Cooperative Rendering Cache for Mobile Browser

• US 20120260157A1
• Filed: 04/11/2011
• Published: 10/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhu, Bin Benjamin, Pan, Aimin, Zhang, Kaimin, Li, Shipeng
• Granted Patent: US 8,539,338 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

A cooperative rendering cache browser (CRC-Browser) for a mobile device may cooperatively manage cached content with a proxy server to reduce redundant transmissions of processed Web data. Additionally, the CRC-Browser may provide stateful, thin-client Web browsing to maintain synchronized information about rendering objects of a Web page. Further, the CRC-Browser may cache only stable and/or visible document object model (DOM) elements and communicate a list of IDs of the cached elements to the proxy. Such stateful thin-client browsers may be useful for reducing battery drain, poor responsiveness, and high wireless network costs of mobile Web browsing.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a client device comprising;

client memory and one or more client processors communicatively coupled to the client memory; and

a Web browser to present content, stored in the client memory and executable on the one or more client processors, comprising;

a caching module to cache processed Web content in a client cache of the client memory; and

a server synchronization module to synchronize with a proxy server; and

the proxy server comprising;

server memory and one or more server processors communicatively coupled to the server memory;

a browser engine module, stored in the server memory and executable on the one or more server processors, to process preprocessed Web content and transmit the processed preprocessed Web content to the client device; and

a client synchronization module, stored in the server memory and executable on the one or more server processors, to synchronize with the client device.

2. The system of claim 1, the processing of the preprocessed Web content comprising producing a processed document object model (DOM) element and its identifier (ID) for each DOM element of the preprocessed Web content;

and the transmitting of the processed preprocessed Web content comprising sending the processed DOM element and optionally its ID to the client device.

3. The system of claim 2, the producing of the processed DOM element comprising producing a rendered DOM element image.

4. The system of claim 2, the synchronizing with the proxy server comprising sending information on the processed preprocessed Web content cached at the client cache to the proxy server.

5. The system of claim 4, the information on cached processed preprocessed Web content comprising a list of IDs of processed DOM elements cached in the client cache.

6. The system of claim 5, the processed DOM element comprising a rendered image of the processed DOM element.

7. The system of claim 4, the synchronizing with the client device comprising sending an update to the client device that the server has previously obtained information on the processed preprocessed Web content, updating the information, and maintaining the information.

8. The system of claim 7, the sending of the update comprising sending, by the proxy server, an update of a rendering tree, a new and/or changed DOM element image with its respective ID and the information comprising one or more IDs or indexes of the DOM element image.

9. The system of claim 4, further comprising an ID comparing module, stored in the server memory and executable on the one or more server processors, to compare each produced ID with each entry in the list of IDs of processed DOM elements cached and stored at the client device.

10. One or more computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a client device, perform acts comprising:

sending, to a proxy server, information to indicate previously processed Web content in a local cache;

receiving, from the proxy server, new processed Web content;

caching the new processed Web content; and

rendering content based at least in part on the previously processed Web content locally cached and/or the received new processed Web content from the proxy server.

11. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, the information sent to the proxy server comprising a list of identifiers (IDs) of processed document object model (DOM) elements cached locally.

12. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, the processed Web content locally cached comprising rendered images of DOM elements with associated IDs.

13. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12, the processed Web content being received from the proxy server comprising a rendering tree, an update to a rendering tree, a new DOM element image with associated IDs, and/or a changed DOM element image with associated IDs.

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12, further comprising receiving, from the proxy server, an indication of stability of each DOM element image;

the caching of DOM element images in a local cache being based at least in part on a received indication of new or updated DOM element images.

15. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, further comprising synchronizing, with the proxy server, a list of IDs of DOM elements, rendering trees, and/or states.

16. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, the rendering of the content comprising rendering DOM element images from a background to a foreground.

17. A method comprising:

under control of one or more computing devices configured with executable instructions,

processing Web content to form a rendering tree based at least in part on the Web content; and

synchronizing the rendering tree with a client device.

18. The method of claim 17, the rendering tree comprising one or more nodes, each node comprising a document object model (DOM) element, and the synchronizing of the rendering tree with the client device comprising:

receiving a list of IDs of client-device-cached rendering objects from the client device; and

sending, to the client device, an update to a rendering tree and/or a rendering object of the Web content of which an ID does not match an ID in the received list of IDs.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising sending, to the client device, a respective identifier (ID) for each sent rendering object.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

setting an indication of stability of each node of the rendering tree; and

sending the stability indications to the client device.