HYBRID MOBILE INTERACTIONS FOR NATIVE APPS AND WEB APPS

• US 20140282119A1
• Filed: 12/28/2011
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Wouhaybi, Rita H., Shaw, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,600,455 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04803 Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/10 Use of a protocol of communication by packets in interfaces along the display data pipeline

Abstract

There is disclosed a system, including apparatus, methods and computer programs, for running native software applications (apps) and HTML5 web-based apps on a computing device, particularly a mobile computing device, in a multitasking mode of operation. In one embodiment, touch screen displays having one or more browsers are adapted to run one or more HTML5 apps, and receive input from hand gestures. One or more software modules execute on the operating system and are responsive to a dragging gesture applied to an HTML5 app displayed in a full screen mode, to subdivide the screen display and display the HTML5 app in one of the subdivided areas and display icons used to launch a second HTML5 app in a different one of the subdivided areas. The second HTML5 app is run concurrently with the first HTML5 app in order to provide multi-tasking between the first and second apps.

Claims

1. A computing device, comprising:

a touch screen configured to provide a screen display and receive input from hand gestures;

a computer system operative to control the screen display, the computer system including an operating system and one or more browsers configured for execution with the operating system, wherein the one or more browsers are configured to execute one or more web apps; and

one or more software modules configured for execution with the operating system, the software modules configured to respond to a dragging hand gesture applied to a web app being displayed in a full screen mode within the one or more browsers, by;

subdividing the screen display of the one or more browsers into multiple subdivided areas, and displaying the web app within one of the subdivided areas;

launching a second web app and displaying the second web app within a different one of the subdivided areas; and

providing concurrent display of the web app and the second web app in a split-screen mode to facilitate user multitasking.

2. The computing device of claim 1, the software modules further configured to respond to the dragging hand gesture by:

displaying one or more icons used to accept user input from the touch screen to select and launch the second web app, the icons displayed within the different one of the subdivided areas.

3. The computing device of claim 1, wherein each of the web app and the second web app are coded in a browser-renderable markup language compliant with an HTML5 markup language standard, and wherein the one or more browsers are further configured to render web apps coded in a markup language compliant with the HTML5 markup language standard.

4. The computing device of claim 1, the software modules further configured to respond to a second hand gesture applied to the concurrent display of the web app and the second web app by:

resizing display proportions between the web app and the second web app in the split-screen mode.

5. The computing device of claim 1, the software modules further configured to respond to one or more user commands during the concurrent display of the web app and the second web app by:

communicating information between the web app and the second web app.

6. The computing device of claim 1, the software modules further configured to provide concurrent display of the web app, the second web app, and one or more additional web apps in the split-screen mode.

7. The computing device of claim 1, the software modules further configured to provide concurrent execution and concurrent display for the web app and the second web app.

8. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more software modules are provided by the one or more browsers.

9. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more browsers includes a first browser providing the one of the subdivided areas, and a second browser providing the different one of the subdivided areas.

10. A method, comprising:

displaying, in a full screen mode of a screen display, a web app within a browser user interface;

detecting one or more user commands applied within the browser user interface during the full screen mode to subdivide the screen display and launch a second app; and

partitioning the screen display into multiple subdivided areas responsive to detecting the user commands, including;

resizing a display of the web app to one of the subdivided areas; and

allocating the second app to display in a different one of the subdivided areas;

wherein the second app is concurrently executed and presented with the web app.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the user commands include one or more hand gestures applied to a touch screen, the touch screen configured to provide the screen display.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the hand gestures include a dragging motion applied to an edge of the browser user interface.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising displaying one or more icons used to select and launch the second app, the icons displayed within the different one of the subdivided areas.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the web app is provided according to a browser-renderable markup language compliant with an HTML5 markup language standard.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising changing an allocation of the plurality of subdivided areas in the screen display responsive to detecting one or more additional user commands.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising communicating information between the first web app and the second app.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the second app is a web app executing in the browser user interface.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the second app is a native app not executing in the browser user interface.

19. At least one machine readable storage medium comprising a plurality of instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to provide a browser graphical user interface configured to:

display a first web app in a full-screen mode of a screen display;

provide a selectable listing of one or more additional web apps for display, the one or more additional web apps including a second web app;

receive one or more user commands to display the second web app concurrently with the first web app; and

display the second web app and the first web app in a split-screen mode of the screen display.

20. The machine readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the user commands include one or more hand gestures applied to a touch screen, the touch screen configured to provide the screen display.

21. The machine readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein the hand gestures include a dragging motion applied to an edge of the browser graphical user interface.

22. The machine readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein providing the listing of the one or more additional web apps includes displaying a listing of icons representing the one or more additional web apps, and wherein receiving the one or more user commands to display the second web app includes detecting a user selection of an icon from the listing of icons representing the second web app.

23. The machine readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein each of the first web app and the second web app are coded in a browser-renderable markup language compliant with an HTML5 markup language standard.

24. The machine readable storage medium of claim 19, the browser graphical user interface further configured to:

receive one or more user commands to resize display proportions between the first web app and the second web app in the split-screen mode; and

responsive to the user commands to resize display proportions, update the screen display of the first web app and the second web app.

25. The machine readable storage medium of claim 19, the browser graphical user interface further configured to:

communicate information between the first web app and the second web app.