WEB ENGINE SEARCH PREVIEW

• US 20080134093A1
• Filed: 11/30/2006
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Butler, Christopher L., Dharmarajan, Baskaran
• Granted Patent: US 8,108,371 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/838
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Presenting both hyperlinks and thumbnail versions of search engine results is described herein. More specifically, a graphical user interface (GUI) having multiple display areas is described. One display area is configured for displaying the hyperlinks returned from a search-engine query. Another display area is configured to display thumbnail versions of the one or more web pages related to the search-engine query. The thumbnail versions are retrieved after a search-engine query is submitted and after hyperlinks to relevant web pages are received. Each relevant web page is retrieved on one or more background threads. The retrieved web pages are then stored, and their thumbnail versions are presented along with the hyperlinks.

Claims

1. A graphical user interface embodied on a computer-readable medium and executable on a computer, said graphical user interface comprising:

a first display area configured for displaying one or more hyperlinks associated with one or web pages related to a search-engine query; and

a second display area configured for displaying one or more thumbnail versions of the one or more web pages related to the search-engine query, wherein the one or more thumbnail versions illustrate the one or more web pages at the time of the search-engine query.

2. The graphical user interface of claim 1, further comprising a third display area configured for depicting a selective option to display one or more preview options for displaying the one or more thumbnail versions of the one or more web pages.

3. The graphical user interface of claim 2, wherein the one or more options include designating a display size for the one or more thumbnail versions.

4. The graphical user interface of claim 1, further comprising a third display area configured for depicting a selective option to not display the one or more thumbnail versions of the one or more web pages.

5. The graphical user interface of claim 1, further comprising a third display area configured for depicting a selective option to display the one or more thumbnail versions as one or more display tabs.

6. The graphical user interface of claim 1, wherein the one or more thumbnail versions are stored on a client computing device in the graphic interchange format (GIF).

7. The graphical user interface of claim 1, wherein the one or more thumbnail versions are stored on a client computing device in the tagged image file format (TIFF).

8. The graphical user interface of claim 1, wherein the search-engine query comprises a keyword search on a search engine.

9. The graphical user interface of claim 1, further comprising a third display area configured to display an enlarged version of the one or more web pages related to the search-engine query.

10. The graphical user interface of claim 1, further comprising a third display area configured to present one or more graphical tabs associated with the one or more web pages.

11. In a computer system having a graphical user interface including a display and a user-interface selection device, a method for presenting one or more thumbnail versions of one or more web pages associated with one or more hyperlinks, wherein the one or more hyperlinks are related to a search-engine query, comprising:

submitting the search-engine query;

receiving the one or more hyperlinks;

retrieving one or more web pages associated with the one or more hyperlinks; and

presenting, on the display, one or more thumbnail versions of the one or more web pages along with the one or more hyperlinks, wherein the one or more thumbnail versions illustrate the one or more web pages at the time of the search-engine query.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising storing the one or thumbnail versions on a client computing device.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more web pages associated with the one or more hyperlinks are retrieved by one or more web browsers.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein an ActiveX®

control enables presenting the one or more versions of the one or more web pages.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

presenting one or more graphical tabs associated with the one or more web pages; and

incident to a user'"'"'s selection of one of the one or more tabs, presenting a version of a web page associated with the one of the one or more tabs.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising hiding the one or more thumbnail versions incident to a user'"'"'s indication.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving an indication from a user to view an enlarged version of one of the one or more web pages; and

presenting an enlarged version of the one or more web pages.

18. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for presenting one or more thumbnail versions of one or more web pages associated with one or more hyperlinks, wherein the one or more hyperlinks are related to a search-engine query, comprising:

receiving the one or more hyperlinks;

retrieving the one or more web pages utilizing one or more web browsers on a client computing device, wherein the one or more web pages are associated with the one or more hyperlinks;

storing one or more versions of the one or more web pages on the client computing device, wherein the one or more versions illustrate the one or more web pages at the time of the search-engine query; and

presenting the one or more hyperlinks and the one or more versions of each of the one or more web pages to a user.

19. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the one or more versions of the one or more web pages includes at least one of a graphics interchange format (GIF), tagged image file format (TIFF), portable document format (PDF), or joint photographic experts group (PDF) file format.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, further comprising highlighting one or more search terms from the search-engine query in the one or more versions of the one or more web pages.