Method for controlling electronic apparatus and electronic apparatus using the method

This non-provisional application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 61/015,671, filed on Dec. 21, 2007 and included herein by reference.

1. Field of the Invention

The application relates to a control method of an electronic apparatus, and more particularly, to a method for controlling an electronic apparatus according to one of two touch inputs, and an electronic apparatus adopting the method.

2. Description of the Prior Art

In the present time, touching is a common method to control electronic apparatuses. Generally, an electronic apparatus includes a touch sensitive module, for example a smartphone, a PDA (personal digital assistance), or a PDA phone, on which the user can move his/her finger to control the operation of the electronic apparatus. However, when the user\'s finger is moving on the touch sensitive module, other parts of the user\'s body (e.g., the palm, other finger(s) or the other hand) might touch the touch sensitive module accidentally, which leads to misjudgment of the electronic apparatus. As a result, the user fails to control the electronic apparatus as expected.

In light of this, the application provides a method for controlling an electronic apparatus by referring to the parameters of two touch inputs to determining to employ which one of the two touch inputs to control the operation of the electronic deice. In this way, the aforementioned issue can be solved.

According to a first aspect of the application, a method of controlling an electronic apparatus is provided. The method includes: when a first touch input and a second touch input on a touch sensitive module are detected, comparing a first parameter of the first touch input with a second parameter of the second touch input according to a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input and a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input to determine which one of the first and second sensing signals is employed to control an operation of the electronic apparatus.

According to a second aspect of the application, a recording medium for recording a computer program is disclosed. The computer program includes program codes for executing the following steps: when a first touch input and a second touch input on a touch sensitive module are detected, comparing a first parameter of the first touch input with a second parameter of the second touch input according to a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input and a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input to determine which one of the first and second sensing signals is employed to control an operation of an electronic apparatus.

According to a fifth aspect of the application, an electronic apparatus is provided. The electronic apparatus includes: a touch sensitive module; a controller coupled to the touch sensitive module for detecting a touch input to generate a sensing signal corresponding to the touch input; and a processing unit coupled to the touch sensitive module. The controller compares a first parameter of the first touch input with a second parameter of the second touch input according to a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input and a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input to determine which one of the first sensing signal and the second sensing signal is employed to control an operation of the electronic apparatus.

These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.

Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling an electronic apparatus according to the application. The method can be summarized as follows:

S110: Determine whether a first touch input and a second touch input on a touch sensitive module are detected. If so, go to step S120; otherwise, go back to step S110.

S120: Compare a first parameter of the first touch input with a second parameter of the second touch input according to a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input and a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input to determine which one of the first and second sensing signals is employed for controlling an operation of the electronic apparatus.

Additionally, the application also provides an electronic apparatus which employs the above-mentioned method. For example, the electronic apparatus can be a handheld electronic apparatus (e.g., a mobile phone, a smartphone, or a personal digital assistant). However, this is for illustrative purposes only, and is not meant to be a limitation of the application. Please refer to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of one exemplary embodiment of an electronic apparatus 200 which employs the control method of the application. As shown in FIG. 2, the electronic apparatus 200 includes a touch sensitive module 210, a controller 220, and a processing unit 230. The controller 220 is coupled to the touch sensitive module 210, and is implemented for detecting a touch input on the touch sensitive module 210 to generate a sensing signal corresponding to the touch input. The processing unit 230 is coupled to controller 220. When the controller 220 detects a first touch input and a second touch input on the touch sensitive module 210, the processing unit 230 then compares a first parameter of the first touch input with a second parameter of the second touch input according to a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input and a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input to determine which one of the first and second sensing signal is employed to control an operation of the electronic apparatus 200.

For example, in an embodiment of the application, the first parameter of the first touch input is a starting time point of the first touch input, and the second parameter of the second touch input is a starting time point of the second touch input. When the controller 220 detects a first touch input T1 and a second touch input T2 on the touch sensitive module 210, the processing unit 230 checks the time sequence of starting time points of the first and second touch inputs T1, T2 according to first and second sensing signals S1, S2 generated from the first and second touch inputs T1, T2 respectively, in order to determine which one of the first sensing signal S1 and the second sensing signal S2 is employed for controlling the operation of the electronic apparatus 200. In this embodiment, when the starting time point t2 of the second touch input T2 is later than the starting time point t1 of the first touch input T1, the processing unit 230 ignores the first sensing signal S1 and refers to the second sensing signal S2 to control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200; on the other hand, when the starting time point t2 of the second touch input T2 is earlier than the starting time point t1 of the first touch input T1, the processing unit 230 ignores the second sensing signal S2 and refers to the first sensing signal S1 to control the operation of electronic apparatus 200.

