REGENERATING A USER INTERFACE AREA

• US 20140019889A1
• Filed: 07/16/2012
• Published: 01/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: Uwe Klinger
• Inventors: KLINGER, UWE
• Granted Patent: US 9,015,608 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/762
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

A user interface (UI) area having multiple data sources is regenerated based upon changes made to UI elements associated with the UI area. To efficiently regenerate the changed UI elements, a processor of the computer determines UI controls and data objects associated with the UI area to generate a conditional list. The conditional list includes corresponding events representing an association of the UI controls and the data objects. Based upon a modification to a data object, an optimized data binding structure is generated to determine a corresponding UI control that is affected by the modification. An updated UI controls list is computed to include the affected one or more UI controls based upon the optimized data binding structure. Based upon a trigger to render the UI area, the affected UIs are regenerated on the UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method to regenerate a computer generated user interface (UI) area, comprising:

determining one or more UI controls and one or more data objects associated with the computer generated UI area to generate a conditional list of one or more corresponding events;

upon receiving a modification to the one or more data objects, a processor of the computer generating an optimized data binding structure based upon the events, to determine corresponding one or more UI controls affected by the modification; and

computing an updated UI controls list including the affected UI controls based upon the optimized data binding structure, to regenerate the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the conditional list includes determining the corresponding events based upon a correlation between

the data objects and the computer generated UI area,

the UI control and the computer generated UI area, and

the data objects and the UI control.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the conditional list includes determining an association of the UI controls and the data objects to verify whether the corresponding one or more UI controls reflect the modification of the one or more data objects.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

computing the updated UI controls list based upon a modification of the one or more UI controls, to regenerate the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising a UI programming model including:

a user interface phase to receive a modification to one or more data objects associated with the computer generated UI area and to regenerate the affected UI controls based upon the modification;

an event handling phase to generate the conditional list of the one or more corresponding events and based upon the modification, to generate the optimized data binding structure; and

a rendering phase to trigger a regenerating of the computer generated UI area by regenerating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the optimized data binding structure further comprises:

distinguishing between one or more data bindings associated with corresponding one or more data instances of the data objects and one or more data bindings associated with corresponding one or more iterative data objects.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining the one or more UI controls from the optimized data binding structure when the computer generated UI area is associated with immutable UI controls.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating a UI control specific business logic to notify one or more dependent UI controls based upon updating the affected UI controls.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

computing a complexity of the affected UI to determine a degree of regenerating of the UI controls on the computer generated UI area.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein regenerating the affected UI controls further comprises:

consolidating the affected UI controls to regenerate during the rendering phase.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining a threshold for the modification of the one or more data objects; and

based upon the threshold, determining a degree of regenerating of the UI controls to be rendered on the computer generated UI area.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

executing a composite regenerating of the affected UI controls based upon a degree of modification.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

eliminating one or more duplicate affected UI controls from the updated UI controls list to optimize the regenerating.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

a UI rendering framework to compute the updated UI controls list including the affected UI controls;

a server-side framework to regenerate a markup page based upon the updated UI controls list; and

a client-side framework to convert the markup page to an application protocol and transfer the application protocol to a corresponding client.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining the UI controls and the data objects associated with the computer generated UI area;

generating a conditional list of the corresponding events to determine a correlation between the UI controls and the data objects;

receiving a modification to the data objects from the computer generated UI area;

based upon the modification, generating the optimized data binding structure to determine the UI controls affected by the modification;

assigning the UI controls affected by the modifications to the updated UI controls list; and

based upon a trigger received to render the computer generated UI area, regenerating the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

16. A computer system to regenerate a computer generated user interface (UI) area, comprising:

a processor configured to read and execute instructions stored in one or more memory elements; and

the one or more memory elements storing instructions to

a user interface (UI) engine to determine one or more UI controls and one or more data objects associated with the computer generated UI area;

an event handler to generate a conditional list of one or more events representing a corresponding association of the UI controls and the data objects;

a data binder to generate an optimized data binding structure based upon a modification of the one or more data objects, and determine corresponding one or more UI controls affected by the modification; and

a delta rendering engine to compute an updated UI controls list including the affected UI controls based upon the optimized data binding structure, and to regenerate the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

17. The computer system of claim 17 further comprises:

the event handler to determine a threshold for the modification of the one or more data objects and a degree of regenerating of the UI controls.

18. The computer system of claim 17 further comprises:

a server to

determine the UI controls and the data objects associated with the computer generated UI area;

generate a conditional list of the corresponding events representing the UI controls correlated to the data objects;

receive a modification in the data object from the computer generated UI area;

generate the optimized data binding structure based upon the modification;

determine from the optimized data binding structure, the UI controls affected by the modification;

assign the UI controls affected by the modifications to the updated UI controls list; and

based upon a trigger received to render the computer generated UI area, regenerate the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

19. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer readable storage medium to tangibly store instructions, which when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

determine one or more user interface (UI) controls and one or more data objects associated with a computer generated UI area to generate a conditional list of one or more corresponding events;

upon receiving a modification of the one or more data objects, generate an optimized data binding structure based upon the events, to determine corresponding one or more UI controls affected by the modification; and

compute an updated UI controls list including the affected UI controls based upon the optimized data binding structure, to regenerate the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 19 further comprising:

determining the UI controls and the data objects associated with the computer generated UI area;

generating a conditional list of the corresponding events to determine a correlation between the UI controls and the data objects;

receiving a modification to the data objects from the computer generated UI area;

based upon the modification, generating the optimized data binding structure to determine the UI controls affected by the modification;

assigning the UI controls affected by the modifications to the updated UI controls list; and

based upon a trigger received to render the computer generated UI area, regenerating the affected UI controls on the computer generated UI area by updating the affected UI controls based upon the modification.