Application Activation Framework

• US 20150286499A1
• Filed: 05/20/2015
• Published: 10/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Oliver, Daniel J., Betz, Benjamin A., Guzak, Christopher J., Ivanovic, Relja, Krishnan-Chittur, Ramaswamy, Paddock, Brandon H.
• Granted Patent: US 9,519,511 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system

Abstract

Techniques for application activation are described herein. An operating system (OS) can be configured to incorporate various extension points that are serviceable through contracts defining individual invocations of extensible functionality. The extensible functionality is integrated as part of the OS and controlled by the OS in a centralized manner. However, the specific implementations of the extensible functionally are offloaded to applications using the contracts. For example, the OS can include or otherwise make use of a centralized application activation component that employs an object-oriented approach to invoke applications to perform particular contracts. The application activation component can pass information describing a particular contract to activate a designated application and enable the application to service the contract in the manner specified by the OS. In this way, the manner in which contracts are handled by application code can be managed and coordinated through a centralized application activation component.

Claims

1. (canceled)

2. A computing device comprising:

one or more processors; and

computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to cause the system to perform operations comprising;

notifying an operating system regarding entry points of an application to indicate support by the application for one or more extension points through the entry points;

activating the application to service a contract associated with one of the one or more extension points;

obtaining a contract object through an entry point that identifies the contract and specifies how the application is to fulfill the contract;

performing processing specified by the contract object to fulfill the contract; and

communicating results of the processing to the operating system.

3. The computing device of claim 2, the notifying being performed upon installation of the application.

4. The computing device of claim 2, the notifying being performed upon a first execution of the application.

5. The computing device of claim 2, the activating occurring through a runtime platform associated with the application.

6. The computing device of claim 2, the activating occurring through direct communication between the operating system and one of the entry points of the application.

7. The computing device of claim 2, the contract object including window creation parameters to control creation of a window for the application to service the contract, the window creation parameters including parameters to designate timing for creation of the window, a placement of the window, and visual aspects of the window.

8. The computing device of claim 2, the contract object including activation settings configured to control initialization of the application, a contract identifier to identify the contract, and contract details to control implementation of the one or more extension points by the application.

9. The computing device of claim 2, the results comprising an indication of whether the contract was completed successfully.

10. The computing device of claim 9, the results further comprising one or more of data generated from performing the processing, files generated from performing the processing, or links generated from performing the processing.

11. A computer-implemented method comprising:

notifying, by an application, an operating system of a computing device regarding entry points of the application to indicate support by the application for one or more extension points through the entry points;

activating the application to service a contract associated with one of the one or more extension points;

obtaining a contract object through an entry point that identifies the contract and specifies how the application is to fulfill the contract;

performing processing specified by the contract object to fulfill the contract;

responsive to determining that the contract was not successfully fulfilled, communicating to the operating system that the contract was not successfully fulfilled and initiating a retry of the processing specified by the contract; and

responsive to the retry of the processing specified by the contract being successful, communicating results of the processing to the operating system.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, the contract object including window creation parameters to control creation of a window for the application to service the contract, the window creation parameters including parameters to designate timing for creation of the window, a placement of the window, and visual aspects of the window.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, the contract object including activation settings configured to control initialization of the application, a contract identifier to identify the contract, and contract details to control implementation of the one or more extension points by the application.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, the contract object being configured according to a platform agnostic, language independent communication protocol that is compatible with multiple runtime platforms of the computing device.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, the results comprising an indication of whether the contract was completed successfully.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, the results further comprising one or more of data generated from performing the processing, files generated from performing the processing, or links generated from performing the processing.

17. A computing device comprising:

one or more processors; and

computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, implement an application activation component to provide a common pathway for application activation across different applications and runtime platforms of the computing device, the application activation component configured to;

implement an object-oriented protocol to activate applications to service extension points provided by an operating system of the computing device;

obtain a request to use extensible functionality provided by a particular extension point of the operating system; and

activate an application to service the request including;

selecting the application from among multiple applications registered with the operating system to service the particular extension point; and

communicating an object to an entry point designated for the particular extension point by the application, the object being defined in accordance with the object-oriented protocol and configured to cause the entry point to initiate processing by the application to implement the requested extensible functionality.

18. The computing device of claim 17, wherein:

the application is configured to execute within a corresponding runtime platform; and

the runtime platform is configured to handle initialization of the application and the application is configured to handle implementation of the requested extensible functionality using respective information communicated as part of the object.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein:

the object includes activation settings to control the initialization of the application by the runtime platform and additional information describing details for implementation of the requested extensible functionality that is passed through to the application by the entry point.

20. The computing device of claim 17, wherein the contract object includes one or more window creation parameters to control window creation by the application to implement the requested extensible functionality.

21. The computing device of claim 17, wherein the application activation component is provided as an integrated component of the operating system of the computing device.