System and method for using navigational and other commands on a mobile communication device

摘要

A wireless handheld communication device having a housing containing a display screen located above a physical keyboard. The keyboard includes a plurality of physical keys and corresponding indicia. Some of the keys are associated with alphabetic characters corresponding to a QWERTY array of letters A-Z and some are associated with numeric characters 0-9 corresponding to a telephone keypad arrangement. At least some of the keys associated with numeric characters are overlaid on the physical keys associated with alphabetic characters. A microprocessor is included that runs the device in at least a telephony mode, an email mode and at least one additional mode. The microprocessor displays a key-function map on the display screen indicative of enabled functions associated with particular physical keys of the keyboard which are different from any function signified by the indicia associated with the respective particular physical key.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
identifying an active application selected from a plurality of applications on a device; rendering on a display of the device a set of buttons; overlaying first shortcut command indicia on corresponding buttons of the set of buttons, the first shortcut command indicia corresponding to shortcut command functions associated with the active application; overlaying second shortcut command indicia on at least one remaining button of the set of buttons, the second shortcut command indicia corresponding to shortcut command functions available to the plurality of applications, the at least one remaining button that corresponds to the second shortcut command functions being rendered on the display in a different screen than the set of buttons that correspond to the first shortcut command functions; and prompting a user to enter customized shortcut command functions for use with the active application.