Method and system for displaying and interacting with paginated content

• US 20060200760A1
• Filed: 03/04/2005
• Published: 09/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Newton-Smith, Jeremy W.J., Sellers, Timothy D., Dersch, Joshua A., Leedy, Annette Kay, Brown, Nicholas Gregg, Grantham, Heather L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,512,892 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/209
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

A document viewer control that is hosted by another computer program to provide that program with document viewing functionality, including enabling user interaction with the content. An interface provides the program with plug-in access to document viewing functionality, including scrolling, zooming, finding, layout, copying and the like. Properties may be retrieved and set via the interface, and commands may be issued. The result is that any program can provide document viewing functionality in a consistent manner. Moreover, via styles or the like, a program developer can deactivate and/or override default functionality, to customize and/or extend the document viewer as desired for a given program.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

providing a document viewing control for hosting by another program, the document viewer control including an interface set of at least one interface;

receiving a function call from a calling program at the interface set of the document viewing control; and

in response to a function call, providing document viewing functionality to enable the calling program to display content of a document.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein providing document viewing functionality comprises changing a zoom level of displayed content.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein providing document viewing functionality comprises scrolling in the document to change the way content is being displayed.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein providing document viewing functionality comprises copying selected content in the document.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing document printing functionality in response to a function call.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving the function call from a calling program at the interface set comprises receiving a request to obtain a property value.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein receiving the request to obtain a property value comprises receiving a request for a value of at least one property of a set, the set containing content-related data, page count data, first visible page data, last visible page data, horizontal offset data, vertical offset data, extent width data, extent height data, viewport width data, viewport height data, data indicative of whether page borders are shown, zoom percentage data, grid column count data, vertical page spacing data, horizontal page spacing data, data indicative of whether at document start, data indicative of whether at document end, data indicative of whether the document can be zoomed in, data indicative of whether the document can be zoomed out, and data indicative of a toolbar state.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the function call from the calling program at the interface set comprises receiving a request to change a property value.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein receiving the request to change a property value comprises receiving a request to change a value of at least one property of a set, the set containing content-related data, first visible page data, horizontal offset data, vertical offset data, show page borders data, zoom percentage data, grid column count data, vertical page spacing data, horizontal page spacing data and data to change a toolbar state.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the function call from the calling program at the interface set comprises receiving a command.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein receiving the command comprises receiving at least one command of a set, the set containing, a toggle toolbar command, a fit to grid column count command, a reflow document command, a view thumbnails command, a view fit to width command, and a view fit to height command.

12. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform the method of claim 1.

13. In a computing environment having an executable computer program, a system comprising:

a document viewing control for displaying content of a document, the document viewing control providing at least one default feature to enable user interaction with the displayed content; and

an interface set of the document viewing control by which the executable computer program calls to the document viewing control to provide the computer program with document viewing functionality.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the program customizes at least part of the document viewing control by overriding at least one default feature.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the program customizes at least part of the document viewing control via a style.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the document viewing control contains a control set of at least one other control related to displaying content of a document.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the control set includes a scroll-related control, a zoom-related control, a find-related control, a layout-related control, a menu-related control, and a copy-related control.

18. The system of claim 13 wherein the interface provides access to properties and commands, the properties including at least one member of a property set containing:

content-related data, page count data, first visible page data, last visible page data, horizontal offset data, vertical offset data, extent width data, extent height data, viewport width data, viewport height data, data indicative of whether page borders are shown, zoom percentage data, grid column count data, vertical page spacing data, horizontal page spacing data, data indicative of whether at document start, data indicative of whether at document end, data indicative of whether the document can be zoomed in, data indicative of whether the document can be zoomed out, and data indicative of a toolbar state, and

the commands including at least one member of a command set containing;

a toggle toolbar command, a fit to grid column count command, a reflow document command, a view thumbnails command, a view fit to width command, and a view fit to height command.

19. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

document viewing control means for hosting by another program, the document viewer control means including an interface set of at least one interface; and

means for receiving a function call from a calling program at the interface set to enable user interaction with content displayed via the document viewing control means while hosted by another program.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the user interaction changes the way content is displayed.