Method and system for dynamically capturing HTML elements

• US 7,325,188 B1
• Filed: 09/03/2003
• Issued: 01/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Covington, Clinton D., Banerjee, Nilanjan, Massena, Jay L., Lee, Louisa, Paplin, Robbie A., Jacob, Sanjay
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel, Manglesh
• Application Number:
  US10/654,658
• Time in Patent Office: 1,609 Days
• Field of Search: 715/500.1, 715/513, 709/219
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

Method and system for dynamically capturing elements from a target Web page and displaying the captured elements in another Web page. A user first opens a Web Capture Web Part dialog box in a browser application program. The user navigates to the target server hosting the target Web page and sends an HTTP request to the target server to retrieve the target Web page. The target server returns the target Web page in an HTML string, which it is displayed in the Web Part Web Capture dialog box. The user then selects the elements that he or she wants to capture. The captured elements are then displayed in a Web part on the user'"'"'s Web page and the returned HTML string is stored in a cache memory. Each subsequent time the captured elements are displayed, the elements are automatically updated from the target Web page.

Claims

1. A method for dynamically capturing an element from a target Web page comprising a plurality of elements and rendering the captured element in an application program, comprising:

displaying the target Web page in a dialog box;

determining whether each element supports being captured, wherein determining whether each element supports being captured comprises;

examining a string to identify tag information associated with each element; and

comparing the identified tag information to a predetermined set of values associated with the supported elements to determine whether the identified tag information matches one of the predetermined set of values;

placing an icon proximate to the each element that supports being captured, wherein the icon is utilized to convey that an element is available for capture or selection;

placing a second icon proximate to the each element that does not support being captured, wherein the second icon is utilized to convey that an element is not available for capture and is different from the first icon, wherein the first icon and the second icon comprise a symbol selected from the group comprising an arrow, a check mark, and an X;

receiving and indication of selection of the element from the target Web page to capture;

determining, based on a status associated with the icon, whether the selected element supports being captured;

if the determination is made that the element supports being captured, then performing a sequence comprising;

storing a link associated with the target Web page;

retrieving a hypertext markup language (HTML) string from the target Web page for the captured element;

storing the HTML string in a cache memory as a Web capture; and

displaying the element in a Web part in the document in the application program, wherein the Web part comprises a panel displayed within the document; and

if the determination is made that the element does not support being captured, then displaying an error message in the Web part in the document.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

removing dangerous code from the HTML string before storing the string in a cache memory.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein removing dangerous code from the HTML string comprises:

converting the HTML string to a byte array;

removing objects that may contain executable programs from the byte array; and

converting the byte array to a Unicode string.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the object can be captured comprises:

searching the HTML string to determine whether a first flag is set to a first value;

searching the HTML string to determine whether a second flag associated with the target Web page is set to a second value;

determining whether the element is greater than a predefined value.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the object will be rendered as an IFRAME in the Web part in the application program.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining whether the element will be rendered as an IFRAME, comprises rendering the object as an IFRAME within the Web page if the object comprises the body of the target Web page.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein saving the element in memory comprises:

stripping the FORM tags from the HTML string;

stripping the BASE tags from the HTML string;

converting all relative (URLs) within the HTML string to absolute URLs;

storing the HTML string in a cache memory; and

storing a time and a date stamp identifying when the HTML string was stored in the cache memory.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the element stored in the memory is current; and

dynamically refreshing the element stored in the memory if the element is not current.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein refreshing the element in the cache memory comprises:

determining whether the element is captured by the server and, if the element is captured by the server, then performing a sequence comprising;

opening the Web part in the application program;

selecting the element to capture to the application program;

determining whether the cache memory has expired;

if the cache memory has not expired, performing a first sequence comprising;

retrieving the element from the cache memory; and

rendering the element in a Web part in the application program;

if the cache memory has expired, performing a second sequence comprising;

downloading a hypertext markup language (HTML) string comprising the target the Web page containing the element;

determining whether the element supports being captured;

if the object supports being captured displaying the object in a Web part in the application program;

storing the element in the cache memory; and

if the element does not support being captured,

displaying a first error message in the Web part in the application program.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining whether the element is captured by the client; and

if the element is captured by the client, performing a sequence comprising;

opening the Web part in the application program;

determining whether the element is stored in a cache memory at the client;

if the element is stored in the cache memory at the client, retrieving the element from the cache memory at the client and render the element in the Web part;

if the element is not stored in the cache memory, performing a second sequence comprising;

retrieving the target Web page; and

sending a control message to the server to capture the element from the target Web page.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether each element supports being captured comprises:

wherein the predetermined set of values comprise a TABLE, a WIG, a Body; and

a DIV.

