single objects into generalized rules for retrieving
multiple
objects. This process is shown in detail in FIGURE 15. Block 662 identifies
all the
remaining NULL pointers from terminal nodes and chanbes them to point to the
node
with the largest number of parents, thus increasing the number of rules in the
module.
It will be appreciated that other rules could apply to assigning child nodes
to the
NULL pointers, and that such rules could be applied dynamically at the time of
object retrieval, based on factors related to the key strokes being processed.
In block
664, the remaining instances of each unique instruction 558 and pointer 404a
are
counted so that they may be encoded as unique patterns of bits with shorter
bit
patterns being assigned to higher frequency instructions and addresses to
conserve
space. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention. Huffman coding is
used
to assign minimal length bit patterns to instructions and addresses. It will
be
appreciated that Huffman coding techniques are well-known in the art. and
thus, need
not be discussed in more detail herein. Furthermore, nodes which are child
nodes of
multiple parent nodes may be stored in special orderings to facilitate their
rapid
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retrieval and minimize the number of bits required to address them. Finally,
the data
generated as described above is written to a file in block 666.
In choosing instructions 558 to describe objects to be stored while building
the tree at block 658, it will be appreciated that when objects are words or
stems of
words, their character sequences contain additional data which may be used
advantageously to increase the redundancy of the nodes in tree 110. For
example,
not all pairs of letters in the English language are equally common, e.g. "s"
is
commonly paired with "t". The statistics of letter pairs, or bigrams, can be
used to
predict the most likely next letter in an object from the preceding letter.
With such
IO predictions the logical ordering of the ambiguous symbols in the logical
symbol
index table 550 can be dynamically altered to further optimize the use of the
first
position. The predictions can be extended to letter triplets, trigrams, and
generally to
n-grams.
FIGURE 1 ~ is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process to
fold the tree 1 I 0 of a vocabulary module. Block 670 is entered from block
660 of the
flowchart of FIGURE 14. Block 672 initializes the process to begin with the
first
node of tree 110 of FIGURE 10 after the root node I 11. Block 674 calls
subroutine
690 depicted in a preferred embodiment in the flowchart of FIGURE 16 to locate
a
node, if any, which is maximally redundant with the current node. If a
destination
node is found, decision block 676 directs the process to block 678 where the
redundant nodes) are merged together, eliminating duplicate data from the tree
subsuming multiple, individual instances of instructions into shared
sequences,
which are general rules for associaiing keystroke sequences to objects. 1f
decision
block 676 fails, then decision block 680 tests whether the process is done. If
there
2~ are more nodes to process, the flow advances to block 682 to identify
another node.
FIGURE 16 is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process to
find in a tree 110 a node with the highest degree of redundancy with respect
to a
given node. Block 690 is entered from block 674 of the flowchart of FIGURE I5.
Block 692 initializes a placeholder MAX-SAVINGS for the measured redundancy.
Block 694 initializes the process to start at the root node 111 of tree 110 of
FIGURE 10. Block 696 calls subroutine 710 depicted in a flow chart of a
preferred
embodiment in FIGURE 17 to compute the redundancy of the given node with
respect to the current node. Decision block 698 tests whether a degree of
redundancy
greater than MAX-SAVINGS was reported. If so, block 700 records the identity
3~ BEST-NODE of the node provisionally found to be most redundant with respect
to
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the given node and the reported measure of redundancy as MAX-SAVINGS.
Decision block 702 tests whether all nodes have been evaluated. If not, flow
continues to block 704, which advances from the current node to the next node.
From block 704, flow returns to block 696. If the result of the test at
decision block
702 is that the last node has been evaluated, then block 706 returns the
identity of the
node most redundant, if at all, to the given node to block 674 of subroutine
670 of
FIGURE 15.
FIGURE 17 is a flowchart of a preferred embodiment of a software process to
compute the numerical redundancy between two specified nodes. Block 710 is
entered from block 696 of the flowchart of subroutine 690 of FIGURE 16.
Block 712 initializes a count of duplicate instructions. Block 714 initializes
KEY-
INDEX to 1. Block 716 reads the instruction packets 406 associated with key
KEY-
INDEX from the first of two nodes 400 specified as parameters to the
subroutine and
puts them in a temporary list, LIST-A. If key KEY-INDEX is not a valid key, no
instructions are read. Block 718 reads the instruction packets 406 associated
with
key KEY-INDEX from the second of two nodes 400 specified as parameters to the
subroutine and puts them in a temporary list, LIST-B. If key KEY-INDEX is not
a
valid key, no instructions are read. Decision block 720 determines whether
either
LIST-A or LIST-B is empty. If not, block 722 fetches one instruction from both
LIST-A and LIST-B, reducing the number of instructions remaining in each by
one.
Decision block 724 test, whether the instructions are the same in their
LOGICAL-
SYMBOL-INDEX and OBJECT-LIST-INDEX fields. If not, a failure code for no
redundancy is returned in a block 726 to block 696 of subroutine 690. If the
decision
of block 724 is yes, then block 728 increments the count SAVED-INSTRUCTIONS.
