Site navigation and site navigation data source

• US 8,156,448 B2
• Filed: 05/28/2004
• Issued: 04/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Niyogi, Shanku Shivabrata, Yang, Ting-Hao, Croney, Joseph K., Gibbs, Matthew E., Schackow, Stefan
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo, Weilun
• Assistant Examiner(s): WIENER, ERIC A
• Application Number:
  US10/856,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20050278351A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,874 Days
• Field of Search: 715/854, 715/703, 715/738, 715/853
• US Class Current: 715/854
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A concept for providing hierarchical navigation information relative to one or more databases within a distributed computer system is described. In one aspect, this includes a process for hierarchically organizing bodies of information that includes: receiving a query from a user, abstracting a list of descriptors from one or more sources of information selected based on the query, organizing the list according to an hierarchy of nodes referenced in the one or more sources of information and providing information configured to facilitate displaying a graphical user interface illustrating the hierarchy and having user programmable server control classes for accession of nodes in the hierarchy.

Claims

1. A process for hierarchically organizing bodies of information comprising:

receiving a query from a user, wherein the query indicates an area of interest, wherein the area of interest is a topic specified by the user;

identifying one or more datastores having a relationship to the query;

automatically abstracting a summary of information related to the area of interest from the one or more identified datastores identified based on the query;

organizing the summary of information related to the area of interest according to an hierarchy of nodes, wherein the hierarchy of nodes references at least one body of information based on the query;

determining user preferences, wherein the user preferences indicate that the user is operating a mobile unit and that the mobile unit is in a specific locale; and

providing information configured to facilitate displaying a graphical user interface based on the area of interest illustrating the hierarchy and having user controls for accession of nodes in the hierarchy, wherein the graphical user interface customizes textual portions of the interface based upon the user preferences such that the textual portions are appropriate for the mobile unit and the locale of the mobile unit.

2. The process of claim 1, wherein abstracting comprises abstracting from multiple linked datastores, and further comprising providing information from these multiple linked datastores as a single and seamless set of navigational information to developers and controls for users.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein abstracting a summary of information related to the area of interest comprises abstracting a table of contents.

4. The process of claim 1, further comprising customizing textual portions of information returned from the bodies of information via localization mechanisms configured to be responsive to culture, language or locale of a user, or a piece of executing code.

5. The process of claim 1, further comprising providing the user controls according to where the user is classified in a predetermined role-based access list.

6. The process of claim 1, wherein abstracting comprises selecting one or more universal resource locators based on the query.

7. The process of claim 1, wherein the graphical user interface includes one or more controls for user selection among displays chosen from a group comprising:

tree view, SiteMapPath, SiteMapDataSource and menu control.

8. The process of claim 1, wherein providing information comprises providing information configured to facilitate displaying a graphical user interface via a mobile device that is capable of facilitating illustrating the hierarchy via nodes rendered as a set of links coupled with user controls for accession/traversal of nodes in the hierarchy.

9. The process of claim 1, wherein abstracting a summary of information related to the area of interest from one or more bodies of the bodies of information selected based on the query comprises abstracting a summary from one or more bodies of information stored in a memory coupled to a computer.

10. A computer storage medium encoding computer readable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to construct and provide navigational controls for a user of a distributed computer system, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to:

determine user preferences, wherein the user preferences indicate that the user is operating a mobile unit in a locale;

instantiate an hierarchical site map as a user interface in response to a user query indicating an area of interest, wherein the site map provides data abstractions conditioned for human intelligibility and references associated computer-intelligible data, and wherein the area of interest is a topic specified by the user;

receive user input via the user interface; and

respond to the user input by identifying one or more datastores having a relationship to the user query indicating an area of interest, automatically abstracting a summary of information related to the area of interest from the one or more identified datastores identified based on the user query, and providing content based on the area of interest as indicated by the query via the user interface, wherein textual portions of the content is presented via the user interface in a manner according to the user preferences such that the content is presented in a format appropriate for the mobile unit and the locale of the unit.

11. The computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the computer readable instructions are configured to facilitate web site development, and wherein the computer readable instructions are further configured to effectuate a choice of user interfaces chosen from a group comprising of:

tree view, SiteMapPath, SiteMapDataSource and menu control.

12. The computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the computer readable instructions are configured for data store navigation and accession and further include instructions configured to:

abstract a series of nodes including a root node, one or more parent nodes and one or more child nodes from a datastore;

sort the series of nodes in an hierarchy; and

provide the hierarchy to the user.