12. A computer system for dynamically capturing elements from a target Web page and displaying them in a second Web page, comprising:

a client platform comprising;

a processing unit; and

a memory unit;

a server platform, comprising;

a second processing unit;

a second cache memory unit; and

a storage unit; and

a Web capture routine operable to select, capture and dynamically display the captured elements in a Web part in the second Web page and automatically determining whether the captured elements are rendered by examining properties associated with the captured elements, the second Web page generated by an application program on the client platform, wherein the Web part comprises a dialog box, wherein the dialog box displays a panel displayed within the second Web page, and wherein at least a portion of the Web capture routine runs on the processing unit on the client platform, and at least a portion of the capture routine runs on the server platform, and wherein the Web capture routine places an icon proximate to each element that supports being captured, wherein the icon is utilized to convey that an element is available for capture or selection, and places a second icon proximate to each element that does not support being captured, wherein the second icon is utilized to convey that an element is not available for capture and is different from the first icon, wherein the first icon and the second icon comprise a symbol selected from the group comprising an arrow, a check mark, and an X.

13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein

the part of the Web capture routine running on the client platform

fetches the target Web page;

captures the elements from the target Web page and displays the captured elements on the second Web page; and

the part of the Web capture routine running on the server platform

processes the captured elements; and

stores the captured elements in the second cache memory.

14. The computer system of claim 12, wherein

the part of the Web capture routine running on the server platform

fetches the target Web page;

captures the elements from the target Web page; and

processes the captured elements;

the part of the Web capture routine running on the client platform

displays the captured elements on the second Web page; and

stores the captured elements in the first cache memory.

15. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the fetched target Web page comprises a hypertext markup language (HTML) string.

16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein processing the captured elements comprises:

removing active content from the HTML string;

converting relative URLs to absolute URLs; and

removing all content from the HTML string that is not used to render the captured elements.

17. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the fetched target Web page comprises a hypertext markup language (HTML) string.

18. The computer system of claim 17, wherein processing the captured elements comprises:

removing active content from the HTML string;

converting relative URLs to absolute URLs; and

removing all content from the HTML string that is not used to render the captured elements.

19. The computer system of claim 12, further comprising storing properties associated with each captured element in the memory unit on the server platform.

20. The distributed computer system of claim 19, wherein the properties associated with the captured elements comprise:

the URL of the target Web page;

a date and time stamp of when the captured elements were displayed;

a plurality of tags, wherein each tag identifies at least one captured element on the target Web;

a plurality of indexes, wherein each index identifies the position of at least one captured element on the target Web page;

a refresh interval which describes a minimum time interval before the captured elements are updated; and

a capture method for determining whether the client platform or the server platform fetches the target Web page.

21. In a computer system having a graphical user interface including a display and a user interface selection device, a method of displaying and dynamically capturing an element from a target Web page, comprising:

receiving a selection of an item from the display to open a Web Capture dialog box;

displaying the Web Capture dialog box on the display;

receiving a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the target Web page, wherein the target Web page comprises a plurality of elements;

displaying the target Web page within the Web Capture dialog box;

examining one or more tags to determine whether capturing of each of the plurality elements is prohibited;

if the capturing of an element of the plurality of elements is prohibited, placing an icon proximate to the element prohibited from being captured, wherein the icon is utilized to convey that an element is not available for capture;

if the capturing of at least one element of the plurality of elements is not prohibited, placing a second icon proximate to the each element that supports being captured, wherein the second icon is utilized to convey that an element is available for capture or selection and is different from the first icon, wherein the first icon and the second icon comprise a symbol selected from the group comprising an arrow, a checkmark, and an X;

receiving an indication selecting at least one element;

dynamically capturing the selected element; and

displaying the captured element in a Web part in the display, wherein the Web part comprises a panel within the display.

22. The computer system of claim 21, wherein capturing the element, comprises:

storing the URL of the target Web page in a first memory device;

storing a tag identifying the capture element in the first memory device;

storing an index identifying a relative position of the capture element on the target Web page in the first memory device;

storing a plurality of properties associated with the captured element in the first memory device; and

storing the captured elements in a second memory device.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the plurality of properties associated with the captured element comprise:

a date and time stamp of when the captured elements were displayed; and

a refresh interval which describes a minimum time interval before the captured elements are updated.