Webpage generation tool and methtod

• US 20040123244A1
• Filed: 12/18/2002
• Published: 06/24/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dieberger, Andreas, Campbell, Christopher S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,747,941 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/517
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

The creation and maintenance of a website is made easier through automation. The user selects the data (or documents) to put on the web. Information associated with the documents is extracted from the documents and analyzed to determine the contents of the documents. A template is then automatically selected from a library of templates, and this template is used to generate the website. Both the structure and the layout of the data may be determined from the data itself, from user actions, from corporate identity templates, and from authorities that can help improve the website design.

Claims

1. A product comprising a computer-readable medium that tangibly embodies a computer executable program thereon for automatically laying out a document'"'"'s information on at least one webpage, the program including instructions for:

(a) automatically selecting a particular template from a library of templates, wherein said particular template is selected according to information associated with the document; and

(b) dynamically adapting said particular template, thereby permitting information in the document to be integrated into a webpage.

2. The product of claim 1, wherein said template selection is based on metadata associated with the document.

3. The product of claim 1, wherein said template selection is based on information in the document itself.

4. The product of claim 1, wherein the computer program includes instructions for extracting information associated with the document.

5. The product of claim 4, wherein the computer program includes instructions for analyzing the extracted information to determine the contents of the document.

6. The product of claim 5, wherein the computer program includes instructions for merging the selected template with a default template to form a completed template that is used to integrate the document into the webpage.

7. The product of claim 6, wherein the computer program includes instructions for generating at least one webpage from the completed template and the document, wherein said selecting is performed without further input by a user after the document has been provided.

8. The product of claim 6, wherein said dynamically adapting includes modifying the selected template by comparing rules in the selected template with rules in the default template.

9. A method of constructing a webpage, comprising:

extracting information associated with at least one document;

analyzing the extracted information to determine the contents of said at least one document;

selecting a template from a library of templates according to the contents of said at least one document; and

generating at least one webpage from the selected template and said at least one document, wherein said selecting is performed by computer program code residing within at least one processor.

10. The method of claim 9, comprising merging the selected template with a default template to form a completed template from which said at least one webpage is generated.

11. The method of claim 10, said merging including a stepwise process in which rules in the default template are compared with corresponding rules in the selected template.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein rules with the highest priority are selected to be included in the completed template.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the default template has been previously generated with the method of claim 8.

14. The method of claim 9, comprising merging a plurality of selected templates to form a completed template from which the webpage is generated.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein said selecting depends in part on preferences input by a user.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein said selecting is performed without input from a user after said extracting.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the extracted information is metadata.

18. The method of claim 9, wherein the information is extracted from the document itself.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein information is extracted from a plurality of documents.

20. The method of claim 9, wherein the library of templates resides on a template server, and said at least one document is provided to a client machine that communicates with the template server.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said at least one webpage is generated on a server that communicates with both the template server and the client machine.

22. The method of claim 9, wherein a plurality of webpages are generated to form a website.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein hyperlinks are formed on the webpages to link the webpages to each other.

24. The method of claim 9, wherein the template library includes a template for photos.

25. The method of claim 9, wherein the template library includes a template for a publication list.

26. The method of claim 9, wherein the template library includes a template for an employee directory.

27. The method of claim 9, wherein said at least one document is stored in a database.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising extracting information from at least one document that had been previously stored in the database, said at least one previously stored document being stored in the database.

29. A product comprising a computer-readable medium that tangibly embodies a computer executable program thereon for:

extracting information associated with at least one document;

analyzing the extracted information to determine the contents of said at least one document;

selecting a template from a library of templates according to the contents of said at least one document; and

generating at least one webpage from the selected template and said at least one document.

30. The product of claim 29, the program further including instructions for merging the selected template with a default template to form a completed template that is used to generate said at least one webpage.

31. The product of claim 29, wherein said selecting is performed without input from a user after said extracting.

32. The method of claim 29, wherein the extracted information is metadata.

33. The method of claim 29, wherein information is extracted from a plurality of documents.

34. A computer system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory in electronic communication with said at least one processor, in which said memory includes software instructions designed to enable the computer system to perform the acts of;

extracting information associated with at least one document;

analyzing the extracted information to determine the contents of said at least one document;

selecting a template from a library of templates according to the contents of said at least one document; and

generating at least one webpage from the selected template and said at least one document.

35. The method of claim 34, said at least one processor including a template server and a client machine that communicates with the template server, wherein the library of templates resides on the template server, and said at least one document is provided to the client machine.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein said at least one webpage is generated on a server that communicates with both the template server and the client machine.