Control passes again to block 720. If the decision block 720 tests TRUE,
control
passes to decision block 730, which tests whether the two nodes have been
compared
with respect to all possible keys. If not, block 732 increments KEY-INDEX, and
control passes to block 716. If the decision at block 730 is positive, control
passes to
block 734 to reset KEY-INDEX to 1. Block 736 examines the pointers associated
with key KEY-INDEX of the two nodes. Decision block 738 tests whether either
pointer is empty (NULL), which would be the case for a pointer in a terminal
node or
for any key which is not valid. if neither pointer is empty, control passes to
block
740. which uses subroutine 710 recursively to test whether the child nodes
pointed to
by the two non-empty pointers are redundant. The result of block 740 is tested
at
3~ decision block 742. If the two child nodes were found not to be redundant,
a failure
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code is returned in a block 744. Otherwise, the two children are found to be
redundant with a certain numerical score which is accumulated by block 746.
Decision block 748 tests whether the pointers associated with the last key
(key 9 in
the preferred embodiment) have been tested. If not, block 752 increments KEY-
S INDEX and passes control to block 736. If the test at block 748 determines
that all
pointers have been checked, then the accumulated numerical measure of
redundancy
of the two nodes originally identified when the subroutine was entered at
block 710
is returned.
It will be appreciated that the calculation of numerical values of redundancy
may be weighted to take into account additional factors such as the number of
branches present at each node and the number of parents which point to a node
as a
child. It will be appreciated that if two nodes are not redundant because of
the
ordering of instructions associated with a certain key, the order of
instructions
associated with low frequency words in the input lexicon could be reordered
without
l~ impacting the priority of instructions associated with higher frequency
objects, thus
increasing the redundancy of the tree.
III. Representative Svstem Operation
FIGURES 18A through 18K depict the display ~3 of the portable
computer ~2 during representative use of the reduced keyboard disambiguating
system. After turning on the power of the portable computer, the text region
66 and
selection list region 70 are empty. In FIGURE 18A, the user has typed the
phrase
"This is a test". The vocabulary module has identified the most likely
interpretation
of the sequence of the last four ke~~strokes TUV, DEF, PQRS, TUV as the word
2~ "test" and has provisionally posted this interpretation at the insertion
point 900 and
also placed this word first in the selection list as the default
interpretation 901. This
first entry in the selection list has been drawn with a solid-line box around
it
(indicating that it is the implicitly selected object). and it has also been
provisionally
posted in the text region at insertion point 900 with a solid-line t~ox drawn
around it.
The vocabulary module has also identified the word interpretation "vest" and
the
stem interpretation "vert", and placed these interpretations in the selection
list. The
punctuation key processing software shown in FIGURE ~A and SB has saved the
text
object "test'' in its curPunctWord buffer.
In FIGURE 18B, the user has subsequently pressed the . - ' punctuation
key 63. No object in the database matches the keystroke sequence of the four
keys
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TUV, DEF, PQRS, TUV followed by the punctuation key 63. Thus, the only text
objects appearing in the selection list are those added by the punctuation key
processing software, consisting of the curPunctWord "test" with an appended
period
911, hyphen 913, and apostrophe 914. The resulting default selection list
object is
"test." 911, which is also provisionally posted in the text region at
insertion
point 910.
in FIGURE 18C, the user has subsequently pressed the Space key 922. This
has generated an explicit space character, which has terminated the current
keystroke
sequence, and caused the system to accept the provisionally posted text
"test." A
following space has also been output, after which the system cursor 920
appears.
The keystroke buffer is now empty, and thus the current selection list 921 is
also
empty. This exemplifies one of the default behaviors of the punctuation key 63
-
when activated prior to an activation of the Space (or Select) key, in the
absence of a
match with an object in the database containing a corresponding punctuation
1 ~ character, the previous default text object is output with an appended
period.
In the case of a system designed for the English language (in which the flag
Apostrophe_S is set TRUE), FIGURE 18D shows the result that follows FIGURE
18B when the user presses the PQRS key 932. This triggers the processing shown
in
blocks 332 through 342 of FIGURE SB, and results in the punctuation key
processing software adding the objects ''test's", "test-s", "test-r", "test-p"
and "test-
q" to the selection list in that order. Thus, the resulting default selection
list object is
"test"s" 931. which is also provisionally posted in the text region at
insertion
point 930.
FIGURE 18E shows the result that follows FIGURE 18D when the user
presses the TUV key 932 (with the idea of typing the hyphenated word "test-
run".
This triggers the processing shown in blocks 332 through 340 of FIGURE SB, and
results in the punctuation key processing software causing the text object
"test " to be
output as accepted text, and the keystroke buffer to be modified to contain
only the
last two keystrokes PQRS and TUV. Querying the database (at block 360 in
FIGURE SB) based on these mo keystrokes results in the selection list shown in
FIGURE 18E. The text object ''st'' is the most frequent and thus appears as
the
default selection list object "st" 941. and is also provisionally posted in
the text
region at insertion point 940.
FIGURE 18F shows the result that follows FIGURE 18E when the user
3~ presses the MNO key 952 to finish typing the hyphenated word ''test-run''.
