METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUSLY ACTIVE DATA ENTRY MECHANISMS ON A COMPUTER SYSTEM

A method and system providing simultaneous data entry for a computer system having both on-screen keyboard entry and mechanisms for handwriting recognition entry. In one embodiment, a portable or palmtop computer system contains a flat panel display screen capable of displaying thereon a keyboard image (“virtual keyboard”). Characters can be entered into the computer system by a user interacting with (e.g., tapping) the displayed characters of the virtual keyboard. The computer system also provides a handwriting recognition mechanism (e.g., digitizer pad) whereby characters are recognized based on a user drawing strokes on the pad. In accordance with the present invention, the virtual keyboard and the handwriting recognition mechanism are simultaneously active for data entry. Therefore, the computer system can accept character entry from the handwriting recognition mechanism while the virtual keyboard is displayed and active and capable of providing character entry itself. Specifically, from the virtual keyboard, the user is allowed to either tap the individual buttons, representing characters, on the screen to enter data or the user can enter data via the handwriting recognition mechanism. Since both methods are active simultaneously, the user does not have to switch between them. The present invention gives a user increased flexibility in the manual entry of characters to the computer system.