Communication action bar in a multimodal communication device

摘要

A method and apparatus for multimodal communication device capable of automatically determining an optimal communication mode. A user input selecting one of a contact and a stored communication is received, wherein each of the contact and the stored communication is associated with a destination. An optimal global communication mode to use for communicating with the destination is automatically determined from a plurality of communication modes. The destination is communicated with using the optimal global communication mode if a predefined condition is satisfied.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
receiving, by a multi-modal communication device, a user input selecting one of a contact and a stored communication, wherein each of the contact and the stored communication is associated with a destination; determining, by the multi-modal communication device, an optimal global communication mode from a plurality of communication modes to use for communicating with the destination; determining to communicate with the destination using the optimal global communication mode if a predefined condition is satisfied, wherein the predefined condition includes a determination that no communication mode other than the optimal global communication mode has been selected; determining to divide the plurality of communication modes into a plurality of communication mode categories, wherein each communication mode category includes at least one of the plurality of communication modes; determining to display each of the plurality of communication mode categories in a communication action bar; for each of the plurality of communication mode categories, determining to display the communication mode category in an enabled state if one or more of the at least one of the plurality of communication modes included in the communication mode category are available; and for each of the plurality of communication mode categories, determining to display the communication mode category in a disabled state if none of the at least one of the plurality of communication modes included in the communication mode category are available, wherein the optimal global communication mode is determined using one or more of attributes related to the multi-modal communication device, a previous communication mode used between the multi-modal communication device and the destination, user preferences, contact type, attributes of the destination, and availability of service for the communication modes.