Patent ID: 7123244

Claim:
A method of providing an adaptive pen mode selection within a pen input based computing system having one or more user selected operating modes including an ink pen input mode, a text input mode, and a data item selection mode, the method comprising: detecting a pen stroke having a location within a window on a display of the computing system, the pen stroke possesses properties including the location including a starting location, and ending location, a direction, and one or more segments of constant slope; determining a location of all existing data items displayed within the window containing the location of the pen press, the existing data items possess properties including a data type, a position, a size, and a selection location, and a persistence age; if the computer is operating in the data item selection mode, selecting all data items having location that corresponds to the location of the pen stroke; if the computer is not operating in the data item selection mode, perform the following: determining whether the user desired to select all data items having location that corresponds to the location of the pen stroke using one or more of the properties associated with the pen stroke and the existing data items; and selecting all data items determined to be intended to be selected by the pen stroke.