REPRESENTING EDITABLE ATTRIBUTES OF EMBEDDED CONTENT

• US 20090055755A1
• Filed: 08/21/2007
• Published: 02/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wetpaint.com Incorporated (Function(x), Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Wetpaint.com Incorporated (Function(x), Inc.)
• Inventors: Gershey, Simon, Hicks, Ryan, Apel, Steve, Berg, Alex
• Granted Patent: US 8,555,200 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

A representational editing system for WYSIWYG editing of editable web pages with embedded content elements. The representational editing system presents embedded content elements in an editable manner that represents their actual appearance on the web page. Typically, the representational editing system displays an image in place of the embedded content. The representational editing system enables users to modify editable attributes of embedded content in a WYSIWYG editing environment.

Claims

. I/We claim:

1. A method in a computer system to enable the editing of embedded content on an editable web page, the method comprising:

receiving a request to edit an editable web page from a user, wherein the editable web page contains an embedded element, the embedded element having at least one editable attribute;

translating the embedded element into an editable placeholder that is reflective of the embedded element and which indicates the at least one editable attribute of the embedded element;

providing the editable web page to the user, wherein the embedded element in the editable web page has been replaced with the editable placeholder;

receiving modifications to the editable placeholder from the user;

applying the modifications to the editable placeholder to the at least one editable attribute of the embedded element; and

storing the editable web page with the applied modifications.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving a request to edit the editable web page comprises receiving a selection of an edit link when the editable web page is displayed for viewing.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the embedded element is content supplied by a host other than a host of the editable web page.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the embedded element is a video.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the editable placeholder is an image from the video.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the editable attribute is the size of the embedded element.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the editable attribute is the position of the embedded element relative to other content on the editable web page.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein translating the embedded element comprises storing information pertaining to the embedded element in the editable placeholder.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the editable placeholder indicates the editable attribute of the embedded element by displaying one or more controls for modifying the size and position of the editable placeholder.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein applying the modifications comprises copying modified attributes of the editable placeholder to corresponding attributes of the embedded element.

11. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions for causing a computer to add embedded content to an editable web page, by a method comprising:

receiving a request to add an embedded content element to an editable web page;

displaying the editable web page with an editable placeholder element reflective of the identity, size, and position of the embedded content element;

receiving a new size or position for the editable placeholder element;

applying the received new size or position of the editable placeholder as an attribute of the embedded content element; and

saving the attribute of the embedded content element in order to characterize the display of the embedded content element on the editable web page.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the request specifies a source of the content in the editable content element.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the request specifies a type of the content in the editable content element.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 including sending information describing the embedded content element to a service for validating the received embedded content element.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 including generating a unique identifier to identify the embedded content element to a service that hosts the editable web page.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the service acts as a proxy for subsequent requests to retrieve the embedded element.

17. A system for editing an embedded element on an editable web page, the system comprising:

an edit request component configured to receive a request to edit the editable web page containing the embedded element;

a translate element component configured to translate the embedded element into an editable replacement element;

a receive modifications component configured to receive modifications to the editable replacement element and copy the modifications to the embedded element; and

a store web page component configured to store the editable web page and any received modifications to the embedded element.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein translating the embedded element comprises generating a snapshot of the content in the embedded element.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein translating the embedded element comprises replacing the embedded element with an image.

20. The system of claim 17 wherein the embedded element is specified with an HTML EMBED tag and the replacement element is specified with an HTML IMG tag.

21. The system of claim 17 wherein the embedded element is specified with an HTML IFRAME tag and the replacement element is specified with an HTML IMG tag.