PREDICTING AND RETRIEVING DATA FOR PRELOADING ON CLIENT DEVICE

• US 20130304798A1
• Filed: 05/10/2012
• Published: 11/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Chang, Jackie, Yuan, Sharlene, Wang, Buddha, Tsai, Esther, Jiang, April
• Granted Patent: US 8,892,638 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

Retrieval and local storage of data at mobile devices is managed by employing a scheduling policy based on a prediction policy of a preloader, a pre-render policy, and with respect to a current viewport state to reduce waiting time and mobile device resource usage. Portions of data maintained on a server associated with a client device are retrieved and preloaded into the client device memory to enable a user to view documents seamlessly while navigating through a document without overburdening the client device memory and/or processing capacity based on a prediction. A current viewing position of the document and user navigation on the document via a touch action or gesture are detected and next portion of data to present another portion of the document is predicted. A request manager may retrieve the requested data from the server and pre-rendered so that it is available when requested by the user.

Claims

1. A method executed at least in part in a computing device for retrieving and preloading predicted data onto a client device, the method comprising:

determining a current page position of a document viewed on a user interface of a client device;

detecting navigation to a new page of the document on the user interface;

predicting an upcoming data range request based on the determined current page position and the navigation;

submitting the data range request to a remote server; and

retrieving the requested data from a remote server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

pre-rendering the retrieved data for the predicted data range in a pre-render window associated with the user interface of the client device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the pre-rendered data includes a predefined number of pages before to the current page position and another predefined number of pages after the current page position.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying whether the predicted data range is stored in a local cache associated with the client device; and

if the requested data is identified in the local cache, retrieving the requested data from the local cache;

else

sending the data request to a last-recently-used (LRU) component for scheduling a data request task to retrieve the requested data from the remote server.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

sending the data request task to the remote server if there are less than a predefined number of tasks being served at the same time.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein scheduling a data request task to retrieve the requested data from the remote server further comprises:

creating a data request task list; and

sending the data request task list to a request manager component for retrieving the requested data from the remote server.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein creating a data request task list further comprises:

scheduling the last recently received data request as highest priority; and

prioritizing the data request tasks on the data request task list in reverse order from the last recently received data request.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

if a data request task for the last recently received data request already exists on the data request task list, then moving the existing data request to the highest priority on the data request task list.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

configuring the request manager to retrieve the requested data from the remote server according to the order of the prioritized data request task list.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the client device is a gesture-enabled device including one of:

a smart phone, a tablet, a mobile device, and a personal computing device.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the navigation to the new page of the document includes one or more of:

a tap, a swipe, and a drag action to the new page on the user interface of the gesture-enabled device.

12. A client device retrieving and preloading predicted data onto a local memory on the client device, the client device comprising:

a memory storing instructions;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a data request application in conjunction with the instructions, wherein the data request application is configured to;

determine a current page position of a document viewed on a user interface of a client device;

detect navigation to a new page of the document on the user interface;

predict an upcoming data range request at a preload predictor sub-component associated with the client device based on the determined current page position and the navigation;

submit the data range request to a remote server;

retrieve the requested data from a remote server; and

pre-render the retrieved data for the predicted data range in a pre-render window associated with the user interface of the client device.

13. The client device of claim 12, wherein the data request application is further configured to:

predict a direction of the navigation based on last two data requests; and

create a new task to retrieve the data based on a prediction result.

14. The client device of claim 12, wherein the data is retrieved in pages and a number of pages to be requested is determined based on a type of the data request application.

15. The client device of claim 12, wherein the current page position of the document is determined and the retrieved data pre-rendered by a viewport data sensor component of a user interface manager.

16. The client device of claim 12, wherein a request manager sub-component is configured to:

retrieve a predefined maximum number of data requests from the remote server concurrently.

17. The client device of claim 16, wherein the request manager sub-component is further configured to:

send one or more data requests for the predicted data range to a last recently used (LRU) sub-component in a reverse order beginning with a data request for the page furthest away from the current page position.

18. The client device of claim 12, wherein the data request application is further configured to:

upon detection of navigation to a new page of the document on the user interface, determine if data for the new page has been pre-rendered in the pre-render window associated with the user interface of the client device; and

load the pre-rendered data from the pre-render window onto the user interface of the client device.

19. A computer-readable memory device with instructions stored thereon for retrieving and preloading predicted data onto a client device, the instructions comprising:

determining a current page position of a document viewed on a user interface of a client device;

detecting navigation to a new page of the document on the user interface;

predicting an upcoming data range request based on the determined current page position and the navigation at a preload predictor sub-component;

configuring a last recently used (LRU) sub-component to create a data request task list of data request tasks for retrieving the requested data for the new page and the predicted data range;

submitting the data range request to the remote server from a remote server from a request manager sub-component;

upon retrieving the requested data from the remote server, pre-rendering the retrieved data for the predicted data range in a pre-render window associated with the user interface of the client device.

20. The computer-readable memory device of claim 19, wherein the instructions further comprise:

employing a data loader interface sub-component associated with the data loader component for receiving the data request and facilitating work flow between the request manager sub-component, the LRU sub-component, and the preload predictor sub-component;

exporting the retrieved data to a data-to-layout converter sub-component for reformatting the retrieved data to match a format and layout of the document as it is viewed on the client device; and

employing an exporter sub-component to add stylistic information to the retrieved data including one or more of page numbers and page breaks before pre-rendering the retrieved data.