Gesture-based text selection

A device comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• one or more programmable processors configured to:
• output, for display, a plurality of characters;
• receive an input indicative of a slide gesture across one or more regions of a presence-sensitive input device that are associated with a group of characters included in the plurality of characters;
• determine, based at least in part on one or more of an origination point and a speed of movement associated with the slide gesture, whether the slide gesture represents a character string-level selection or a character-level selection from the group of characters, wherein the character string-level selection comprises a multi-character selection of a character string from the group of characters;
• responsive to determining that the slide gesture represents the character string-level selection from the group of characters and determining that the input indicative of the slide gesture covers only a portion of at least one character string included in the group of characters, output for display, a graphical selection of the at least one character string, such that the at least one character string is visually differentiated from any of the plurality of characters not included in the group of characters, wherein the character string comprises two or more consecutive characters included in the group of characters, and wherein the at least one character string does not comprise any space characters;
• and
• responsive to determining that the slide gesture represents the character-level selection from the group of characters, output for display and in single character increments, a graphical selection of at least one character included in the group of characters, such that the at least one character is visually differentiated from any of the plurality of characters not included in the group of characters;
• and
• output, for display and in a preview area of a user interface (UT), one or more occluded characters of the plurality of characters,
• wherein the plurality of characters is displayed at a display area of the UI,
• wherein the computing device detects a user contact at a region of the presence-sensitive input device that is associated with the one or more occluded characters, and
• wherein the preview area of the UI is different from the display area of the UI.

A computer-readable storage device encoded with instructions that, when executed, cause one or more programmable processors of a computing device to perform operations comprising:

• outputting, for display, a plurality of characters;
• receiving an input indicative of a slide gesture across one or more regions of a presence-sensitive input device that are associated with a group of characters included in the plurality of characters;
• determining, based at least in part on one or more of an origination point and a speed of movement associated with the slide gesture, whether the slide gesture represents a character string-level selection or a character-level selection from the group of characters, wherein the character string-level selection comprises a multi-character selection of a character string from the group of characters without incrementally selecting any individual characters included in the character string;
• responsive to determining that the slide gesture represents the character string-level selection from the group of characters and determining that the input indicative of the slide gesture covers only a portion of at least one character string included in the group of characters, outputting for display, a graphical selection of the at least one character string, the at least one character string being demarcated from remaining characters of the plurality of characters by one or more space characters, such that the at least one character string is visually differentiated from the remaining characters of the plurality of characters by one or more space characters that are not included in the group of characters, wherein the selected character string comprises two or more consecutive characters included in the group of characters, and wherein the character string does not comprise any space characters;
• and
• responsive to determining that the slide gesture represents the character-level selection from the group of characters, outputting for display and in single character increments, a graphical selection of at least one character included in the group of characters, such that the at least one character is visually differentiated from any of the plurality of characters not included in the group of characters;
• and
• outputting, for display and in a preview area of a user interface (UI), one or more occluded characters of the plurality of characters,
• wherein the plurality of characters is displayed at a display area of the UI,
• wherein the computing device detects a user contact at a region of the presence-sensitive input device that is associated with the one or more occluded characters, and
• wherein the preview area of the UI is different from the display area of the UI.