Methods, systems, and computer program products for client side prefetching and caching of portlets

• US 20050256940A1
• Filed: 05/04/2004
• Published: 11/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Snap, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Li, Yongcheng, McElroy, Thomas Francis, Henderson, Roderick Charles
• Granted Patent: US 7,624,160 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer program products are provided for prefetching and caching portal information in a client application in a logically separated client/server computing environment. Before a user requests a specific portlet view to be displayed at the user'"'"'s web browser, portlet information from a server is prefetched. The portlet information may include content data to be displayed in a portlet view, meta data describing how the content data will be displayed, and combinations of both content data and meta data. The prefetching step is performed on the client of the logically separated client/server computing environment. The client stores the prefetched portlet. Once the prefetched portlet information has been stored, upon a user request such as clicking on a link in a portlet view, the method retrieves the stored portlet information and displays the portlet information in a corresponding portlet view. From the user'"'"'s perspective, the portlet view may display new content information, previously viewed content information in a different format, or a combination of new content information and old content information presented in a different format.

Claims

1. A method for performing caching operations in a client application in a logically separated client/server computing environment, the method comprising:

prefetching, on a client of the logically separated client/server computing environment, portlet information from a server;

storing the prefetched portlet information on a client computer; and

displaying the prefetched portlet information upon request of a user.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining which portlet information is prefetched.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the determining step further comprises:

composing a portal link structure, the portal link structure comprising a hierarchical arrangement of a plurality of portlet link entries, each portlet link entry containing data describing a corresponding portlet view;

tracking a current portlet link entry as an entry whose corresponding portlet view is currently being displayed; and

determining a distance between the current portlet link entry and another portlet link entry in the plurality of portlet link entries to determine which corresponding portlet views should be prefetched.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the prefetching step further comprises:

requesting portlet information from a portal application server on the server.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the displaying step further comprises:

displaying the prefetched portlet information through a web browser.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the storing step further comprises:

storing the prefetched portlet information to a cache.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

downloading framework code to the client computer, the framework code providing utility functions for performing, when executed on the client computer, the prefetching and storing steps.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein portlet information is less than an HTML page.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the displaying step further comprises:

combining prefetched portlet information with portlet information retrieved upon the user'"'"'s request.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the storing means further comprises:

means for storing the prefetched portlet information to a cache.

25. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the computer readable program code configured to prefetch portlet information and the computer readable program code configured to storing prefetched portlet information are combined into framework code, the computer program product further comprising:

a computer readable program code configured to download framework code to the client computer.

10. A system for performing caching operations in a client application in a logically separated client/server computing environment, the system comprising:

means for prefetching, on a client of the logically separated client/server computing environment, portlet information from a server;

means for storing the prefetched portlet information on a client computer; and

means for displaying the prefetched portlet information upon request of the user.

11. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

means for determining which portlet information is prefetched.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the determining means further comprises:

means for composing a portal link structure, the portal link structure comprising a hierarchical arrangement of a plurality of portlet link entries, each portlet link entry containing data describing a corresponding portlet view;

means for tracking a current portlet link entry as an entry whose corresponding portlet view is currently being displayed; and

means for determining a distance between the current portlet link entry and another portlet link entry in the plurality of portlet link entries to determine which corresponding portlet views should be prefetched.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein the prefetching means further comprises:

means for requesting portlet information from a portal application server on the server.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein the displaying means further comprises:

means for displaying the prefetched portlet information through a web browser.

16. The system of claim 10 wherein the means for prefetching and the means for storing are performed by framework code, the system further comprising:

means for downloading framework code to the client computer, the framework code being executed on the client computer.

17. The system of claim 10 wherein portlet information is less than an HTML page.

18. The system of claim 10 wherein the displaying means further comprises:

means for combining prefetched portlet information with portlet information retrieved upon the users request.

19. A computer program product for performing caching operations in a client application in a logically separated client/server computing environment, comprising:

a computer readable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein, the computer readable program product comprising;

a computer readable program code configured to prefetch, on a client of the logically separated client/server computing environment, portlet information from a server;

a computer readable program code configured to store the prefetched portlet information on a client computer; and

a computer readable program code configured to display the prefetched portlet information upon request of the user.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising:

a computer readable program code configured to determine which portlet information is prefetched.

21. The computer program product of claim 20 wherein the computer readable program code configured to determine which portlet information is prefetched further comprises:

a computer readable program code configured to compose a portal link structure, the portal link structure comprising a hierarchical arrangement of a plurality of portlet link entries, each portlet link entry containing data describing a corresponding portlet view;

a computer readable program code configured to track a current portlet link entry as an entry whose corresponding portlet view is currently being displayed; and

a computer readable program code configured to determine a distance between the current portlet link entry and another portlet link entry in the plurality of portlet link entries to determine which corresponding portlet views should be prefetched.

22. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the computer readable program code configured to prefetch portlet information further comprises:

a computer readable program code configured to request portlet information from a portal application server on the server.

23. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the computer readable program code configured to display the prefetched portlet information further comprises:

displaying the prefetched portlet information through a web browser.

24. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the computer readable program code configured to store the prefetched portlet information further comprises:

a computer readable program code configured to store the prefetched portlet information to a cache.

26. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein portlet information is less than an HTML page.

27. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the computer readable program code configured to display prefetched portlet information further comprises:

a computer readable program code configured to combine prefetched portlet information with portlet information retrieved upon the users request.