Application Management

• US 20090113444A1
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Swetland, Brian J., Hjonnevag, Arve, Hackborn, Dianne K., Onorato, Joseph M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,510,743 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/312
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44594 Unloading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/461 Saving or restoring of program or task context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5022 Mechanisms to release resources

Abstract

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes executing one or more computer applications and ranking the applications according to one or more criteria that change in response to a user'"'"'s interaction with the applications. State information for certain of the one or more applications is saved and one or more applications are terminated in response to a memory condition. Subsequently, one of the terminated applications is revived using the saved state information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for managing computer applications, the method comprising:

executing one or more computer applications;

ranking the applications according to one or more criteria that change in response to a user'"'"'s interaction with the applications and saving state information for certain of the one or more applications;

terminating one or more applications in response to a memory condition;

subsequently reviving one of the terminated applications using the saved state information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more criteria comprise focus with respect to each application.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory condition is a memory shortage.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the state information includes dependences between applications.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein saving state information further comprises saving state information to an application memory and then saving state information to a persistent memory.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein saving the state information further comprises saving the state information to a remote computing device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the applications further comprises generating a program stack of running applications.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein ranking the applications further comprises ranking the applications in response to a detection of a change in the one or more criteria.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the application on top of the program stack has focus.

10. A computer-implemented system for managing computer applications, the system comprising:

an application manager to classify applications according to one or more criteria that change in response to a user'"'"'s interaction with the applications and to save state information for certain of one or more applications;

an application terminator to terminate one or more applications upon the occurrence of a memory shortage;

a kernel to, in response to user interaction with the one or more applications, revive a terminated application using the saved state information when the terminated application has the highest application ranking.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more criteria comprise focus with respect to one or more of the applications.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the application terminator terminates an application upon detecting an impending memory shortage.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the state information includes dependences between applications.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein saving state information further comprises saving state information to an application memory then saving state information to a persistent memory.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein saving state information further comprises saving the state information to a remote computing device.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein ranking the applications further comprises generating a program stack of running applications.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein ranking the applications further comprises ranking the applications in response to the detection of a change in the one or more criteria.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the application on top of the program stack has focus.

19. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

computer memory to store a plurality of simultaneously-operating computer applications;

an application manager;

means for temporarily terminating and relaunching applications in response to a computer memory condition.