Menu management mechanism that displays menu items based on multiple heuristic factors

• US 20010019338A1
• Filed: 03/26/2001
• Published: 09/06/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/1997
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Steven William Roth
• Original Assignee: Steven William Roth
• Inventors: Roth, Steven William
• Granted Patent: US 6,847,387 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/811
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus

Abstract

The mechanisms of the present invention provide comprehensive heuristic menu arrangement control by providing several discrete, yet complementary, features. One feature is automatic menu arrangement for both fixed and variable content menus based on a combination of frequency of selection and recency of selection. Another feature is the consideration of time of day for menu arrangement. Time of day is used in two different ways. First, time of day is used as a heuristic factor (i.e., in the same way as recency and frequency) to affect the automatic arrangement of menu items. The second time of day feature allows the user to affect the order that certain menu items are presented during a user specified time period.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising:

a processor;

memory connected to said processor;

a web browser stored in said memory for execution on said processor, said web browser being used to present an initial web page to a user and then to present one or more subsequent web pages to said user, said web browser automatically selecting said initial web page from a plurality of web pages during initialization of said web browser and automatically presenting said initial web page to said user after said web browser has completed initializing, said plurality of web pages including historical web page selections by said user, said initial web page being determined via ranking control, said ranking control being selected from the group consisting of;

automatic ranking control; and

manual ranking control.

2. The computer system of

claim 1

wherein said plurality of web pages make up an ordered list of web pages.

3. A program product, said program product comprising:

signal bearing media; and

a web browser recorded on said signal bearing media, said web browser automatically presenting a user with a web page after said web browser has completed initializing, said web page being selected from a plurality of web pages, wherein said plurality of web pages includes historical web page selections by said user, said web page being selected based upon ranking control, said ranking control being selected from the group consisting of;

automatic ranking control; and

manual ranking control.

4. The program product of

claim 3

wherein said plurality of web pages make up an ordered list of web pages.

5. A computer-implemented method within a web browser for presenting an initial web page and one or more subsequent web pages to a user, said method comprising the steps of:

automatically selecting said initial web page from a plurality of web pages; and

automatically presenting said initial web page to said user after said web browser initializes, said plurality of web pages including historical web page selections by said user, said initial web page being selected based upon ranking control, said ranking control being selected from the group consisting of;

automatic ranking control; and

manual ranking control.

6. The method of

claim 5

wherein said plurality of web pages make up an ordered list of web pages.

7. A computer system comprising:

9. The computer system of

claim 7

, wherein said automatic ranking control utilizes two or more heuristic factors and wherein at least one of said two or more heuristic factors is selected from the group consisting of:

recency of menu item selection;

frequency of menu item selection; and

time of day of menu item selection.

10. The computer system of

claim 7

, wherein said URL list is presented on a visual display device.

11. The computer system of

claim 7

, wherein at least one of said plurality of URLs is manually arranged in said URL list by a user of the computer system.

12. The computer system of

claim 10

, wherein said at least one of said plurality of URLs is manually arranged in said URL list based at least in part on the time of day.

13. The computer system of

claim 11

, wherein said at least one of said plurality of URLs is manually arranged in said URL list based at least in part on the desired position of said at least one of said plurality of URLs within said URL list.

15. The program product of

claim 13

, wherein said automatic ranking control utilizes two or more heuristic factors and wherein at least one of said two or more heuristic factors is selected from the group consisting of:

recency of menu item selection;

frequency of menu item selection; and

time of day of menu item selection.

17. The computer-implemented method of

claim 15

, wherein said automatic ranking control utilizes two or more heuristic factors and wherein at least one of said two or more heuristic factors is selected from the group consisting of:

recency of menu item selection;

frequency of menu item selection; and

time of day of menu item selection.

18. The computer-implemented method of

claim 15

, wherein said URL list is presented on a visual display device.

19. The computer-implemented method of

claim 15

, wherein at least one of said plurality of URLs is manually arranged in said URL list by said user.

20. The computer-implemented method of

claim 18

, wherein said at least one of said plurality of URLs is manually arranged in said URL list based at least in part on the time of day.

21. The computer-implemented method of

claim 19

, wherein said at least one of said plurality of URLs is manually arranged in said URL list based at least in part on the desired position of said at least one of said plurality of URLs within said URL list.

8. A computer system comprising:

a processor;

memory connected to said processor;

a web browser stored in said memory for execution on said processor; and

a menu for presentation by said program, said menu having a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) list containing a plurality of URLs, at least some URLs in said list being arranged based upon automatic ranking control or upon manual ranking control.

14. A program product comprising:

a web browser, said web browser being capable of presenting a URL list, said menu having at least some URLs arranged based upon automatic ranking control or upon manual ranking control;

and signal bearing media bearing said program.

16. A computer-implemented method, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request from a user to present a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) list, said URL list containing a plurality of URLs;

arranging at least some of said URLs based upon automatic ranking control or upon manual ranking control; and

presenting said URL list to said user.