TWI745961B - Electronic apparatus and key function switching method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

An electronic apparatus and a key function switching method thereof are provided. The key function switching method is adapted to the electronic apparatus including a keyboard. Whether a first key of the keyboard is pressed is detected. In response to the first key is pressed, whether a user behavior satisfies a typing status is determined. If the user behavior satisfies the typing status, a key function of a second key is performed in response to the first key is pressed.

Description

Electronic device and its key function switching method

The present invention relates to an electronic device, and more particularly to an electronic device and a method for switching key functions of the electronic device.

With the advancement of science and technology, as well as the development of various electronic devices and the advancement of the various functions they are equipped with, people's lives are becoming more and more inseparable from electronic devices. The keyboard is the most common input tool for consumer electronic products. Although products with different positioning can be matched with different input methods (such as finger touch, stylus, voice input, etc.), the keyboard is still the first choice when you need to input text quickly and in large quantities.

In addition, due to the current laptop design striving to be minimalist, light and thin, coupled with the design trend of narrow bezels, the internal space of the laptop is becoming more and more limited. Therefore, in the past, independent power keys have been integrated into the keyboard to save body space. However, this design may cause users to be afraid of accidentally touching the power keys on the keyboard and drive the computer system to perform unexpected operations. At present, although there is a mechanism to prevent accidental touching of the power button, for example, the user must long press the power button to trigger the function corresponding to the power button. However, there is a situation that when the user attempts to press another button adjacent to the power button but the finger actually presses the power button by mistake, although the function corresponding to the power button will not be accidentally activated, it will cause the user to type The action is interrupted, which affects the fluency of the operation.

In view of this, the present invention provides an electronic device and its key function switching method, which can switch the key function corresponding to the keyboard key according to the user's typing state, which greatly improves the convenience of operation.

The embodiment of the present invention provides a key function switching method, which is suitable for an electronic device including a keyboard, and includes the following steps. Detect whether the first button on the keyboard is pressed. In response to the pressing of the first button, it is determined whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. If the user's behavior conforms to the typing state, the button function corresponding to the second button is executed in response to the pressing of the first button.

An embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic device, which includes a keyboard, a storage device, and a processor. The keyboard includes a first button and a second button, and the storage device records a plurality of commands. The processor is coupled to the keyboard and the storage device, and executes the instructions to: detect whether the first button on the keyboard is pressed; react to the pressing of the first button, determine whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state; and if the user's behavior conforms to the typing state In the typing state, the key function corresponding to the second key is executed in response to the pressing of the first key.

Based on the above, in the embodiment of the present invention, when the first button on the keyboard is pressed, it will be determined whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. If it is determined that the user's behavior conforms to the typing state, the first button is pressed to execute the button function corresponding to the second button. In this way, the present invention can determine whether the user's behavior is in the typing state, so that the first key is switched to another key function corresponding to the adjacent second key, thereby improving the operation fluency of the user's keyboard operation.

In order to make the above-mentioned features and advantages of the present invention more comprehensible, the following specific embodiments are described in detail in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Part of the embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The reference symbols in the following description will be regarded as the same or similar elements when the same symbol appears in different drawings. These embodiments are only a part of the present invention, and do not disclose all the possible implementation modes of the present invention. To be more precise, these embodiments are only examples of the devices and methods within the scope of the patent application of the present invention.

It should be understood that when an element is referred to as being “connected” or “coupled” to another element, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being "directly connected" or "directly coupled" to another element, there is no intervening element.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the invention. Please refer to FIG. 1, the electronic device 10 includes a keyboard 110, a controller 120, a chipset 130, a storage device 140, and a processor 150. The electronic device 10 can be a notebook computer, a desktop computer, a game console or other portable electronic devices, and the type of the electronic device 10 is not limited here.

The user can operate, control or input information to the electronic device 10 through the keyboard 110. The keyboard 110 includes a plurality of physical keys, and the user of the electronic device 10 can perform input operations by pressing the keys on the keyboard 110. The keyboard 110 may be a mechanical keyboard or a membrane keyboard, which is not limited in the present invention. In addition, the present invention does not limit the arrangement of the keys on the keyboard 110.

