Method and device for selecting and displaying a region of interest in an electronic document

• US 20080077880A1
• Filed: 09/22/2006
• Published: 03/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Opera Software ASA
• Original Assignee: Opera Software ASA
• Inventors: Oygard, Karl Anders
• Granted Patent: US 9,128,596 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/799
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning

Abstract

A method is provided for selecting a region of interest in an electronic document and displaying the selected region in a manner that is adapted to the capabilities of a display. The method may comprise such steps as loading a document, selecting a position within said document, analyzing the layout of the document in order to identify a region of interest containing said position, and displaying said region of interest on said display in a manner that aligns the region of interest with a window of said display. Also described is a device configured to perform the method and a computer program product including instructions for performing the method on a computing device.

Claims

1. A method for selecting and displaying a region of interest in an electronic document on the display of a device, comprising:

loading a document;

selecting a position within said document;

analyzing the layout of said document in order to identify a region of interest containing said position; and

aligning said identified region of interest with a window of said display and displaying said region of interest.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said position is selected based on an analysis of elements contained in said document.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said position is selected based on user input from an input device.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said position includes at least first coordinates.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein said analysis comprises:

identifying at least one layout box in said document associated with said position; and

selecting said region such as to contain substantially the entire layout box along at least one dimension.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said document is a markup language document, and said layout box at least one DOM element.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein said document is a markup language document, and said layout box is at least one CSS containing block.

8. The method according to claim 5, wherein said one dimension is the width of the layout box, and said region is selected to have substantially the same width as said layout box.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein aligning and displaying said region of interest comprises:

determining a first resolution with which a currently displayed region of said document is displayed;

calculating a desired second resolution for displaying said region of interest; and

performing a stepwise change from said first resolution to said second resolution.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein aligning and displaying said region of interest comprises:

determining a first position in said document representative of a currently displayed region of said document;

determining a second position in said document representative of said region of interest; and

sequentially displaying a number of regions of said document along a path from said first position to said second position.

21. Computer program product carried on a computer readable medium and comprising instructions that, when loaded and executed on a computing device, is capable of performing the method of one of the claims 1 to 10.

11. A computing device configured to display electronic documents for selecting and displaying a region of interest in an electronic document on the display of a device, comprising:

a display;

a user input interface;

a communications interface capable of receiving electronic documents;

memory into which a received document can be loaded;

a module configured to;

select a position within a document that has been loaded into memory;

analyze the layout of said document in order to identify a region of interest containing said position; and

aligning said identified region of interest with a window of said display and displaying said region of interest.

12. The device according to claim 11, wherein said module is further configured to select said position based on an analysis of elements contained in said document.

13. The device according to claim 11, wherein said module is further configured to select said position based on user input received over said user input interface.

14. The device according to claim 11, wherein said position includes at least first coordinates.

15. The device according to claim 11, wherein said analysis comprises:

identifying at least one layout box in said document associated with said position; and

selecting said region such as to contain substantially the entire layout box along at least one dimension.

16. The device according to claim 15, wherein said document is a markup language document, and said layout box at least one DOM element.

17. The device according to claim 15, wherein said document is a markup language document, and said layout box is at least one CSS containing block.

18. The device according to claim 15, wherein said one dimension is the width of the layout box, and said region is selected to have the same width as said layout box.

19. The device according to claim 11, wherein said module is further configured to align and display said region of interest by:

determining a first resolution with which a currently displayed region of said document is displayed;

calculating a desired second resolution for displaying said region of interest; and

performing a stepwise change from said first resolution to said second resolution.

20. The device according to claim 11, wherein said module is further configured to align and display said region of interest by:

determining a first position in said document representative of a currently displayed region of said document;

determining a second position in said document representative of said region of interest; and

sequentially displaying a number of regions of said document along a path from said first position to said second position.