DECOMPOSING MARKUP LANGUAGE ELEMENTS FOR ANIMATION

• US 20130086463A1
• Filed: 09/30/2011
• Published: 04/04/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mandal, Aditi, Gittelman, Arye, Robinson, Lionel, Seth, Joy
• Granted Patent: US 9,171,098 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/00 Animation

Abstract

Embodiments prepare a markup language (ML) element for animation. A request to perform at least one animation on at least one ML element is intercepted or received. One or more animation preparation attribute values are defined based at least on the requested animation and current attribute values of the ML element. The ML element is altered to include the defined animation preparation attribute values, and an animation engine performs the animation of the altered ML element. The animation preparation attributes and values (e.g., style elements) may be reset, removed, or otherwise modified after animation. In some embodiments, a library of application programming interfaces (APIs) enable web browsers to request animations of legacy hypertext markup language (HTML) elements for consumption by animation engines based on JAVASCRIPT scripting or cascading style sheets (CSS).

Claims

1. A system for animating legacy markup language (ML) elements, said system comprising:

a memory area associated with a computing device, said memory area storing a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) for animating markup language (ML) elements; and

a processor programmed to;

receive, from an application program via at least one of the plurality of APIs stored in the memory area, a request to perform at least one animation on at least one ML element, said ML element having one or more style attributes associated therewith;

alter the ML element to include one or more animation preparation attributes defined based at least on the requested animation;

perform the requested animation on the altered ML element using at least the defined animation preparation attributes included therein;

remove the animation preparation attributes from the ML element after animation; and

provide, to the application program, the ML element with the animation preparation attributes removed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the request is to move cells with a table, and wherein the processor is further programmed to represent each of the cells as a separate ML element.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the processor is further programmed to define absolute coordinates based on the comparison, and wherein the processor alters the ML element by changing at least one of the style attributes to include the defined absolute coordinates.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the request is to replace the ML element, and wherein the processor is further programmed to create a copy of the ML element for simultaneous animation with the ML element.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the request is to show inline content, and wherein the processor is further programmed to animate an inline bounding box within the ML element.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the application program is a browser and the ML element is a hypertext markup language (HTML) element.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory area further stores a library of the animation preparation attributes.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for preparing the ML element for animation.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for cross-browser animation of legacy hypertext markup language (HTML) elements.

10. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, a request to perform at least one animation on at least one markup language (ML) element, said ML element having one or more current attribute values associated therewith;

defining, by the computing device, one or more animation preparation attribute values based at least on the requested animation and the current attribute values; and

altering, by the computing device, the ML element to include the defined animation preparation attribute values, wherein an animation engine animates the altered ML element using at least the defined animation preparation attribute values.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving an indication from the animation engine that animation of the altered ML element has completed.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein animation of the altered ML element produces a modified ML element, and further comprising:

removing the animation preparation attribute values from the modified ML element; and

providing, to an application program that provided the request, the modified ML element with the animation preparation attribute values removed.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising providing the altered ML element to the animation engine for animation.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein receiving the request to perform the at least one animation comprises receiving a function call from an application program via an application programming interface.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein altering the ML element comprises changing at least one of the current attribute values.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein altering the ML element comprises adding at least one animation preparation attribute based on the defined animation preparation attribute values.

17. One or more computer storage media embodying computer-executable components, said components comprising:

an interface component that when executed causes at least one processor to receive, from an application program, one or more requests to perform a plurality of animations on a markup language (ML) element, said ML element having one or more current attribute values associated therewith;

a decomposition component that when executed causes at least one processor to alter the ML element to include one or more animation preparation attribute values based at least on the animations and the current attribute values in the requests received by the interface component, wherein an animation engine performs the plurality of animations on the altered ML element using at least the defined animation preparation attribute values, wherein at least two of the animations complete at different times; and

a re-composition component that when executed causes at least one processor to remove the animation preparation attribute values from the ML element upon completion of the last animation,

wherein the interface component further provides, to the application program, the ML element with the animation preparation attributes removed by the re-composition component.

18. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the interface component increments a reference counter for each of the received requests, and wherein the re-composition component decrements the reference counter upon completion of each of the animations.

19. The computer storage media of claim 18, wherein the re-composition component removes the animation preparation attribute values when the reference counter has a value of zero.

20. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the interface component receives one or more of the following requests:

move at least one cell in a table, insert at least one row in a table, remove at least one row from a table, re-order cells within a table, fade-in at least one cell in a table, and fade-out at least one cell in a table.