CONFIGURATION, GENERATION, AND PRESENTATION OF CUSTOM GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE COMPONENTS FOR A VIRTUAL CLOUD-BASED APPLICATION

• US 20130055147A1
• Filed: 02/23/2012
• Published: 02/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Vasudev, Gautam, Ellis, Jason, Ramsey, Michael, Chen, Peng-Wen
• Application Number:
  US13/403,913
• Publication Number:
  US 20130055147A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/781
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

A method of presenting information associated with an application begins by providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for display at a user device. The GUI includes a primary GUI element and a secondary GUI element. The content of the primary GUI element is contextually related to the content of the secondary GUI element. The method continues by detecting changes made to the primary content resulting from user interaction with the primary GUI element, and, in response to detecting the changes, refreshing the secondary GUI element to update the secondary content.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of presenting information associated with an application, the method comprising:

providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for display at a user device, the GUI comprising a primary GUI element and a secondary GUI element, the primary GUI element populated with primary content, and the secondary GUI element populated with secondary content that is contextually related to the primary content;

detecting changes made to the primary content resulting from user interaction with the primary GUI element; and

in response to detecting the changes, refreshing the secondary GUI element to update the secondary content.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the changes made to the primary content represent user-entered data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein refreshing the secondary GUI element is performed to update the secondary content in accordance with the changes made to the primary content.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the secondary GUI element comprises a hypertext markup language iframe element.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the application and the primary content are associated with a first domain; and

the secondary content is associated with a second domain that is different than the first domain.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving user-specified configuration data for the secondary GUI element, the configuration data defining a display region for the secondary GUI element relative to the primary GUI element, wherein the GUI is provided in accordance with the configuration data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving user-specified configuration data for the secondary GUI element, the configuration data defining a display dimension for the secondary GUI element, wherein the GUI is provided in accordance with the configuration data.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving user-specified configuration data for the secondary GUI element, the configuration data identifying the primary GUI element from a plurality of candidate GUI elements for linking to the secondary GUI element.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the application and the primary content are provided and maintained by a first entity; and

the secondary content is provided and maintained by a second entity that is different than the first entity.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining updates to the secondary content, wherein the updates to the secondary content and the changes made to the primary content are independent, resulting in updated secondary content; and

in response to obtaining the updates, refreshing the secondary GUI element to provide the updated secondary content to the user device.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting changes made to the secondary content; and

in response to detecting the changes made to the secondary content, refreshing the primary GUI element to update the primary content.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the application is a customer relationship management (CRM) application;

the primary GUI element comprises a detail view for a database object of the CRM application; and

the secondary GUI element comprises a sidebar view associated with the database object.

13. A computer-implemented method of presenting information associated with a application, the method comprising:

receiving user-specified configuration data that associates a first page of the application with a second page of the application, the first page having primary content associated therewith and the second page having secondary content associated therewith, wherein the secondary content is contextually related to the primary content; and

providing a primary graphical user interface (GUI) element and a secondary GUI element for concurrent display at a user device, the primary GUI element populated with the primary content, and the secondary GUI element populated with the secondary content;

wherein at least one variable display characteristic of the secondary GUI element is defined by the user-specified configuration data.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

obtaining user-entered updates to the primary content;

updating the secondary content in accordance with the user-entered updates, resulting in updated secondary content; and

refreshing the secondary GUI element to populate the secondary GUI element with the updated secondary content.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising rendering the secondary GUI element in one of a plurality of different possible locations relative to the primary GUI element, wherein the one of the plurality of different possible locations is defined by the user-specified configuration data.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising sizing the secondary GUI element in accordance with a designated display dimension, wherein the designated display dimension is defined by the user-specified configuration data.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein:

the application and the primary content are provided and maintained by a first entity; and

the secondary content is provided and maintained by a second entity that is different than the first entity.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving a request for a third page of the application, the third page having additional primary content associated therewith, the third page associated with a fourth page of the application, and the fourth page having additional secondary content associated therewith, wherein the additional secondary content is contextually related to the additional primary content; and

in response to receiving the request, replacing the primary GUI element and the secondary GUI element with a new GUI, the new GUI comprising a refreshed primary GUI element and a refreshed secondary GUI element, the refreshed primary GUI element populated with the additional primary content, and the refreshed secondary GUI element populated with the additional secondary content.

19. A computer system comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computer system to:

receive a request for a primary page of a web-based application, the primary page having primary content associated therewith;

in response to receiving the request, identifying a secondary page of the web-based hosted application that is linked to the primary page, the secondary page having secondary content associated therewith, wherein the secondary content is contextually related to the primary content; and

generating a graphical user interface (GUI) for display at a user device, the GUI comprising a primary GUI element and a secondary GUI element, the primary GUI element populated with the primary content, and the secondary GUI element populated with the secondary content;

wherein at least one variable display characteristic of the secondary GUI element is defined by user-specified configuration data.

20. The computer system of claim 19, wherein:

the computer system is configured as a multi-tenant architecture to support a plurality of different tenants; and

the computer system hosts the web-based application for one of the plurality of different tenants.

21. The computer system of claim 19, wherein:

the web-based application and the primary content are associated with a first domain; and

the secondary content is associated with a second domain that is different than the first domain.