Collapse all Symbian^3 Product Developer Library

Text editing

This section describes the common principles of text editing, focusing on Latin based scripts. Requirements of other writing systems and input methods, such as those used for Chinese or Arabic, are not covered in detail.

Character input is accomplished using the keyboard. S60 supports both a full QWERTY keyboard and the ITU-T standard for numeric keypads. It specifies the mapping of Latin (English) characters to the keys, assigning three or four letters to each Numeric key from 2 to 9. The input of a specific character can happen either by repeated key presses within a time-out, or using some language-specific algorithm that tries to find the correct characters according to the produced key sequence.

For more information on text input on touch devices, see Text input.

Some keys, such as the star (*), hash (#) key, clear key, and edit key, have specific functions assigned to them during text editing. The functions depend on the keyboard type (ITU-T or QWERTY) and whether text prediction or multi-tapping mode is active. The four available modes are:

ITU-T in multi-tapping mode.
ITU-T with text prediction ON.
QWERTY keyboard with text prediction ON.
QWERTY keyboard with text prediction OFF.

Table 1. Specific key functions on ITU-T keypad
Key	Function on ITU-T keypad
Numeric key 1	Punctuation. The most used punctuation characters are available using repeated key presses within a time-out.
Star (*) key	In the alpha mode, offers the next match in Predictive Text input. In the alpha mode, a long press opens the special characters table, where the complete set of punctuation and other characters are displayed. One character can be picked at a time with Selection key. It is also possible to feed in more than one character without having to re-open the list by pressing 5 on the desired characters one after another and completing the selection by pressing Selection key on the last item. In a typical number mode, produces a * character, repeated presses produce other characters allowed within phone numbers: +, p, w. In devices with no Edit key, a short press of the Star (*) key opens the editing menu and a long press opens the special characters table.
Hash (#) key	In the alpha mode, changes the character case (upper case, lower case, text case). In a typical number mode, produces a # character.In devices with no Edit key, a short press changes the current case and the text prediction mode (ON/OFF), and a long key press (together with the Arrow keys) selects text.
Clear key	Clears the previous character from the cursor. In case more characters are selected, clears all the selected characters.
Edit key	Press and release: opens the editing menu (see Editing menu). Selects characters when pressed simultaneously with the Arrow keys (see Selecting text).

Using text editing in applications

The API to use for providing text editing functionality is the Editors API. For implementation information, see Using the Editors API.

Parent topic: UI components