A menu screen includes multiple buttons. Assigned to each button for each direction is another button to which an anchor is moved according to a directional user input of up, down, right or left. A button B and a button C both located downstream of a button A are candidates to which the anchor is moved when the down direction key is input with the anchor pointing to the button A. Scores of positional relationships of the position between points of the shortest distance from an anchor position of the button A within the range of the button B and the button C to the anchor position are calculated. According to the calculated scores, the next destination of the anchor when the down direction key is input with the anchor pointing to the button A is set to either button B or button C.

Correction of coordinates input by a user through an input device is effected using coordinate correction parameters. To calculate the coordinate correction parameters, a plurality of reference points are displayed on the input device. Coordinate input is designated by a user, and if the coordinate is determined to correspond to a reference point, then the coordinate input is retained. The process is repeated until a coordinate is kept for each reference point, wherein only remaining reference point(s) for which a corresponding coordinate has not yet been retained are displayed. Once coordinates have been input for the reference points, a correspondence between coordinate input and a reference point is determined, and corresponding coordinates are kept for each reference point. Using correction parameters calculated based on the kept coordinates, it is possible to correct device characteristics of the input device such as position aberration, even if such characteristics are non-linear.

An electronic messaging system, and related method, employs a handwriting server component operable on a network with a messaging host server, and a client device operable with a handwritten messaging client connected to the network. The client device sets up a graphical data capture area into which a user can enter handwritten or handdrawn input through a suitable graphical input device. The handwritten or handdrawn input is captured and sent as pixel data or an attached graphics file in the supported network messaging protocol. The preferred form of the handwriting messaging component is a Java applet installed on the client device. The graphical input device can be a touch screen, pen input device, stylus pad, or attached drawing pad or mouse. The handwriting messaging client sets up a drawing editor/viewer that allows the user to compose, manipulate, send and view handwritten or handdrawn messages. The drawing editor/viewer can include a set of standard drawing tools and functions. In one disclosed embodiment, the handwritten messaging system is provided for MMS messaging on wireless or digital cellphone networks.

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system and a method for presenting a set of icons in a display so that the icons can be selected by a user via a keypad. During operation, the display presents a set of icons to the user. The user can then select an icon from the set of icons by entering input into the keypad. The set of icons are presented in the display such that the spatial layout of the set of icons is substantially the same as the layout of the keypad, resulting in an intuitive interface that allows the user to select desired choices quickly and easily.

A handwritten or handdrawing messaging system employs a handwriting messaging component operable with a messaging client of a mobile device connected to the data transmission network to set up a handwriting data capture area in the messaging client into which the user can enter handwritten or handdrawn input through a suitable manual input device, and then operates to capture the handwritten or handdrawn input and send it as a handwritten electronic message to the intended recipient. It also sets up a graphical data viewing area within the messaging client for viewing handwritten electronic messages sent to the user. Preferably, it is a small-footprint software module installed with the messaging client of the mobile device. The mobile device can be any type of wired or wirelessly-connected portable device operating on a computing platform, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) device, game console or player device, or other mobile messaging device. The manual input device can be a touch-sensitive screen, tablet with pen input, stylus pad with stylus input, or an attached drawing pad. The system is particularly useful for messaging via mobile game player devices, so that people all over the world can send handwritten messages, chat, and play handdrawn games with each other.