Gestures for special characters

1. A method comprising:

displaying to a user, by a computing device, a keyboard on a touch-screen of the computing device;

receiving, at the computing device, a suggestion to turn on a touch-gesture feature, wherein the suggestion is sent to the user when a number of the user's social contacts in a social-networking system who have the touch-gesture feature turned on exceeds a threshold number;

enabling the touch-gesture feature based on information associated with the user's social contacts and a received user response to the suggestion;

determining, based on information associated with the user's social contacts in a social-networking system, that a touch-gesture feature should be turned on and enabling the touch-gesture feature;

in response to detection of a touch gesture within a display area of the touch-screen, the touch gesture comprising one or more paths that comprise two or more points on the touch-screen, determining, by the computing device, a particular one of a plurality of characters corresponding to the one or more paths of the touch gesture independent of a location of the touch gesture on the touch-screen; and

entering, by the computing device, the particular one of the characters as user input to the computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the particular character is a comma, em dash, en dash, parenthesis, caret, slash, tilde, quotation mark, or question mark.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the particular character is an Arabic, Chinese, Hangul, Hindi, or Kanji character.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the particular one of the characters comprises:

determining a diacritical mark corresponding to the touch gesture; and

modifying, with the diacritical mark, a character entered with the keyboard immediately before the touch gesture.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the touch gesture occurs at or near a location within the display area displaying a character entered with the keyboard immediately before the touch gesture.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the touch gesture occurs at or near a location within the display area displaying the keyboard.

7. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

display to a user a keyboard on a touch-screen of a computing device;

receive a suggestion to turn on a touch-gesture feature, wherein the suggestion is sent to the user when a number of the user's social contacts in a social-networking system who have the touch-gesture feature turned on exceeds a threshold number;

enable the touch-gesture feature based on information associated with the user's social contacts and a received user response to the suggestion;

in response to detection of a touch gesture within a display area of the touch-screen, the touch gesture comprising one or more paths that comprise two or more points on the touch-screen, determine a particular one of a plurality of characters corresponding to the one or more paths of the touch gesture independent of a location of the touch gesture on the touch-screen; and

enter the particular one of the characters as user input to the computing device.

8. The media of claim 7 , wherein the particular character is a comma, em dash, en dash, parenthesis, caret, slash, tilde, quotation mark, or question mark.

9. The media of claim 7 , wherein the particular character is an Arabic, Chinese, Hangul, Hindi, or Kanji character.

10. The media of claim 7 , wherein to determine the particular one of the characters, the software is operable when executed to:

determine a diacritical mark corresponding to the touch gesture; and

modify, with the diacritical mark, a character entered with the keyboard immediately before the touch gesture.

11. The media of claim 7 , wherein the touch gesture occurs at or near a location within the display area displaying a character entered with the keyboard immediately before the touch gesture.

12. The media of claim 7 , wherein the touch gesture occurs at or near a location within the display area displaying the keyboard.

13. A device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media coupled to the processors and embodying software that is operable when executed by the processors to:

display to a user a keyboard on a touch-screen of the device;

receive a suggestion to turn on a touch-gesture feature, wherein the suggestion is sent to the user when a number of the user's social contacts in a social-networking system who have the touch-gesture feature turned on exceeds a threshold number;

enable the touch-gesture feature based on information associated with the user's social contacts and a received user response to the suggestion;

in response to detection of a touch gesture within a display area of the touch-screen, the touch gesture comprising one or more paths that comprise two or more points on the touch-screen, determine a particular one of a plurality of characters corresponding to the one or more paths of the touch gesture independent of a location of the touch gesture on the touch-screen; and

enter the particular one of the characters as user input to the device.

14. The device of claim 13 , wherein the particular character is a comma, em dash, en dash, parenthesis, caret, slash, tilde, quotation mark, or question mark.

15. The device of claim 13 , wherein to determine the particular one of the characters, the software is operable when executed by the processors to:

determine a diacritical mark corresponding to the touch gesture; and

modify, with the diacritical mark, a character entered with the keyboard immediately before the touch gesture.

16. The device of claim 13 , wherein the touch gesture occurs at or near a location within the display area displaying a character entered with the keyboard immediately before the touch gesture.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information associated with the user's social contacts comprises whether a number of the user's social contacts who have the touch-gesture feature turned on exceeds a threshold number.

18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the enabling of the touch-gesture feature is further based on a user preference file associated with the user.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received user response comprises a confirmation.