CROSS-BROWSER WEB DIALOG PLATFORM

• US 20110258562A1
• Filed: 04/14/2010
• Published: 10/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Little, Charles Reeves, Crowley, Jeff, McConnell, Tim, Nation, Zachary, Zhu, Shaofeng, Liao, Cindy
• Granted Patent: US 8,793,598 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/01 Input arrangements or combined input and output arrangements for interaction between user and computer G06F3/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A cross-browser dialog platform is provided for supporting hosted web pages in a dialog, such that a web page may be used inside or outside the dialog. Select elements on the hosted page may be hidden when in a dialog, different behavior may be specified for hyperlinks inside or outside the dialog, and a proper size of the dialog may be inferred from its contents without designer input.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for providing a cross-browser web dialog platform, the method comprising:

presenting a web page to a user from a web application;

in response to receiving a user selection, hiding at least a portion of displayed web page elements;

presenting a dialog over the hidden web page elements within the web page; and

in response to receiving another user selection through the dialog, presenting a new web page within the dialog, wherein a size of the dialog is adjusted automatically based on the contents of the new web page.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

interpreting links within the new web page for desired link behavior; and

specifying separate behaviors for the links based on the interpretation.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein specifying separate behaviors for the links includes:

defining the separate behaviors based on one of;

a markup language attribute for each link and a parameter on each link'"'"'s query string;

on page load of the web page, iterating through anchor tags on the web page to determine links with a relevant one of a markup language attribute and a query string key; and

modifying the links on the web page to employ a dialog-specific behavior when selected.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the separate behaviors for the links include displaying a link target in one of:

the dialog, a new browsing application user interface, and within the existing web page.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically adjusting the size of the dialog based on at least one of a current view port size and a size of contents of the dialog.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

hiding a portion of elements within the dialog by selectively removing the elements from the displayed web page.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

implementing the web dialog platform in a cross-browser manner by employing a cross-browser script and style class enabling hosting of the new web page in a frame element of the web page.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein hiding at least a portion of the displayed web page elements includes at least one from a set of:

graying the elements, rendering the elements transparent, and modifying text and graphics colors.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the new web page within the dialog includes a limited set of user interface controls such that overlapping controls with the web page user interface are avoided.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the user interface controls include textual and graphical controls, and wherein at least a portion of the controls activate, when selected, one of a drop-down menu and a hover-on menu.

11. A server for providing a web application employing a cross-browser web dialog platform, the computing device comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing web dialog platform, wherein the web dialog platform is configured to;

present a parent web page to a user;

in response to receiving a user selection, hide at least a portion of displayed web page elements by one of graying the elements, rendering the elements transparent, and modifying text and graphics colors;

present a dialog over the hidden web page elements within the parent web page; and

in response to receiving another user selection through the dialog, present a new web page within the dialog, wherein a size of the dialog is adjusted automatically based on at least one of the contents of the new web page and a size of a view port displaying the web page, and wherein a portion of elements on the new web page are hidden by removing the elements selectively from the new web page.

12. The server of claim 11, wherein the web dialog platform is further configured to:

render the dialog content at a fixed size outside the view port;

determine a scrollable width and height of a body element of the new web page;

determine the size of the view port of the parent web page; and

set a new width and height of the dialog to a lesser one of the width and height of the body element of the new web page and the viewport of the parent page.

13. The server of claim 11, wherein the web dialog platform is further configured to:

provide a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) class that is applied to the new web page hosted within the dialog; and

hide any web page elements sharing the same CSS class when the new web page is rendered.

14. The server of claim 11, wherein the web dialog platform is further configured to:

dynamically hide and activate portions of controls on the new web page based on user activity.

15. The server of claim 11, wherein the web dialog platform is further configured to:

interpret links within the new web page based on one of markup language attributes and query string parameters associated with the links; and

specify behaviors for the links based on the interpretations.

16. The server of claim 11, wherein the dialog and the new web page present controls in a tabbed format categorizing functionalities.

17. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for providing a document sharing web application employing a cross-browser web dialog platform, the instructions comprising:

presenting a parent web page to a user;

in response to receiving a user selection, hiding at least a portion of displayed web page elements;

presenting a dialog over the hidden web page elements within the parent web page with a limited set of control elements;

in response to receiving another user selection through the dialog, presenting a dialog-hosted web page within the dialog by employing a cross-browser script and style class enabling hosting of the dialog-hosted web page in a frame element of the parent web page;

automatically adjusting a size of the dialog based on at least one of the contents of the dialog-hosted web page and a size of a view port displaying the parent web page;

interpreting links within the dialog-hosted web page for desired link behavior based on one of markup language attributes and query string parameters associated with the links; and

implementing separate behaviors for the links based on the interpretation.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions further comprise:

adjusting a width and a height of the dialog independently from each other in response to a dynamic content change on the dialog-hosted web page.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions further comprise:

hiding at least a portion of elements on the dialog-hosted web page by selectively removing them.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the dialog-hosted web page includes controls for one of:

creating a new page, editing an existing page, and viewing a listed page.