Small Form Factor Web Browsing

• US 20060282445A1
• Filed: 08/18/2006
• Published: 12/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ma, Wei-Ying, Wang, Ming-Yu, Chen, Yu, Zhang, Hong Jiang
• Granted Patent: US 8,020,090 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A large web page is analyzed and partitioned into smaller sub-pages so that a user can navigate the web page on a small form factor device. The user can browse the sub-pages to find and read information in the content of the large web page. The partitioning can be performed at a web server, an edge server, at the small form factor device, or can be distributed across one or more such devices. The analysis leverages design habits of a web page author to extract a representation structure of an authored web page. The extracted representation structure includes high level structure using several markup language tag selection rules and low level structure using visual boundary detection in which visual units of the low level structure are provided by clustering markup language tags. User viewing habits can be learned to display favorite parts of a web page.

Claims

1-25. -25. (canceled)

26. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions thereon which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

extracting high level structure information about a web page using markup language tag tree selection rules to define high level boundaries;

extracting low level structure information within each said high level structure information by;

identifying explicit visual boundaries from the properties of the tags of the markup language tag tree;

identifying visual units by boundary detection from the markup language tag tree corresponding to each said high level structure information; and

projecting each visual unit perpendicularly to an axis to identify implicit boundaries between the visual units; and

storing the high level boundaries, the implicit boundaries, and the extracted high and low level structure information of the web page.

27. The one or more computer-readable media as defined in claim 26, wherein the identifying visual units further comprises:

collecting basic nodes from the markup language tag tree corresponding to each said high level structure information;

classifying the collected basic nodes;

grouping similar classifications of the collected basic nodes into symbol strings;

detecting and merging adjacent similar patterns in the symbol strings of the classified collected basic nodes to form new symbol strings; and

determining each non-blank symbol in each remaining symbol string to be one said identified visual unit for implicit boundary detection.

28. The one or more computer-readable media as defined in claim 26, wherein the method further comprises, for a predetermined display screen having a width, identifying a plurality of sub-pages of the web page using the high level boundaries, the implicit boundaries, and the extracted high and low level structure information of the web page, wherein each said sub-page has a width not greater than the width of the predetermined display screen.

29. The one or more computer-readable media as defined in claim 28, wherein the method further comprises:

forming a thumbnail image of the web page having partitions corresponding to the one or more sub-pages;

forming a hyperlink to each said sub-page from a corresponding said partition of the thumbnail image of the web page; and

storing the sub-pages, the thumbnail image, and the hyperlinks using an e annotation mechanism.

30. The one or more computer-readable media as defined in claim 29, wherein the method further comprises, for the contents each said sub-page, extracting any style information from the markup language tag tree of the web page for inclusion in the sub-page.

31. A method comprising:

using a markup language tag tree of the web page to extract regions of the web page including a header, a footer, left and right side bar regions, and one or more body regions encompassed by the header region, the footer region, the left side bar region, and the right side bar region;

identifying visual boundaries within each said region by;

the properties of the tags of the markup language tag tree;

projecting normal to an axis each shape represented by one or more semantic units of the tags of the markup language tag tree in each region; and

determining the additional visual boundaries from the projection values on the axis.

33. The method as defined in claim 31, further comprising:

for a predetermined display screen, identifying a plurality of sub-pages of the web page using the identified visual boundaries and the regions, where each said sub-page has a width not greater than the width of the predetermined display screen;

forming a thumbnail image of the web page having partitions corresponding to the one or more sub-pages;

forming a hyperlink to each said sub-page from a corresponding said partition of the thumbnail image of the web page; and

storing the sub-pages, the thumbnail image, and the hyperlinks using an annotation mechanism.

34. The method as defined in claim 33, further comprising, for the contents each said sub-page, extracting any style information from the markup language tag tree of the web page for inclusion in the sub-page.

35. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions thereon which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement the method of claim 31.

32. (canceled)

36. A method comprising:

analyzing a markup language tag tree of a web page to identify;

peripheral regions of the web page including header, footer, left, and right regions; and

one or more body regions adjacent to at least one said peripheral region;

within the markup language tag tree that defines each said peripheral and body region;

identifying visual boundaries given in the properties of the tags of the markup language tag tree; and

identifying blank areas by;

analyzing one or more functions on the basis of a layout structure of each said function by;

configuring each said function into a rectangle;

projecting each rectangle normally onto each of perpendicular axes; and

determining one or more separators that are each normal to the axes as a function of the sum of the projections on each axis.

37. The method as defined in claim 36, further comprising, for a predetermined width of a display screen, identifying a plurality of sub-pages of the web page each having a width not greater than the predetermined width of the display screen and using:

the peripheral regions of the web page including header, footer, left, and right regions;

the one or more body regions adjacent to at least one said peripheral region;

the visual boundaries identified in the properties of the tags of the markup language tag tree; and

the one more separators.

38. The method as:

defined in claim 37, further comprising;

forming a thumbnail image of the web page having partitions corresponding to the one or more sub-pages;

forming a hyperlink to each said sub-page from a corresponding said partition of the thumbnail image of the web page; and

storing the sub-pages, the thumbnail image, and the hyperlinks using an annotation mechanism.

39. The method as defined in claim 38, further comprising, for the contents each said sub-page, extracting any style information from the markup language tag tree of the web page for inclusion in the sub-page.

41. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions thereon which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement the method of claim 36.

40. (canceled)

42-54. -54. (canceled)