In addition, in another embodiment of the application, the first parameter of the first touch input is a displacement value of the first touch input, and the second parameter of the second touch input is a displacement value of the second touch input. When the controller 220 detects a first touch input T1 and a second touch input T2, the processing unit 230 checks which one of two displacement values D1, D2 of the first and second touch inputs T1, T2, exceeds a predetermined displacement value D first according to the first and second sensing signals S1, S2 generated from the first and second touch inputs T1, T2 respectively, in order to determine which one of the first sensing signal S1 and the second sensing signal S2 is employed to control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200. In this embodiment, when the displacement value D2 of the second touch input T2 exceeds the predetermined displacement value D earlier than the displacement value D1 of the first touch input T1, the processing unit 230 ignores the first sensing signal S1 and refers to the second sensing signal S2 to control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200; on the other hand, when the displacement value D2 of the second touch input T2 exceeds the predetermined displacement value D later than the displacement value D1 of the first touch input T1, the processing unit 230 ignores the second sensing signal S2 and refers to the first sensing signal S1 to control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200.

Please note that, in the application, parameters of touch inputs (e.g., T1 and T2) are not limited to starting time points of touch inputs (e.g., t1 and t2) and displacement values of touch inputs (e.g., D1 and D2). In practice, the processing unit may compare any parameter of touch inputs to select one of the sensing signals generated from the touch inputs to control the operation of the electronic apparatus. This design variation is still within the scope of the application.

The following will further address the above two embodiments of the method for controlling an electronic apparatus according to the application. Please refer to FIG. 3. FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a first embodiment of a method for controlling an electronic apparatus according to the application. The steps of the control method are briefly summarized as follows:

S310: Determine whether a first touch input on a touch sensitive module is detected. If so, go to step S320; otherwise, go back to step S310;

S320: Determine whether a second touch input is detected while the first touch input is not terminated yet. If so, go to step S330; otherwise, go back to step S310;

S330: Ignore a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input, and control the operation of the electronic apparatus according to a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input.

Taking the electronic apparatus 200 for example, when the controller 220 detects a first touch input on the touch sensitive module 210 and generates a first sensing signal in response to the first touch input, and then detects a second touch input and generates a second touch sensing signal in response to the second touch input while the first touch input is not terminated yet, the processing unit ignores the first touch sensing signal generated from the first touch input and controls the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 according to the second sensing signal generated from the second touch input. For example, when a user\'s finger touches the touch sensitive module 210 one after another, the controller 220 detects a touch input T1 from the finger touching the touch sensitive module 210 first to generate a sensing signal S1, and then detects another touch input T2 from the finger touching the touch sensitive module 210 later to generate another sensing signal S2, the processing unit 230 will ignore the sensing signal S1 and control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 according the sensing signal S2.

In addition, the processing unit 230 further determines a displacement value of a touch input according to the sensing signal. The displacement value corresponds to a moving distance of user\'s finger on the touch sensitive module 210. Only when the processing unit 230 determines that the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 exceeds a predetermined displacement value D according to the sensing signal S2, the processing unit 230 controls the electronic apparatus 200 to execute a specific function according to sensing signal S2. On the other hand, when the processing unit 230 determines that the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 does not exceed the predetermined displacement value D according to the sensing signal S2, the processing unit 230 does not control the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the specific function. For example, the specific function can be a panning function. Therefore, when the processing unit 230 determines that the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 exceeds the predetermined displacement value D according to the sensing signal S2, the processing unit 230 controls the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the panning function to pan a page displayed on a screen of a mobile phone according to the sensing signal S2. In another example, the specific function can be a scrolling function. Therefore, when the processing unit 230 determines that the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 exceeds the predetermined displacement value D according to the sensing signal S2, the processing unit 230 controls the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the scrolling function to scroll a page displayed on a screen of a mobile phone according to the sensing signal S2. However, the aforementioned examples are for illustrative purposes only, and are not meant to be limitations of the application. In addition, as those skilled in the art should readily comprehend how to control the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the specific function according to the sensing signal S2, further description is therefore omitted here for the sake of brevity.

