Touch Selection Control Icon for Precise Text Editing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current touch-based operating systems on mobile devices face challenges in accurately positioning and selecting text, images, and menu items on touch-sensitive displays, leading to awkward and error-prone interactions, especially near the edges of the screen, and lack user customization and accessibility features.
Innovation Solution
A graphical user interface and method that allows for precise selection and editing on touch-sensitive displays by using gestures on a control icon to change the position of a selection within content, enabling zero-length, one-character, and text-object selections, with drag-lock features and secondary-click actions, and user-selectable settings for gesture speed and menu display.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If direct manipulation of objects on the screen is used for selection, then the solution supports simple tasks like quick selection of a single word or entire content, but it does not support quick selection of a character, group of characters, or group of words
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic selection behavior where a single finger drag gesture can adaptively select different units of text (character, word, line, or paragraph) based on the context and distance dragged. This dynamic adaptation allows the same gesture to support both quick single-word selection and more granular character-level selection, resolving the contradiction between selection speed and selection flexibility
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes selection parameters (selection unit size) based on gesture characteristics such as drag distance, speed, and direction. By monitoring these parameters, the system can switch between selecting a single character, a whole word, or multiple lines, thereby providing both quick selection capability and fine-grained control without requiring multiple different gestures
2Ease of operation
If on-screen graphical user interfaces are used for text selection, then the device can support simple selection tasks, but positioning the selection is awkward and error-prone
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces visual feedback intermediaries such as selection highlights, boundary indicators, and preview markers that appear during the dragging gesture. These visual cues help the user understand exactly which text will be selected before finalizing the gesture, thereby improving precision without compromising ease of operation. The visual intermediary acts as a mediator between the user's intent and the actual selection result
3Ease of operation
If the user's finger directly touches the display for selection, then the interaction is simple, but the user's finger occludes direct view of the selection position
Solution Approach 1:
The patent resolves the occlusion problem by separating the interaction dimension from the visual feedback dimension. While the finger interacts with the screen in two dimensions, the visual feedback is provided through transparent highlights and color changes that allow the user to see through the finger's position. Additionally, the system provides continuous visual feedback along the drag path, enabling the user to track selection progress without lifting their finger, thus maintaining both simplicity and visual awareness
Data Source
AI summary
A graphical user interface on a computing device with a touch-sensitive display wherein: a selection is displayed within content; a control icon is displayed; a contact on the touch-sensitive display is detected; in response to detecting a change in a horizontal and vertical position of the contact beginning anywhere on the control icon, a horizontal position of the selection relative to the control icon is changed and a vertical position of the selection is changed; and in response to detecting a tap and change in a position of a contact beginning anywhere on the control icon, a portion of the content is selected beginning at a position of the selection within the content.