DRAGGABLE MECHANISM FOR IDENTIFYING AND COMMUNICATING THE STATE OF AN APPLICATION

• US 20090015599A1
• Filed: 07/09/2007
• Published: 01/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Oath Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Blinnikka, Tomi, Shafton, Peter, Bennett, Jeffery
• Application Number:
  US11/775,097
• Publication Number:
  US 20090015599A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/680
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]

Abstract

In a method and system for identifying and communicating a state of an application, a namespace is defined for a draggable mechanism. The draggable mechanism is located within an application window housing an application. Metadata identifying application state information is appended to a URL embedded within the draggable mechanism to reflect a first application state of the application. The metadata identifying the application state information is updated at a predetermined interval to reflect new application states.

Claims

1. A method for communicating a state of an application, comprising:

defining a namespace for a draggable mechanism;

on a graphical display, locating the draggable mechanism within an application window;

appending metadata identifying application state information to a URL embedded within the draggable mechanism to reflect a first application state; and

updating the appended metadata at a predetermined interval to reflect an updated application state.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dragging the draggable mechanism from the application window to a location within the graphical display different from a location of the application window;

accessing the draggable mechanism at the different location;

upon said accessing, parsing the embedded URL to extract the application state information from the metadata; and

responsive to the extracted application state information, executing the application at a state corresponding to the extracted application state information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined interval for said updating is defined by the draggable mechanism namespace.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the predetermined interval is a measure of time.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the predetermined interval is an application event.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined interval is dependent on an application type.

3. (canceled)

7. (canceled)

8. (canceled)

10. A computer-readable medium encoded with a computer-executable program to perform a method comprising:

defining a namespace for a draggable mechanism;

on a graphical display, locating the draggable mechanism within an application window housing an application;

appending metadata identifying application state information to a URL embedded within the draggable mechanism to reflect a first application state; and

updating the metadata at a predetermined interval to reflect an updated application state.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

dragging the draggable mechanism from the application window to a location within the graphical display different from a location of the application window;

accessing the draggable mechanism at the different location;

upon said accessing, parsing the embedded URL to extract the application state information from the metadata; and

responsive to the extracted application state information, executing the application at a state corresponding to the extracted application state information.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the predetermined interval for said updating is defined in the draggable mechanism namespace.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the predetermined interval is a measure of time.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the predetermined interval is an application event.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the predetermined interval is dependent on an application type.

12. (canceled)

16. (canceled)

17. (canceled)

19. A draggable mechanism for communicating the state of an application, comprising:

on a graphical display, a graphical icon located within an application window housing the application, said graphical icon configured to be dragged to a receiving application; and

a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) embedded within said graphical icon, the URI comprising;

a scheme name defining a namespace for the URI, wherein the namespace defines identifiers corresponding to the application state;

a path identifying a location of the application; and

metadata identifying application state information, said metadata being separated from said scheme name and said path by a delimiting character.

20. The draggable mechanism of claim 19, wherein the delimiting character is a hash mark.

21. The draggable mechanism of claim 19, wherein said metadata is updated at a predetermined interval to reflect new application state information.

22. The draggable mechanism of claim 21, wherein the predetermined interval is defined in the namespace.

23. The draggable mechanism of claim 22, wherein the predetermined interval is a measure of time.

24. The draggable mechanism of claim 22, wherein the predetermined interval is an application event.

25. The draggable mechanism of claim 21, wherein the predetermined interval is dependent on an application type.

26. A system for communicating a state of an application, the system comprising:

an application housed in an application window;

a draggable mechanism located within the application window, said draggable mechanism comprising a graphical image and a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) embedded within said graphical image, wherein said URI identifies a location for said graphical image and metadata identifying a state of said application appended to said URI; and

a receiving application supporting drag-and-drop functionality to;

receive said draggable mechanism;

parse said draggable mechanism to extract the metadata identifying the state of said application; and

execute said application at a state corresponding to the application state identified by the extracted metadata.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein said metadata is updated at a predetermined interval to reflect new application state information.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the predetermined interval is defined in the namespace.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the predetermined interval is a measure of time.

31. The system of claim 29, wherein the predetermined interval is an application event.

32. The system of claim 28, wherein the predetermined interval is dependent on an application type.

27. (canceled)

33. (canceled)

34. (canceled)