In this embodiment, only within a predetermined period of time t (e.g., within 3 seconds) after the controller 220 detects the touch input T2, the processing unit 230 ignores the sensing signal S1 corresponding to the touch input T1 and controls the electronic apparatus 200 according to the sensing signal S2 corresponding to the touch input T2. If the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 does not exceed the predetermined displacement value D, and therefore the processing unit 230 does not control the electronic apparatus 230 to execute the specific function according to the sensing signal S2 within the predetermined period of time t after the controller 220 detects the touch input T2, the processing unit 230 will no longer ignore the sensing signal S1 corresponding to the touch input T1 and will refer to one of the sensing signals S1, S2 corresponding to the touch inputs T1, T2 respectively to control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 beyond the predetermined period of time t. For example, in this embodiment, when the processing unit 230 determines that the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 exceeds the predetermined displacement value D earlier than the displacement value D1 of the touch input T1, the processing unit 230 ignores the first sensing signal S1 and controls the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the specific function according to the second sensing signal S2; on the other hand, when the processing unit 230 determines that the displacement value D2 of the touch input T2 exceeds the predetermined displacement value D later than the displacement value D1 of the touch input T1, the processing unit 230 ignores the second sensing signal S2 and controls the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the specific function according to the first sensing signal S1. In other words, the processing unit 230 controls the electronic apparatus 200 to execute the specific function according to a sensing signal generated from the touch input whose displacement value exceeds the predetermined displacement value D first.

It can be seen from the above-mentioned description that when two of user\'s fingers are both moving on the touch sensitive module 210, the processing unit 30 ignores the sensing signal S1 generated from the touch input T1 of the finger firstly touching the touch sensitive module 210 and controls the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 according to the sensing signal S2 generated from the touch input T2 of the finger touching the touch sensitive module 210 later, within the predetermined period of time t after the controller 220 detects the touch input T2. After a predetermined period of time t is expired, the processing unit 230 controls the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 according to a sensing signal generated from the touch input whose displacement value exceeds the predetermined displacement value D first. In another embodiment of the application, when two of the user\'s fingers are both moving on the touch sensitive module 210 and the controller 220 detects touch inputs T1, T2 respectively, the processing unit 230 can directly control the operation of the electronic apparatus 200 according to a sensing signal generated from the touch input whose displacement value exceeds the predetermined displacement value D first.

Please refer to FIG. 4. FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating of a second embodiment of a method for controlling an electronic apparatus according to the application. The control method is briefly summarized as follows:

S410: Determine whether a first touch input and a second touch input on a touch sensitive module are detected. If so, go to step S420; otherwise, go back to step S410;

S420: Determine whether a first displacement value of the first touch input exceeds a predetermined displacement value. If so, go to step S440; otherwise, go to step S430;

S430: Determine whether a second displacement value of the second touch input exceeds the predetermined displacement value. If so, go to step S450; otherwise, go to step S420;

S440: Ignore a second sensing signal generated from the second touch input, and control an operation of the electronic apparatus according to a first sensing signal generated from the first touch input;

S450: Ignore the first sensing signal generated from the first touch input, and control the operation of the electronic apparatus according to the second sensing signal generated from the second touch input.

After reading the aforementioned description directed to the method of controlling the electronic apparatus 200, those skilled in the art should readily understand steps of the control method shown in FIG. 4. Therefore, further description is omitted here for the sake of brevity. In addition, if the result is substantially the same, the steps shown in FIG. 4 are not required to be executed in the exact order as demonstrated in FIG. 4.

In the above embodiments, the electronic apparatus comprises a smartphone, a PDA (personal digital assistance), or a PDA phone.

In the above embodiment, the touch sensitive module comprises a touch pad, a touch panel, or a touch screen.

The application also provides a recording medium for recording a computer program adopted to execute the aforementioned control method of the electronic apparatus. The computer program is basically composed of multiple program code fragments (e.g., a program code segment of establishing an organization chart, a program code segment of sign-off forms, a program code segment of configuration, and a program code segment of allocation), and after those program code fragments are loaded and executed in an electronic apparatus (e.g., the electronic apparatus 200), above-mentioned steps and functions of the aforementioned control method of the electronic apparatus are then accomplished.

In summary, the application provides a control method of an electronic apparatus, and an electronic apparatus employing the control method, where one of the two touch inputs is employed for controlling the operation of an electronic apparatus based on the sequence or the corresponding displacement values of the touch inputs. In this way, the issue of electronic apparatus misjudgment, resulting from accidental touch inputs from other parts of the user on the touch sensitive module, can be solved.

Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.