Activating content based on state

• US 20050228781A1
• Filed: 04/07/2004
• Published: 10/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Reddish, Andrew D., Dong, Wenlong, Rogerson, Dale E., Chandrashekar, Sridhar, McRoberts, J. Shane
• Granted Patent: US 7,890,744 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

A content author provides content to be displayed, including some content elements for which display is conditional on the state of the machine in which the content will be viewed. The conditional statements controlling the display of these content elements, in one embodiment refer to states provided by a state monitor. The state may refer to the state of any aspect of the viewing environment, including hardware, software, firmware, user preferences, software operating modes, and any other detectable state. The resulting content is optionally combined with other similar content via a structural transform. This content is transformed with a presentation transform. One of the transforms checks the states and resolves the conditional statements included by the content author. The result of the transforms is presentation data. A display of this presentation data includes the content which, according to the conditional statements and the state of the viewing environment is appropriate for display.

Claims

1. A method for providing state-dependent content comprising:

accepting content comprising content to be displayed only under a certain condition relating to at least one state of a computing environment;

determining said at least one state of a computing environment; and

producing presentational content by at least one presentational transform of said accepted content based on said determination.

2. The method of claim 1, where said determination of said state of a computing environment comprises consulting a state monitor.

3. The method of claim 1, where said at least one state of a computing environment comprises a state selected from the following group:

a state of a user of said computing environment, a state of a hardware element of said computing environment, a state of software present in said computing environment, a state of an application running in said computing environment, user preferences in said computing environment, and controls set in said computing environment.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

combining said accepted content with additional content by at least one structural transform defining how said combination should occur.

5. The method of claim 1, where said accepted content is in XML format.

6. The method of claim 1, where an input to said presentational transform is transform data in XSLT format.

7. The method of claim 1, where said step of producing presentational content comprises removing some portion of said accepted content.

8. The method of claim 1, where said step of producing presentational content comprises setting some portion of said accepted content to not be displayed.

9. The method of claim 8, where said setting some portion of said accepted content to not be displayed comprises allowing a user to see said portion of accepted content only on request.

10. At least one of an operating system, a computer readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of computer-executable instructions, a co-processing device, a computing device, and a modulated data signal carrying computer executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1.

11. A method for producing state-dependent content for display comprising:

authoring content to be displayed;

adding at least one conditional marking of some portion of said content to be displayed under a certain condition relating to at least one state of a computing environment;

delivering said content for the production of presentational content by a transformation based on the current value of said at least one state.

12. At least one of an operating system, a computer readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of computer-executable instructions, a co-processing device, a computing device, and a modulated data signal carrying computer executable instructions for performing the method of claim 11.

13. A system for providing state-dependent content comprising:

content storage for accepting content comprising content to be displayed only under a certain condition relating to at least one state of a computing environment;

at least one state monitor for determining said at least one state of a computing environment; and

a presentational transformer for producing presentational content by at least one transform of said accepted content based on said determination.

14. The system of claim 13, where said at least one state of a computing environment comprises a state selected from the following group:

a state of a hardware element of said computing environment, a state of software present in said computing environment, user preferences in said computing environment, and controls set in said computing environment.

15. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

a structural transformer for combining said accepted content with additional content by at least one structural transform defining how said combination should occur.

16. The system of claim 15, where said accepted content is in XML format.

17. The system of claim 13, where an input to said transformation is transform data in XSLT format.

18. The system of claim 13, where said presentational transform removes some portion of said accepted content.

19. The system of claim 13, where said presentational transform sets some portion of said accepted content to not be displayed.

20. The system of claim 19, where said setting of some portion of said accepted content to not be displayed allows a user to see said portion of accepted content only on request.

21. A system for producing state-dependent content for display comprising:

a content acceptor for accepting content to be displayed;

a conditional marking adder for adding at least one conditional marking of some portion of said content to be displayed under a certain condition relating to at least one state of a computing environment; and

a content deliverer for delivering said content for the production of presentational content by a transformation based on the current value of said at least one state.