The controller 120 may be an embedded controller, a keyboard controller (KBC), or other controllers associated with a keyboard. The keyboard 110 uses the controller 120 to communicate with the computer system, and the controller 120 can control the keyboard 110 to continuously perform a keyboard scan. In one embodiment, when the user presses any key on the keyboard 110, the controller 120 can query the key matrix table to obtain the scan code. Then, the controller 120 provides the scan code to the processor 150 to control the operation of the electronic device 10.

The chipset 130 is coupled to the controller 120, the storage device 140 and the processor 150. The chipset 130 is mainly responsible for the communication of various hardware components in the electronic device 10. In one embodiment, the chipset 130 may include a south bridge chip and a north bridge chip. The south bridge chip is used to connect the controller 120 and slower peripheral devices, and the north bridge chip is connected to the main memory and the processor 150. Fast components.

The storage device 140 is used to store data such as files, images, commands, program codes, software components, etc., and it can be, for example, any type of fixed or removable random access memory (random access memory, RAM), read-only memory Read-only memory (ROM), flash memory (flash memory), hard disk or other similar devices, integrated circuits, and combinations thereof.

The processor 150 is coupled to the storage device 140 and the keyboard 110 to control the overall operation of the electronic device 10, such as a central processing unit (CPU), or other programmable general-purpose or special-purpose micro Processor (Microprocessor), Digital Signal Processor (DSP), Programmable Controller, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), Programmable Logic Device (PLD) , Or other similar devices or a combination of these devices. The processor 150 can execute program codes, software modules, instructions, etc. recorded in the storage device 140 to implement the key function switching method of the embodiment of the present invention.

However, in addition to the keyboard 110, the controller 120, the chipset 130, the storage device 140, and the processor 150, the electronic device 10 may also include other components not shown in FIG. 1, such as a mouse, a speaker, a microphone, Displays, communication components, etc., are not limited by the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the invention. Please refer to FIG. 2, the electronic device 10 may include a body B1 and a display screen D1 assembled by a plurality of devices, components, and a casing. The keyboard 110 is disposed on the upper surface (also called the keyboard surface) of the body B1.

The keyboard 110 may include a plurality of keys, such as a plurality of alphanumeric keys (alphanumeric Keys), a plurality of function keys (Function Keys), and a function switching key (Fn key). For example, the alphanumeric keys can include alphabet keys a~z, number keys 0-9, Ctrl key, Shift key, Alt key, etc., and function keys can include F1 to F12 keys. It should be particularly noted that, in one embodiment, the keyboard 110 may include a first button and a second button arranged adjacently. Based on this, when the user uses the keyboard 110, the user may mistakenly press the first button when he wants to press the second button. In this case, in the embodiment of the present invention, the button function corresponding to the first button can be switched according to the user's behavior, so that the electronic device 10 responds to the pressing of the first button but executes the button function corresponding to the two buttons, so that the electronic device The device 10 performs operations that meet the user's expectations.

In one embodiment, the first button of the keyboard 110 may include the power button k1 of the electronic device 10, and the power button k1 may be used to turn on the electronic device 10 or to call the power mode management menu. Generally speaking, the power key k1 will be arranged at the upper right corner of the keyboard 110. The second button can be a button k2 or a button k3 adjacent to the power button k1. According to different keyboard configuration designs, the keys k2 and k3 may correspond to various key functions, which is not limited by the present invention. For example, the key k2 may be the Delete key, and the key k3 may be the Backspace key. Alternatively, the key k2 may be the F12 key, and the key k3 may be the Delete key, which is not limited in the present invention. In one embodiment, when the user mistakenly presses the power key k1 while typing, the electronic device 10 can execute the key function corresponding to the key k2 or the key k3, so that the electronic device 10 can perform operations that meet the user's expectations.

In order to further explain how to switch the key function of the first key to another key function based on the user's behavior, the following is a special embodiment to illustrate the present invention. Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a method for switching key functions according to an embodiment of the present invention. Please refer to FIG. 3, the method of this embodiment is applicable to the electronic device 10 in the above-mentioned embodiment. The detailed steps of this embodiment are described below in conjunction with various components in the electronic device 10.

