ADAPTATION OF DISPLAY PAGES FOR CLIENT ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20090199080A1
• Filed: 01/31/2008
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fox, Craig, Meenakshisundaram, Meyyappan, Jawa, Hitesh, Waldman, Chad
• Granted Patent: US 9,361,396 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/207
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/151 Transformation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

An adaptation system adapts a web page, which is developed to be displayed by a web browser, to be displayed by client-side code of an application. When a web server receives a request for a web page, it determines whether the request was sent from a client device executing client-side code or from a non-client device executing a browser. If the request is from a client, then the web server uses the adaptation system to adapt the web page to the environment of the application. The adaptation system may modify the web page so that the menus of the web page are not displayed when the web page is displayed within a window of the application. The adaptation system may also modify links of the content of the web page to reference forms of the application, rather than other web pages.

Claims

1. A method in a computing device for adapting a display page to an environment of a client of an application, the method comprising:

providing a display page having a menu and content with static and dynamic links;

receiving a request for the display page to be displayed to a user;

determining whether the request is received from a client of the application or a browser of a requesting device;

when it is determined that the request is received from a client of the application,

identifying a display page based on a role associated with the user;

modifying the display page so that the menu is not displayed when the display page is displayed within a window of the application at the client;

modifying style elements of the display page;

modifying static links of the display page to point to forms of the application;

modifying the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client and replaced with a navigation to a form of the application; and

sending the modified display page to the client; and

when it is determined that the request is received from a browser, sending the display page to the requesting device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein when the client displays the display page in a window of the application, the menu of the display page is not displayed and requests to navigate using dynamic links are intercepted.

3. The method of claim 1 further including when it is determined that the request is received from a client of the application, modifying the display page so that a refresh button is displayed when the display page is displayed.

4. The method of claim 1 further including when it is determined that the request is received from a client of the application, modifying the display page so that it appears to conform to the user interface of the application.

5. The method of claim 4 including setting style sheets for the display page so that it appears to conform to the user interface of the application.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein when a user with a role defined by the application requests the display page, adding content to the display page that is specific to the role of the user.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the modifying of the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client and replaced with a request to navigate to a form of the application.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the modifying of the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client includes canceling the request to navigate.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the computing device does not store a separate display page for requests from clients and for requests from browsers of requesting devices.

10. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling a computing device to adapt a display page to an environment of a client of an application, by a method comprising:

providing a display page having a menu and content with static and dynamic links;

receiving a request for the display page to be displayed at a client;

modifying the display page to effect removal of the menu and display of forms of the application in place of display pages referenced by the static and dynamic links; and

sending to the client the display page with modifications.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the modifying of the display page includes:

modifying the display page so that the menu is not displayed when the display page is displayed within a window of the application at the client;

modifying static links to point to forms of the application;

modifying the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client and replaced with a navigation to a form of the application; and

modifying the display page so that it appears to conform with the user interface of the application.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the modifying of the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client includes canceling the request to navigate.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the modifying of the display page includes adding to the display page an indication of the form.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein when the client displays the display page in a window of the application, the menu of the web page is not displayed and requests to navigate using dynamic links are intercepted.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 further including when it is determined that the request is received from a client of the application, modifying the display page so that a refresh button is displayed when the display page is displayed.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the computing device does not store a separate display page for requests from clients and for requests from browsers.

17. A computing device for adapting display pages to an environment of a client of an application, the computing device comprising:

a display page store with display pages, each display page having a menu and content with links to other display pages;

a component that determines whether a request for a display page is received from a client of the application or a requesting device via a browser; and

a component that modifies the requested display page to effect removal of the menu and display of forms of the application in place of display pages referenced by the links when it is determined that the request is received from a client of the application

so that the display page without modification can be displayed in an environment of the browser and with modification can be displayed in the environment of a client of the application.

18. The computing device of claim 17 wherein the component that modifies the display page

modifies the display page so that the menu is not displayed when the display page is displayed within a window of the application at the client;

modifies links to point to forms of the application;

modifies the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client and replaced with a navigation to a form of the application that corresponds to the display page referenced by the dynamic link; and

modifies the display page so that it appears to conform with the user interface of the application.

19. The computing device of claim 18 wherein the modifying of the display page so that a request to navigate using a dynamic link is intercepted at the client includes canceling the request to navigate to the display page referenced by the dynamic link.

20. The computing device of claim 17 wherein the computing device does not store a separate display page for requests from clients and non-clients.