PROGRAMMATIC NATIVE RENDERING OF STRUCTURED CONTENT

• US 20170091159A1
• Filed: 09/25/2015
• Published: 03/30/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Su, Timothy, Li, Shuai, Pintado, Jorge, Pons Bordes, Pablo
• Granted Patent: US 10,643,023 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

A user interface (UI) layout description language is described in which a UI may be specified for presentation by different versions of the same app running on different platforms. A layout engine written in a platform-specific language parses the UI layout description and transforms it to a native view using native UI components. The app on each platform has its own layout engine, but each can use the same layout description to generate a native view. Thus, a UI can be built once for all of the platforms. And because the UI layout engines are written in the language of their corresponding platforms, the UIs generated are high performing.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

providing a first version of an application to a first device having a first operating system, the first version of the application being in a first platform-specific language of the first device and including a first layout engine configured to receive a first user interface (UI) layout description specified in a UI layout description language, and to generate a first native view for presentation on the first device using the first UI layout description and one or more native UI components of the first device; and

providing a second version of the application to a second device having a second operating system, the second version of the application being in a second platform-specific language of the second device, the second platform-specific language being different than the first platform-specific language of the first device, the second version of the application including a second layout engine configured to receive the first UI layout description, and to generate a second native view for presentation on the second device using the first UI layout description and one or more native UI components of the second device;

wherein the first native view is substantially the same visually as the second native view.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is configured for native display of remote content, the method further comprising:

transmitting the first UI layout description to the first device; and

transmitting the first UI layout description to the second device.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving a query expressing an information need from the first device;

processing the query to generate a plurality of results; and

transmitting the results to the first device;

wherein one or more of the results correspond to the first UI layout description.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

transmitting the first UI layout description to a third device having a web browser configured to present a UI using the first UI layout description, the UI being substantially the same visually as the first and second native views.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising transmitting a reference to data to the first device, the data being for inclusion in the first native view.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first operating system comprises iOS and the first platform-specific language comprises C or Objective-C, and wherein the second operating system comprises Android and the second platform-specific language comprises Java.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the UI layout description language employs the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format or the Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

8. A computing device, comprising:

memory including an operating system implemented in a platform-specific language, native user interface (UI) components, and an application implemented in the platform-specific language, the application including a UI layout engine;

a display; and

one or more processors operatively coupled to the memory and the display, the one or more processors being configured to use the UI layout engine to;

build a UI layout tree using a UI layout description specified in a UI layout description language that is different from the platform-specific language;

determine a UI layout position for each of the elements of the UI layout tree; and

generate a native view using the UI layout tree, the UI layout position of each of the elements of the UI layout tree, and the native UI components;

the one or more processors being further configured to present a UI corresponding to the native view on the display.

9. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transmit a request to a remote platform, and to receive the UI layout description from the remote platform in response to the request.

10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the request comprises a query expressing an information need, and wherein the UI layout description corresponds to one or more results responsive to the query.

11. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the memory includes the UI layout description, and wherein the one or more processors are further configured to retrieve the UI layout description from the memory.

12. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to bind data to one or more elements of the UI layout tree, and wherein the one or more processors are configured to generate the native view also using the data bound to the one or more elements of the UI layout tree.

13. The computing device of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cache the native view, and bind new data to the native view to generate a new native view.

14. The computing device of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive the UI layout description from a first remote platform, and receive the data from a second remote platform.

16. The computing device of claim 30, wherein one of the non-native UI components represents multiple instances of an object type, and wherein the one or more processors are further configured to add nodes to the UI layout tree for each of the instances of the object type.

17. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to determine the UI layout position for each of the elements of the UI layout tree by computing at least one coordinate in two dimensions for each of the elements of the UI layout tree.

18. The computing device of claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are configured to compute the at least one coordinate in two dimensions for each of the elements of the UI layout tree using a subset of the CSS Flexible Box Layout Model.

30. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to build the UI layout tree by parsing the UI layout description to identify a hierarchy of non-native UI components.

15. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the UI layout description language employs the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format or the Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

15-1. (canceled)

19. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having computer program instructions stored therein, the computer program instructions being in a platform-specific language of an operating system and being configured such that, when executed by one or more processors, the computer program instructions cause the one or more processors to:

build a UI layout tree using a UI layout description specified in a UI layout description language that is different from the platform-specific language;

bind data to one or more elements of the UI layout tree;

determine a UI layout position for each of the elements of the UI layout tree; and

generate a native view of a user interface using the UI layout tree, the data bound to the one or more elements of the UI layout tree, the UI layout position of each of the elements of the UI layout tree, and native UI components associated with the operating system.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the one or more processors to obtain the UI layout description from a remote platform.

21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the one or more processors to transmit a query expressing an information need, and wherein the UI layout description corresponds to one or more results responsive to the query.

22. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the one or more processors to retrieve the UI layout description from local memory associated with the operating system.

23. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the one or more processors to cache the native view, and bind new data to the native view to generate a new native view.

24. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the one or more processors to obtain the UI layout description from a first remote platform, and obtain the data from a second remote platform.

25. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the UI layout description language employs the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format.

26. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to build the UI layout tree by parsing the UI layout description to identify a hierarchy of non-native UI components.

27. The computer program product of claim 26, wherein one of the non-native UI components represents multiple instances of an object type, and wherein the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the one or more processors to add nodes to the UI layout tree for each of the instances of the object type.

28. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to determine the UI layout position for each of the elements of the UI layout tree by computing at least one coordinate in two dimensions for each of the elements of the UI layout tree.

29. The computer program product of claim 28, wherein the computer program instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to compute the at least one coordinate in two dimensions for each of the elements of the UI layout tree using a subset of the CSS Flexible Box Layout Model.