In step S301, the processor 150 detects whether the first button on the keyboard 110 is pressed. That is, the processor 150 can detect whether the first button on the keyboard 110 is pressed by the user through the controller 120. Here, the first button is a button that the user generally does not press in a continuous typing state, such as a power button integrated on the keyboard 110.

In step S302, in response to the pressing of the first button, the processor 150 determines whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. The processor 150 can determine whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state according to the manner in which the user operates the keyboard 110 before the first button is pressed. In one embodiment, the processor 150 determines whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state according to the pressing operation performed on the at least one third button. Here, the pressing operation applied to the at least one third button is performed before the pressing operation applied to the first button. In more detail, the processor 150 can determine whether the user's behavior is in the typing state, such as editing the text of a document, writing code, or other continuous input characters according to the key type and pressing time interval of the one or more third keys. Usage behavior and so on.

In step S303, if the user's behavior conforms to the typing state, the processor 150 responds that the first button is pressed and executes the button function corresponding to the second button. In other words, when it is determined that the user is typing, the processor 150 will switch the original key function of the first key to the key function corresponding to the second key. For example, when the first button is the power button and the second button is the Delete button, the processor 150 can perform the button function of the Delete button in response to detecting that the first button is pressed, that is, perform the character at the cursor delete.

However, the implementation of the present invention is not limited to the foregoing description, and the content of the foregoing embodiment may be modified according to actual needs. For example, in an embodiment of the present invention, when the pressing operation applied to the first button meets a specific condition, the electronic device can perform the original button function of the first button. The following is a detailed description of an embodiment.

Fig. 4 is a flowchart of a method for switching key functions according to an embodiment of the present invention. Please refer to FIG. 4, the method of this embodiment is applicable to the electronic device 10 in the above-mentioned embodiment, and the detailed steps of this embodiment are described below in conjunction with various components in the electronic device 10.

In step S401, the processor 150 detects whether the first button on the keyboard 110 is pressed. In step S402, in response to the first button being pressed, the processor 150 determines whether the user's behavior is consistent with the typing state. In detail, the processor 150 may determine whether the time interval between the release time points of the plurality of third keys that are pressed before the first key is pressed is less than a threshold value, so as to determine whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. When the time interval between the release time points of the plurality of third keys pressed before the first key is pressed is less than a threshold value, the processor 150 may determine that the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. When the time interval between the release time points of the plurality of third keys pressed before the first key is pressed is not less than a threshold value, the processor 150 may determine that the user's behavior does not conform to the typing state. Alternatively, the processor 150 may determine whether the key types of the plurality of third keys that are pressed before the first key is pressed are all alphanumeric keys, so as to determine whether the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. When the key types of the plurality of third keys that are pressed before the first key is pressed are all alphanumeric keys, the processor 150 may determine that the user's behavior conforms to the typing state. When the key types of the plurality of third keys that are pressed before the first key is pressed are not all alphanumeric keys, the processor 150 may determine that the user's behavior does not conform to the typing state.

If the determination in step S402 is yes, in step S403, the processor 150 executes the key function corresponding to the second key in response to the first key being pressed. That is, when the user's behavior conforms to the typing state, in response to the pressing of the first button, the processor 150 switches to execute the button function of the second button.

If the determination in step S402 is no, in step S404, the processor 150 determines whether the pressing operation applied to the first button meets a specific condition. The above-mentioned specific condition may be a condition formulated according to the pressing duration or other pressing characteristics. For example, the processor 150 may determine whether the pressing operation applied to the first button lasts longer than a preset number of seconds, or the processor 150 may determine whether the pressing operation applied to the first button satisfies the requirements including the first button and A specific combination of other keys. That is, when it is determined that the user is not in a typing state, the processor 150 will determine whether the pressing operation applied to the first button meets a specific condition. In one embodiment, the processor 150 determines whether the first button has been long-pressed for more than 4 seconds.

