CONTOUR BASED FLOW LAYOUT

• US 20110283184A1
• Filed: 05/12/2010
• Published: 11/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Veselov, Evgeny N., Atanassov, Rossen Petkov
• Granted Patent: US 8,473,842 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/243
• 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 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

Various embodiments introduce the notion of a flow contour that is utilized to conduct layout processing. Flow contours are utilized to organize layout space in the presence of floating objects or geometries. In at least some embodiments, objects can float to the left and/or right in the layout space. Flow contours are abstractions that then represent collections of left-floating and/or right-floating objects.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

laying out one or more floating objects in a layout space;

computing one or more flow contours associated with the one or more floating objects; and

enabling use of the one or more flow contours in layout processing of content in the layout space.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said laying out comprises laying out left-floating and right-floating objects.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said enabling comprises enabling use of the one or more flow contours in content measuring associated with content that is to be inserted in the layout space.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said enabling comprises enabling use of the one or more flow contours in content insertion associated with content that is to be inserted in the layout space.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said enabling comprises:

enabling use of the one or more flow contours in content measuring associated with content that is to be inserted in the layout space; and

enabling use of the one or more flow contours in content insertion associated with content that is to be inserted in the layout space.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said enabling comprises enabling use of the one or more flow contours to position static and floating objects.

7. A computer-implemented method comprising:

laying out a plurality of floating objects in a layout space including computing a bottom edge property for individual floating objects;

computing flow contours for left-floating and right-floating objects in the layout space; and

using the flow contours to enable performance of one or more of content measuring operations or content insertion operations.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list, wherein individual points are associated with properties that include a previous ascending floating object and a previous descending floating object.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list, wherein at least one content insertion operation comprises inserting a static object in the layout space.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list, wherein at least one content insertion operation comprises inserting a floating object in the layout space.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list, wherein at least one content insertion operation comprises inserting one or more lines of text in the layout space.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list, wherein at least one content insertion operation comprises inserting one or more lines of text in the layout space, and wherein at least one content measuring operation comprises a shrink-to-fit operation.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein computing the flow contours comprises, for each flow contour, computing a list of sorted points using one of an ascending contour ordered list or a descending contour ordered list, wherein at least one content insertion operation comprises using the flow contours to ascertain whether inserting an object at a location would result in a collision with a floating object associated with the flow contours.

15. One or more computer readable storage media embodying computer readable instructions, which, when executed, implement a method comprising:

using flow contours to perform content measuring operations with respect to content that is to be inserted between left-floating and right-floating objects that reside in a layout space, wherein the flow contours define, respectively, a right-most outer contour of the left-floating objects and a left-most outer contour of the right-floating objects; and

using the flow contours to perform content insertion operations with respect to content that is to be inserted between the left-floating and the right-floating objects.

16. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 15, wherein at least some of the content that is to be inserted comprises a static object.

17. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 15, wherein at least some of the content that is to be inserted comprises a floating object.

18. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 15, wherein at least some of the content that is to be inserted comprises flowable content.

19. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 15, wherein at least some of the content that is to be inserted comprises text.

20. The one or more computer readable storage media of claim 15, wherein the computer readable instructions reside in the form of a web browser that is embodied on the one or more computer readable storage media.