INPUT CONTENT TO APPLICATION VIA WEB BROWSER

• US 20100251084A1
• Filed: 03/25/2009
• Published: 09/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Yoshida, Kotaro
• Granted Patent: US 9,436,482 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

The disclosed architecture allows markup language (e.g., HTML) pages to facilitate the insertion of content (e.g., text) into an application to which an input method is attached. In this way, a plug-in developer can implement any UI look and behavior using a web page language (e.g., HTML), communicate with a backend datasource just as a regular HTML page, and perform this using any suitable technology. Since the web page is stored in a web server and downloaded to client on-the-fly, install is minimal and users can use the latest version automatically. A broker component receives data derived from code authored in the programming language and embedded in a markup language and provides the additional arbitrary data to the application.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented content system, comprising:

an input method component attached to an application for providing baseline input method functionality to the application; and

a broker component for receiving data associated with a web document, the data adding additional functionality to the application related to the input method component.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the web document is a web page that includes embedded code that when executed generates the data, the embedded code authored in a programming language and embedded in a markup language.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the web document is stored on a web server, updated on the web server, and downloaded to a client browser on demand for utilization of updates by the application.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the web document facilitates controlled entry of the data into the application via a web document control.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the broker component is invoked from the web document using a URL (uniform resource locator) protocol handler.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the input method component sends an identifier in a notification to the broker component that indicates to the broker component an associated input method component or application to which the data will be routed.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the broker component receives multiple identifiers associated with respective input method components, the broker component registers the identifiers and routes the data to an application associated with an input method component of a last registered identifier.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the additional input method functionality includes at least one of text or complex objects.

9. A computer-implemented content system, comprising:

an input method component associated with an application for providing baseline input method functionality to the application; and

a broker component associated with the input method component for receiving a notification from the input method component, the broker component providing additional functionality to the application in a form of data generated from code in a web page.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the broker component receives the data from a browser that processes the code in the web page.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the additional functionality is generated from the data when a browser runs code in the web page that calls the broker component.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the broker component receives an identifier associated with the input method component, registers the identifier, and routes the data based on the registered identifier.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the broker component facilitates utilization of the data of a specific data type.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the broker component facilitates entry of the data into the application in a form of at least one of a character, a word, a phrase, or complex object, which application is a linguistics application.

15. A computer-implemented content method, comprising:

providing baseline input method functionality to an application;

accessing a web page that includes embedded code related to additional application functionality;

running the embedded code in the web page to obtain the additional application functionality; and

adding the additional application functionality to the application.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising describing the embedded code in a scripting language and embedding the code in a markup language in the web page.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising updating the embedded code of the web page for subsequent execution and applying updated additional application functionality to the application based on the updated embedded code.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising registering an input method that provides the baseline input method functionality to a broker, and routing the additional application functionality to the application via the broker based on the registration.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising automatically adding the additional application functionality to the application in response to interacting with the web page.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

tracking interaction with the application among multiple applications using tracking information;

sending the tracking information in a notification to a broker; and

adding the additional application functionality to a corresponding application based on the tracking information.