Method and apparatus for marking of web page portions for revisiting the marked portions

• US 20040221006A1
• Filed: 04/30/2003
• Published: 11/04/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Potluri, Lakshmi Naga Jyothy, Gopalan, Prabhakar, Nachimuthu, Kanmani
• Granted Patent: US 7,702,811 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9562 Bookmark management

Abstract

A method and apparatus for marking Web pages for later revisiting the Web pages are provided. With the method and apparatus, data structures are provided in the Web site server for tracking information regarding the Web pages associated with the Web sites, users that have visited the Web site, what pages were visited by the users, and portions of the web pages that were marked by the users. This information is maintained by the Web site server so that, upon subsequent visits to the Web site server, the marked portions of the Web pages visited by the user may be identified for special processing by the Web browser of the client device being used to access the Web site. Such special processing may include conspicuously identifying the marked portions in a display of the Web browser, providing the ability to jump to marked portions of the Web pages, displaying only the marked portions of the Web pages, and the like.

Claims

1. A method for marking a portion of a Web page for special processing in a subsequent request for the Web page, comprising:

receiving a request, from a client device, to mark a portion of the Web page, wherein the portion is less than an entire Web page; and

storing an identifier of the marked portion of the Web page in an entry of a data structure in association with a unique identifier of the client device, wherein the identifier of the marked portion of the Web page is retrievable from the data structure upon a subsequent request for the Web page from the client device based on the unique identifier of the client device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a subsequent request for the Web page from the client device;

retrieving the entry in response to the subsequent request from the client device;

modifying code of the Web page to identify the marked portion as being marked prior to transmitting the code of the Web page to the client device; and

transmitting the modified code of the Web page to the client device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier of the marked portion of the Web page includes at least one tag associated with the marked portion, the at least one tag being identified from code representing the Web page.

4. The method of claim 1,.wherein the unique identifier of the client device is a cookie.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is received from an application associated with a Web browser application running on the client device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the application provides a graphical user interface element selectable by a user for marking a portion of a Web page displayed by the Web browser application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the Web page is part of a Web site and wherein the Web site is defined in a Web page index table data structure having records for each Web page of the Web site, and each Web page of the Web site is defined in a Web page table data structure having records identifying tags that identify portions of associated Web pages.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a cookie identifier associated with the client device, a Web page identifier for identifying the Web page, and one or more tag identifiers for identifying tags associated with the marked portion of the Web page.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the cookie identifier, Web page identifier and the one or more tag identifiers are stored in a relationship table data structure record defining a relationship between the cookie identifier and marked portions of the Web page.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein modifying code of the Web page to identify the marked portion as being marked prior to transmitting the code of the Web page to the client device includes modifying or adding header information in the code of the Web page identifying the marked portion of the Web page.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the header information identifies one or more tags in the code of the Web page associated with the marked portion of the Web page.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the modified code of the Web page is received in an application associated with a Web browser application, and wherein the application associated with the Web browser application performs special processing on the marked portion of the Web page.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the special processing includes at least one of highlighting the marked portion, using a different text color with the marked portion, using a different text font with the marked portion, using a different text size with the marked portion, displaying only the marked portion using the Web browser application, using speech synthesis to read the marked portion, and providing an interface for jumping to the marked portion in response to user input via the interface.

14. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for marking a portion of a Web page for special processing in a subsequent request for the Web page, comprising:

first instructions for receiving a request, from a client device, to mark a portion of the Web page, wherein the portion is less than an entire Web page; and

second instructions for storing an identifier of the marked portion of the Web page in an entry of a data structure in association with a unique identifier of the client device, wherein the identifier of the marked portion of the Web page is retrievable from the data structure upon a subsequent request for the Web page from the client device based on the unique identifier of the client device.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, further comprising:

third instructions for receiving a subsequent request for the Web page from the client device;

fourth instructions for retrieving the entry in response to the subsequent request from the client device;

fifth instructions for modifying code of the Web page to identify the marked portion as being marked prior to transmitting the code of the Web page to the client device; and

sixth instructions for transmitting the modified code of the Web page to the client device.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the identifier of the marked portion of the Web page includes at least one tag associated with the marked portion, the at least one tag being identified from code representing the Web page.

17. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the unique identifier of the client device is a cookie.

18. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the request is received from an application associated with a Web browser application running on the client device.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the application provides a graphical user interface element selectable by a user for marking a portion of a Web page displayed by the Web browser application.

20. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the fifth instructions for modifying code of the Web page to identify the marked portion as being marked prior to transmitting the code of the Web page to the client device include instructions for modifying or adding header information in the code of the Web page identifying the marked portion of the Web page.

21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the header information identifies one or more tags in the code of the Web page associated with the marked portion of the Web page.

22. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the modified code of the Web page is received in an application associated with a Web browser application, and wherein the application associated with the Web browser application performs special processing on the marked portion of the Web page.

23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the special processing includes at least one of highlighting the marked portion, using a different text color with the marked portion, using a different text font with the marked portion, using a different text size with the marked portion, displaying only the marked portion using the Web browser application, using speech synthesis to read the marked portion, and providing an interface for jumping to the marked portion in response to user input via the interface.

24. An apparatus for marking a portion of a Web page for special processing in a subsequent request for the Web page, comprising:

means for receiving a request, from a client device, to mark a portion of the Web page, wherein the portion is less than an entire Web page; and

means for storing an identifier of the marked portion of the Web page in an entry of a data structure in association with a unique identifier of the client device, wherein the identifier of the marked portion of the Web page is retrievable from the data structure upon a subsequent request for the Web page from the client device based on the unique identifier of the client device.

25. A method, in a computing device, of marking a portion of a Web page, comprising:

receiving the Web page in a Web browser application running on the computing device;

receiving a selection of a portion of the Web page, wherein the portion of the Web page is less than an entire portion of the Web page;

receiving a selection of an option to mark the selected portion of the Web page; and

sending a mark request to a source of the Web page, wherein the mark request includes an identifier of the computing device, an identifier of the Web page, and an identifier of the selected portion of the Web page.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the identifier of the computing device is a cookie and wherein the identifier of the selected portion of the Web page is one or more tags present in code of the Web page associated with the selected portion.