Handheld electronic device with reduced keyboard and associated method of providing quick text entry in a message
View Patent ↗An improved handheld electronic device having a reduced keyboard provides facilitated language entry by making available to a user certain words that a user may reasonably be expected to enter. In some situations, certain words can be stored, for example, in a temporary dictionary for use in particular situations. For instance, the names of the recipients of an electronic message might be stored in a temporary dictionary for rapid retrieval when entering a salutation in the message. As another example, a number of the words in an existing electronic message may be stored in a temporary dictionary and made available to a user when replying to or forwarding the message since the existing message might include words that the user might reasonably be expected to type in the reply message or the forwarded message.
1. A method of enabling disambiguation of an input into a handheld electronic device, the handheld electronic device including an input apparatus, an output apparatus, and a memory having a plurality of objects stored therein, the plurality of objects including a plurality of language objects and a plurality of frequency objects, some of the language objects of the plurality of language objects being associated with a frequency object of the plurality of frequency objects, the handheld electronic device having at least one message available thereon, the at least one message having a number of language objects, the input apparatus including a plurality of input members, each of at least a portion of the input members of the plurality of input members having a plurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto, the method comprising:
storing in a first portion of memory at least a portion of the language objects of the at least one message, said first portion being associated with the at least one message;
detecting at least one of a replying input and a forwarding input with respect to the at least one message;
detecting an ambiguous input including a number of input member actuations of a number of the input members of the plurality of input members;
identifying in the first portion of the memory a first language object that corresponds with the ambiguous input; and
outputting at least a portion of the first language object as a first proposed disambiguation of the ambiguous input.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
obtaining a first frequency object that is associated with the first language object, the first frequency object having a first frequency value;
identifying in a second portion of the memory a second language object that corresponds with the ambiguous input;
obtaining a second frequency object that is associated with the second language object, the second frequency object having a second frequency value; and
determining that the first frequency value is greater than the second frequency value.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising outputting at least a portion of the second language object as a second proposed disambiguation of the ambiguous input and as having associated therewith a lower frequency value than is associated with the first proposed disambiguation.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising making a comparison between at least a portion of the message and a first entry in a lookup table in the memory, and employing the first entry in a determination that the first portion of the memory is associated with the message.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising identifying in the lookup table a second entry, the second entry corresponding with the first entry, and employing the second entry to locate the first portion of the memory.
6. The method of claim 4 , further comprising employing as the at least a portion of the message at least a portion of a subject of the message.
7. The method of claim 4 , further comprising employing as the at least a portion of the message a hash of at least a portion of a subject of the message.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising adding to a lookup table an entry that corresponds with a location identifier of the first portion of the memory.
9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising adding to the lookup table another entry that corresponds with at least a portion of the message, the entry that corresponds with the location identifier of the first portion of the memory and the another entry that corresponds with at least a portion of the message being associated.
10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising employing as the at least a portion of the message at least a portion of a subject of the message.
11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising adding as the another entry a hash of at least a portion of a subject of the message.
12. A handheld electronic device comprising:
a processor apparatus including a memory having a plurality of objects stored therein, the plurality of objects including a plurality of language objects and a plurality of frequency objects, each of at least a portion of the language objects of the plurality of language objects being associated with an associated frequency object of the plurality of frequency objects;
an input apparatus including a plurality of input members, each of at least a portion of the input members of the plurality of input members having a plurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto;
an output apparatus;
the handheld electronic device having at least one message available thereon, each message of at least a portion of the number of messages including a number of language objects;
the memory further having a first portion with at least a portion of the language objects of the at least one message stored thereon;
the processor apparatus being adapted to detect at least one of a replying input and a forwarding input with respect to the at least one message;
the processor apparatus being adapted to detect an ambiguous input including a number of input member actuations of a number of the input members of the plurality of input members,
the processor apparatus being adapted to identify in the first portion of the memory a first language object that corresponds with the ambiguous input; and
the processor apparatus being adapted to output to the output apparatus an output including at least a portion of the first language object as a first proposed disambiguation of the ambiguous input.
13. The handheld electronic device of claim 12 wherein the processor apparatus is adapted to make a comparison between at least a portion of the message and a first entry in a lookup table in the memory, and is further adapted to employ the first entry in a determination that the first portion of the memory is associated with the message.
14. The handheld electronic device of claim 13 wherein the processor apparatus is adapted to identify in the lookup table a second entry, the second entry corresponding with the first entry, and is further adapted to employ the second entry to locate the first portion of the memory.
15. The handheld electronic device of claim 13 wherein the processor apparatus is adapted to employ as the at least a portion of the message at least a portion of a subject of the message.