Previewing file or document content

• US 20040205633A1
• Filed: 01/11/2002
• Published: 10/14/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rahn, Michael D., Martinez, Anthony E.
• Application Number:
  US10/044,737
• Publication Number:
  US 20040205633A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/526
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation

Abstract

An easy-to-use, intuitive previewing technique for enabling users to refresh their memories about the content of Web pages and/or files and other documents by previewing that content. The disclosed techniques enable previewing content without actually navigating to the Web page or without actually opening the file or document. A “previewer” graphic image may be dragged over a hyperlink or file name (or file icon) to signal that a preview of the associated Web page or file should be rendered.

Claims

1. A content previewer, comprising:

a graphic previewer image;

means for placing the graphic previewer image over a representation of content to be previewed; and

means for rendering a preview of the content to be previewed, responsive to operation of the means for placing.

2. A method of previewing content in a computing system, comprising steps of:

providing a previewer graphic for dragging over a representation of content to be previewed; and

rendering a preview of the content to be previewed, responsive to dragging of the provided previewer graphic.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the representation is a hyperlink and the content to be previewed is a Web page.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the representation is a file name and the content to be previewed is a stored file.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the rendered preview comprises a thumbnail version of the Web page.

6. The method according to claim 3, wherein the rendered preview is rendered within the previewer graphic.

7. The method according to claim 3, further comprising steps of:

navigating to the Web page, response to a user'"'"'s request; and

displaying the Web page, responsive to the navigating.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the user'"'"'s request is signalled by clicking within the previewer graphic.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the previewer graphic remains positioned over the displayed Web page.

10. The method according to claim 2, wherein the previewer graphic replaces a cursor of a visual display of the computing system.

11. The method according to claim 2, wherein the rendered preview uses cached information associated with the content to be previewed.

12. The method according to claim 2, wherein the representation is a file icon and the content to be previewed is a stored file.

13. A system for previewing content in a computing system, comprising:

means for providing a previewer graphic for dragging over a representation of content to be previewed;

means for detecting that the provided previewer graphic has been dragged over the representation; and

means for rendering a preview of the content to be previewed, responsive to the means for detecting, wherein the rendered preview is rendered within the previewer graphic.

14. A computer program product for previewing content in a computing system, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer-readable program code means for providing a previewer graphic for dragging over a representation of content to be previewed;

computer-readable program code means for detecting that the provided previewer graphic has been dragged over the representation; and

computer-readable program code means for rendering a preview of the content to be previewed, responsive to the computer-readable program code means for detecting, wherein the rendered preview is rendered within the previewer graphic.