DYNAMIC GENERATION OF MOBILE WEB EXPERIENCE

• US 20140229818A1
• Filed: 02/12/2013
• Published: 08/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goswami, Mani Shankar
• Granted Patent: US 10,296,562 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]

Abstract

Techniques are described herein for generating a user interface configured for a mobile device, on-the-fly at run time, in response to receiving a request for a Web page from the mobile device. The user interface for the mobile device may show the Web page with an appearance and content that are similar to the same Web page that is viewed on other devices, such as a non-mobile device. Such similar appearance and content may be possible without an increase in cost because a layout of the Web page that is configured for a non-mobile device is used to generate the user interface. Thus, once the layout for a non-mobile device is launched, its corresponding mobile layout may be automatically ready for launch without incurring additional engineering effort. Accordingly, users can enjoy the same Web experience across a variety of devices.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request for a Web page from a mobile device, the request specifying a device type that indicates a type of the mobile device;

obtaining a layout of the Web page, the layout configured for a non-mobile device;

parsing the layout to determine a plurality of modules that are included in the layout, each of the modules comprising metadata specifying a respective data type that indicates a type of data that is included in the respective module;

selecting a renderer from a plurality of renderers to render respective content that is associated with the respective data for each of the plurality of modules based on the respective metadata; and

generating a user interface for the mobile device, on-the-fly at runtime, that includes the contents rendered by respective renderers in accordance with a format that is based on the device type.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

parsing the request to determine a plurality of parameters that include a type parameter that specifies the device type, a region parameter that specifies a geographical region associated with the request, a language parameter that specifies a language to be associated with the contents, and a name parameter that specifies a name associated with the Web page;

wherein obtaining the layout of the Web page comprises;

obtaining the layout of the Web page from a cloud server using a layout application programming interface (API) that is configured in accordance with the plurality of parameters.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein parsing the request comprises:

determining whether the request includes a uniform resource indicator that indicates a designated geographical region; and

setting the region parameter to specify the designated geographical region in response to determining that the request includes the uniform resource indicator.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

retrieving module data from the layout using a data extraction API that is configured in accordance with a plurality of module-specific identifiers that correspond to the plurality of respective modules; and

retrieving navigation data for at least one of a header or a footer using a navigation API.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein retrieving the module data comprises:

providing a plurality of requests contemporaneously to retrieve the module data from the layout.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

selecting a parser from a plurality of data-type-specific parsers for each respective data type; and

parsing the module data using the data-type-specific parsers that correspond to the respective data types to create respective data subsets that are configured to be processed by the respective renderers to render the respective contents.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the renderer from the plurality of renderers for each of the plurality of modules comprises:

selecting the renderer from the plurality of renderers, which includes at least one of a video renderer, an article renderer, a slideshow renderer, a blog renderer, a comment renderer, a header renderer, or a footer renderer, for each of the plurality of modules.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the user interface for the mobile device comprises:

generating the user interface based on a generic configuration file that specifies a configuration of the user interface with respect to one or more of a theme color, an appearance of the plurality of modules, an arrangement of advertisements, or a site name for display.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the user interface for the mobile device comprises:

generating the user interface based on a site-specific configuration file that specifies a customization of the user interface with respect to one or more of a theme color, an appearance of the plurality of modules, an arrangement of advertisements, or a site name for display.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the user interface comprises:

generating the user interface in accordance with a decorator pattern that enables a determination to be made at runtime regarding an order in which to call the selected renderers; and

wherein the method further comprises;

displaying the user interface on a display of the mobile device.

11. A system comprising:

a layout module configured to obtain a layout of a Web page in response to receipt of a request for the Web page from a mobile device, the request specifying a device type that indicates a type of the mobile device, the layout configured for a non-mobile device, the layout module further configured to parse the layout to determine a plurality of modules that are included in the layout, each of the modules comprising metadata specifying a respective data type that indicates a type of data that is included in the respective module;

a plurality of renderers that correspond to the plurality of respective modules, each renderer configured to render respective content that is associated with the respective data for the respective module based on the respective metadata; and

a generation module configured to generate a user interface for the mobile device, on-the-fly at runtime, that includes the contents rendered by the respective renderers in accordance with a format that is based on the device type.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a parsing module configured to parse the request to determine a plurality of parameters that include a type parameter that specifies the device type, a region parameter that specifies a geographical region associated with the request, a language parameter that specifies a language to be associated with the contents, and a name parameter that specifies a name associated with the Web page;

wherein the layout module is configured to obtain the layout of the Web page from a cloud server using a layout application programming interface (API) configured in accordance with the plurality of parameters.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the parsing module is configured to determine whether the request includes a uniform resource indicator that indicates a designated geographical region;

and

wherein the parsing module is further configured to set the region parameter to specify the designated geographical region in response to a determination that the request includes the uniform resource indicator.

14. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

a data extraction module configured to retrieve module data from the layout using a data extraction API that is configured in accordance with a plurality of module-specific identifiers that correspond to the plurality respective of modules, and retrieve navigation data for at least one of a header or a footer using a navigation API.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the data extraction module is configured to provide a plurality of requests contemporaneously to retrieve the module data from the layout.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a plurality of data-type-specific parsers configured to parse the module data to create respective data subsets that are configured to be processed by the respective renderers to render the respective contents.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of renderers comprises at least one of a video renderer, an article renderer, a slideshow renderer, a blog renderer, a comment renderer, a header renderer, or a footer renderer.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the generation module is configured to generate the user interface based on a configuration file that specifies a configuration of the user interface with respect to one or more of a theme color, an appearance of the plurality of modules, an arrangement of advertisements, or a site name for display.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the generation module is configured to generate the user interface based on a site-specific configuration file that specifies a customization of the user interface with respect to one or more of a theme color, an appearance of the plurality of the modules, an arrangement of advertisements, or a site name for display.

20. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having computer program logic recorded thereon for enabling a processor-based system to provide content to a user, comprising:

a first program logic module for enabling the processor-based system to obtain a layout of a Web page in response to receipt of a request for the Web page from a mobile device, the request specifying a device type that indicates a type of the mobile device, the layout configured for a non-mobile device;

a second program logic module for enabling the processor-based system to parse the layout to determine a plurality of modules that are included in the layout, each of the modules comprising metadata specifying a respective data type that indicates a type of data that is included in the respective module;

a third program logic module for enabling the processor-based system to retrieve module data from the layout using a data extraction application programming interface (API) that is configured in accordance with a plurality of module-specific identifiers that corresponds to the plurality of respective modules;

a fourth program logic module for enabling the processor-based system to select a renderer from a plurality of renderers to render respective content that is associated with the respective data for each of the plurality of modules based on the respective metadata; and

a fifth program logic module for enabling the processor-based system to generate a user interface for the mobile device, on-the-fly at runtime, that includes the contents rendered by respective renderers in accordance with a format that is based on the device type.