No
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special punctuation key processing occurs since all flags were cleared at
block 362 of
FIGURE SB in processing the previous keystroke. Thus the system simply
processes
the current key sequence PQRS, TUV, MNO. Querying the database based on these
three keystrokes results in the selection list shown in FIGURE 18F. The text
object
"run" is the most frequent and thus appears as the default selection list
object "run"
951, and is also provisionally posted in the text region at insertion point
950.
FIGURES 18G through 18K show an example for a system designed for the
French language (in which the flag Apostrophe Term is set TRUE). In this
example,
the user types the text object ''c'est" which actually consists of the word
"c"'
concatenated with the word "est". FIGURE 18G shows the result when the user
presses the ABC key 962. The selection list shows the single character objects
associated with the ABC key for the French language, including the accented
characters a. a, and ~. No special punctuation key processing occurs , since
all
punctuation key related flags have been previously cleared. The system simply
1 ~ processes the current single-key sequence ABC. Querying the database based
on
these this keystroke results in the selection list shown in FIGURE 18G. The
text
object "a" is the most frequent and appears as the default selection list
object "a" 961,
and is also provisionally posted in the text region at insertion point 960.
In FIGURE 18H, the user has subsequently pressed the . - ' punctuation
key 63. The objects " c' " and " a- " are stored in the database. and are
added to the
selection list at blocks 156 through 160 in FIGURE 3 after querying the
database, so
that the resulting default selection list object is " c' " 971. Consequently,
each of the
tests at blocks 300 through 306 in FIGURE SB succeed, and the pState flag is
set to
PUNCT APOS in block 308. Foliowing the objects " c' " 971 and " a- " 973 in
the
selection list, the punctuation key processing software (at blocks 312, 314,
and 316 in
FIGURE SB) adds the objects " a. ", " a- ", and " a' " consisting of the
curPunctWord
a " with an appended period 974, hyphen 975, and apostrophe 976. The resulting
default selection list object is " c' " 971, which is also provisionally
posted in the text
region at insertion point 970.
In FIGURE 18I, the user has subsequently pressed the DEF key 982. Since
the pState flag was set to PUNCT_APOS as a result of processing the previous
keystroke in FIGURE 18H, the punctuation key processing software executes
blocks 274, 276, and 262 in FIGURE SA. The current default selection list
object
" c' " is output as accepted text 983, the current keystroke buffer is
cleared, and the
system simply processes the resulting single-key sequence DEF as a result of
adding
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the current keystroke DEF to the cleared keystroke buffer. Querying the
database
based on these this keystroke results in the selection list shown in FIGURE
18I. The
text object "d" is the most frequent and appears as the default selection list
object "d"
981, and is also provisionally posted in the text region at insertion point
980.
FIGURES 18J and 18K show the results that follow FIGURE 18I when the
user presses the PQRS key 992 (in 18J) and TUV key 997 (in 18K) to finish
typing
the word "est". No special punctuation key processing occurs since the
ClearPunctMode flag was set at block 262 of FIGURE SA in processing the
previous
keystroke, so that all buffers and flags for the punctuation key were cleared
at block
202 of FIGURE SA. Thus the system simply processes the current key sequence
DEF, PQRS, TUV. Querying the database based on these three keystrokes results
in
the selection list shown in FIGURE 18K. The text obiect "est'' is the most
frequent
and thus appears as the default selection list object "est" 996, and is also
provisionally posted in the text region at insertion point 995.
The French language contains a number of very frequently used panicles,
prepositions, and pronouns such as le, rte, ce, de. me, se, je, que, to and to
that, when
preceding a word that begins with a vowel, change their final vowel into an
apostrophe and are typed with no space before the following word. Without the
behavior supported by the punctuation key 63 shown in the preceding example,
this
frequent concatenation of word objects would otherwise require the user to
make an
additional key activation of the Select key in order to terminate the first
word object
(c' in the example shown) prior to typing the second object (est). Thus the
ability of
the punctuation key 63 to support automatic concatenation to word objects that
end
in an apostrophe significantly increases the efficiency and natural feel of
the system
for the languages such as French.
While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and
described, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein
without
departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, those
skilled in
the art will appreciate that the keyboard 54 of the reduced keyboard
disambiguating
system may have as few as three or as many as twenty data keys. The
disambiguation technique disclosed herein is equally applicable to keyboards
of
different sizes. The specific characters associated with the punctuation key
63 may
be changed. For example, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the
period could
be replaced by the comma for certain applications. Furthermore, the specific
3~ selections of which punctuation character is generated in different
surrounding
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keystroke contexts could also be altered. For example, two successive
activations of
the punctuation key 63 followed by a could result in generating an Em Dash "-
",
while three successive activations would generate an ellipsis "...".
Those skilled in the art will also recognize that additional vocabulary
modules can be enabled within the computer, for example vocabulary modules
containing legal terms, medical terms, and foreign language terms. Via a
system
menu, the user can configure the system so that the additional vocabulary
words can
be caused to appear first or last in the list of possible words, with special
coloration
. or highlighting. Consequently, within the scope of the appended claims, it
will be
l0 appreciated that the invention can be practiced otherwise than as
specifically
described herein.