If the determination in step S404 is no, it means that the user's behavior is not a typing state and the way the user presses the first button does not meet the specific condition. Therefore, in step S405, the processor 150 ignores the pressing operation applied to the first button and does not perform any button function. If the determination in step S404 is yes, it means that the user's behavior is not in the typing state but the way the user presses the first button meets the specific condition. Therefore, in step S406, the processor 150 executes the original key command corresponding to the first key. For example, when the first button is the power button, the user needs to press and hold the power button for more than ten seconds before driving the processor 150 to provide the user with a power mode management menu, so that the user can manage the menu according to the power mode The electronic device 10 is controlled to enter a sleep mode, a sleep mode, log out, restart or shut down, and so on.

In summary, in the embodiment of the present invention, a key can support different key functions when the user's behavior conforms to the typing state or does not conform to the typing state. In this way, when the user accidentally touches the first key in the continuous typing state, the first key can be switched to correspond to the key function required in the typing state, so that the electronic device can perform operations that meet the user's expectations. In this way, the fluency of the user's keyboard typing can be greatly improved, and the operation convenience can be improved.

Although the present invention has been disclosed in the above embodiments, it is not intended to limit the present invention. Anyone with ordinary knowledge in the relevant technical field can make some changes and modifications without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to those defined by the attached patent application scope.

10: Electronic device

110: keyboard

120: Controller

130: chipset

140: storage device

150: processor

k1: Power button

k2, k3: button

B1: body

D1: display screen

S301～S303, S401～S406: steps

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the invention. Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a method for switching key functions according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 4 is a flowchart of a method for switching key functions according to an embodiment of the present invention.

S301~S303: steps

Claims (8)

A method for switching key functions is applicable to an electronic device including a keyboard. The method includes: detecting whether a first key on the keyboard is pressed; responding to the pressing of the first key, determining whether a user's behavior conforms to Typing state; and if the user behavior conforms to the typing state, the first button is pressed to perform the key function corresponding to the second button, wherein the step of determining whether the user behavior conforms to the typing state The method includes: judging whether the user behavior conforms to the typing state according to a pressing operation performed on at least one third button, wherein the pressing operation performed on the at least one third button is performed on the first button Is performed before the operation, wherein the typing state is based on the key type and pressing time interval of the at least one or more third keys to determine whether the user behavior is the typing state, or the typing state Whether the time interval between the release time points of the plurality of third keys pressed before the first key is pressed is less than a threshold value to determine whether the user behavior is the typing state. The key function switching method according to claim 1, wherein the first key includes a power key integrated on the keyboard. The key function switching method according to claim 1, wherein the second key on the keyboard is arranged adjacent to the first key. According to the key function switching method of claim 1, the method further includes: if the user's behavior does not conform to the typing state, determining whether the pressing operation applied to the first key meets a specific condition; and responding to The pressing operation applied to the first button meets the specific condition, and an original button instruction corresponding to the first button is executed. An electronic device includes: a keyboard, including a first button and a second button; a storage device, which records a plurality of instructions; and a processor, which is coupled to the keyboard and the storage device, and executes the instructions to: Detect whether the first button on the keyboard is pressed; respond to the first button being pressed, determine whether the user behavior conforms to the typing state; and if the user behavior conforms to the typing state, respond The first button is pressed to perform a button function corresponding to the second button, wherein the processor determines whether the user behavior conforms to the typing state according to a pressing operation performed on at least one third button, and executes The pressing operation on the at least one third button is performed before the pressing operation on the first button, wherein the typing state is the processor according to the buttons of the at least one or more third buttons Type and pressing time interval to determine whether the user behavior is The typing state, or, the typing state is that the processor determines whether the time interval between the release time points of the plurality of third keys that are pressed before the first key is pressed is less than a threshold Value to determine whether the user behavior is the typing state. The electronic device according to claim 5, wherein the first button includes a power button integrated on the keyboard. The electronic device according to claim 5, wherein the second button on the keyboard is arranged adjacent to the first button. The electronic device according to claim 5, wherein if the user behavior does not conform to the typing state, the processor determines whether the pressing operation performed on the first button meets a specific condition; The pressing operation of the first button meets the specific condition, and the processor executes an original button instruction corresponding to the first button.

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