1. A method, comprising operations of: receiving user input specifying a continuous traced path across a keyboard presented on a touch sensitive display; resolving an input sequence of traced keys and auxiliary keys proximate to the traced keys by prescribed criteria; for each of one or more candidate entries of a prescribed vocabulary, computing a set-edit-distance metric between said input sequence and the candidate entry; where: the set-edit-distance computation imposes a penalty for omitting from the candidate entry all keys from a first group comprising a start key of the path and auxiliary keys to the start key; the set-edit-distance computation imposes a penalty for omitting from the candidate entry all keys from a second group comprising an end key of the path and auxiliary keys to the end key; the set-edit-distance computation imposes a penalty for omitting from the candidate entry all keys from a third group comprising any traced keys and their auxiliaries where at least a prescribed minimum change in direction of the path occurs; the set-edit-distance computation does not impose any penalty for omitting from the candidate entry any key of the input sequence outside all of the first, second, and third groups; and the set-edit-distance computation does not impose any penalty the candidate entry using any key in the input sequence twice or more in succession; and ranking candidate entries according to the computed set-edit-distance metrics, and displaying an output of some or all of the ranked candidate entries; where at least one of the operations is performed by a processor.