1. A method, comprising: at a device with a touch-sensitive display: generating a user interface on the touch-sensitive display for editing text input, the user interface including an editing region and an input region, and a virtual keyboard that is located outside of the editing region and the input region, the virtual keyboard having keys for entering characters in the editing region or input region; detecting a user gesture inside a region of the virtual keyboard, the user gesture starting from a key on the virtual keyboard, wherein the user gesture is operable to cause erasure of one or more characters of text input displayed in the input region or the editing region; and erasing a number of characters proportional to a distance traversed by the user gesture across the touch-sensitive display.