EXPOSURE OF REMOTELY INVOKABLE METHOD THROUGH A WEBPAGE TO AN APPLICATION OUTSIDE WEB BROWSER

• US 20100058353A1
• Filed: 08/28/2008
• Published: 03/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Turski, Andrzej
• Granted Patent: US 8,316,387 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/311
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/541 Client-server
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/548 Object oriented; Remote method invocation [RMI] non-remote method invocation G06F9/449

Abstract

Web browsing environments are commonly used to facilitate user interaction with data over the Internet. A web browser is a tool used to view and interact with a webpage. A webpage may interface with a web service to provide remote functionality that the webpage does not locally provide. An effective method for specifying and consuming remote functionality that an application invokes outside of the web browser is disclosed herein. A webpage exposes remote functionality (e.g., web service) that a web browser and/or browser extensions may discover through browsing the webpage. A browser extension associated with an application determines whether the application is compatible with the remote functionality. Once a compatible application is determined, it may be executed so as to connect to and invoke the remote functionality outside of the web browser. The application may provide a more robust experience with the remote functionality compared to the web browsing environment.

Claims

1. A method for exposing a remotely invokable method, through a webpage, to an application outside a web browser comprising:

transmitting to a web browser a webpage specifying at least one remotely invokable method invokable by at least one application configured to execute outside the web browser.

2. The method of claim 1, the specifying at least one remotely invokable method comprising at least one of:

specifying a web service comprising the remotely invokable method;

specifying a webpage address comprising the remotely invokable method;

specifying a server comprising the remotely invokable method;

specifying one or more security parameters for invoking the remotely invokable method;

specifying one or more configuration parameters for invoking the remotely invokable method; and

specifying an actual data type provided by the remotely invokable method.

3. The method of claim 1, the specifying at least one remotely invokable method comprising at least one of:

specifying the remotely invokable method within HTML;

specifying the remotely invokable method within a programming language file; and

specifying the remotely invokable method within an XML file.

4. The method of claim 3, the specifying the remotely invokable method within HTML comprising one or more of:

specifying within an HTML header tag, and

specifying within an HTML body tag.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising:

specifying a compatible applications list corresponding to the remotely invokable method.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising:

specifying a functionality of the remotely invokable method.

7. The method of claim 6, comprising:

determining whether an application outside the web browser is compatible with the functionality of the remotely invokable method.

8. A method for invoking, outside a web browser, a remotely invokable method through an application comprising:

receiving a webpage to be displayed through the web browser;

identifying a remotely invokable method associated with the webpage;

upon identifying a remotely invokable method associated with the webpage, determining an application compatible with the remotely invokable method; and

upon determining an application compatible with the remotely invokable method, invoking the application to;

invoke, outside of the web browser, the remotely invokable method, and

provide a result of the invocation of the remotely invokable method.

9. The method of claim 8, the result comprising at least one of:

a control;

an image;

a text file;

a data stream;

a set of executable instructions; and

a user interface.

10. The method of claim 8, the determining an application compatible with the remotely invokable method comprising:

requesting a compatibility confirmation from one or more browser extensions associated with an application based upon the identified remotely invokable method; and

upon receiving a compatibility confirmation from one or more browser extensions associated with an application, invoking an associated application compatible with the identified remotely invokable method.

11. The method of claim 10, the invoking the associated application compatible with the indentified remotely invokable method performed by at least one of:

the web browser, and

the browser extension corresponding to the application.

12. The method of claim 8, the determining an application compatible with the invokable method comprising:

identifying a compatible application list associated with the indentified remotely invokable method; and

invoking an application compatible with the indentified remotely invokable method.

13. The method of claim 8, comprising at least one of:

presenting a notification to a user of a remotely invokable method, and

presenting a notification to a user of at least one application compatible with the remotely invokable method.

14. The method of claim 13, at least one of the presenting of a notification of a remotely invokable method and the presenting of a notification of at least one application compatible with the remotely invokable method comprising at least one of:

displaying a menu within the web browser to the user,

changing a state of a toolbar element,

displaying a notification message within a browser user interface, and

displaying a notification element rendered within the webpage.

15. The method of claim 13, at least one of the presenting of a notification of a remotely invokable method and the presenting of a notification of at least one application compatible with the remotely invokable method comprising:

displaying a user interface outside the web browser to the user.

16. The method of claim 8, comprising:

invoking the application based upon a user input.

17. The method of claim 8, the application configured to interact with a preconfigured remotely invokable method, comprising:

invoking the application to invoke the preconfigured remotely invokable method;

passing a reference to the remotely invokable method, identified on the webpage, to the application; and

creating a data connection through the application between the preconfigured remotely invokable method and the remotely invokable method.

18. The method of claim 17, the first remotely invokable method comprising a first web service and the second remotely invokable method comprising a second web service.

19. The method of claim 18, comprising:

transmitting data through the data connection between the first web service and the second web serviced based upon user interaction within the application.

20. A system for connecting an application outside a web browser to a web service exposed through a webpage comprising:

a browser extension component configured to;

identify a web service associated with a webpage; and

determine an application compatibility with the web service;

an application execution component configured to;

present a notification of the application compatibility to a user;

upon receiving the application that is selected to be executed, execute the application outside of the web browser;

establish a communication channel, outside of the web browser, between the application and the web service; and

invoke, outside of the web browser, the web service through the application.