13. The computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the computer readable instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to provide content include computer readable instructions configured to customize portions of information derived from the data abstractions via localization mechanisms configured to be responsive to culture, language or locale of a user, or a piece of executing code.

14. The computer storage medium of claim 10, further comprising the computer readable instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to provide user controls provide the user controls according to where the user is classified in a predetermined role-based access list.

15. The computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the computer readable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to instantiate the hierarchical site map comprises computer readable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to select one or more universal resource locators based on the user input.

16. The computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the computer readable instructions is configured to adapt to modification of a datastore from which the hierarchical site map is abstracted.

17. The computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the computer readable instructions configured to instantiate the hierarchical site map comprise computer readable instructions configured to provide data abstractions conditioned for human intelligibility and references associated computer-intelligible data stored in a memory that is coupled to a personal computer.

18. A system for navigation of one or more data sources, comprising:

a processing unit; and

a memory coupled with and readable by the processing unit and having stored therein instructions which, when executed by the processing unit, cause the processor to perform the following acts;

identifying one or more data sources having a relationship to a query, wherein the query indicates an area of interest, wherein the area of interest is a topic specified by the user;

automatically abstracting a summary of information related to the area of interest from the one or more data sources, wherein the summary is a table of contents and includes one or more universal resource locators based on the query;

providing a hierarchy of nodes referenced in the one or more identified data sources, wherein the hierarchy of nodes is organized into a single set of navigational information;

determining information related to user role, user preferences, user hierarchy, user type, and accession permission level, wherein the user preferences indicate that the user is operating a mobile unit in a locale;

providing provide navigation controls according to the information related to the user role, user preferences, user hierarchy, user type, and accession permission level, wherein textual portions of the hierarchy is presented according to the user preferences in a format appropriate for the mobile unit in the locale; and

facilitating the user in navigating the datastore hierarchy.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory further comprises instructions that cause the processor to perform the act of providing a web site development tool having capacities for organization of dynamically-reconfigurable summaries from the one or more data sources as data contained therein undergoes modification.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory further comprises instructions that cause the processor to perform the act of providing a user interface capable of rendering an hierarchical navigation aid to a user.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory further comprises instructions that cause the processor to perform the act of providing a memory organization, accession and traversal tool for a memory coupled to a computer.

22. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory further comprises instructions that cause the processor to perform the act of providing a user interface capable of rendering an hierarchical navigation aid to a user, the hierarchical navigation aide including localization mechanisms configured to be responsive to culture, language or locale of the user, or a piece of executing code.

23. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory further comprises instructions that cause the processor to perform the act of providing a user interface capable of rendering an hierarchical navigation aid to a user that includes user controls delimited according to where the user is classified in a predetermined role-based access list.

24. A process for deploying a web page, comprising:

receiving, from a client process, a request for a web page;

receiving user preferences, wherein the user preferences indicate that the user is operating a mobile unit in a specific locale;

receiving a user query, wherein the query indicates an area of interest, wherein the area of interest is a topic specified by the user; and

in response to the query, generating and providing, from a server process, an hierarchical navigation control interface of a summary of information related to the area of interest, wherein the hierarchical navigation control interface of summary information is generated by identifying one or more datastores having a relationship to the user query indicating an area of interest and automatically abstracting a summary of information related to the area of interest from the one or more identified datastores identified based on the user query, and wherein the server process provides textual portions of the summary of information according to user preferences in a format appropriate for the mobile unit and the specific locale.

25. The process of claim 24, wherein providing comprises providing the graphical user interface chosen from a group comprising:

tree view, SiteMapPath, SiteMapDataSource and menu control.

26. The process of claim 24, wherein providing comprises providing access to an hierarchy of nodes including one or more parent nodes and at least one child node, the nodes corresponding to different portions of a datastore.

27. The process of claim 24, wherein receiving comprises receiving the request via a graphical user interface of the area of interest chosen from a group comprising:

tree view, SiteMapPath, SiteMapDataSource and menu control.

28. The process of claim 24, wherein providing comprises providing portions of the hierarchical navigation control interface of the area of interest via localization mechanisms configured to be adaptive to culture, language or locale of a user.

29. The process of claim 24, wherein providing comprises:

providing access to an hierarchy of nodes including one or more parent nodes and at least one child node, the nodes corresponding to different portions of a datastore; and

including an element within the hierarchical navigation control that is configured to permit the user to skip portions of the hierarchy.

30. The process of claim 24, wherein providing comprises providing access to an hierarchy of nodes extracted from multiple datastores.

31. The process of claim 24, wherein providing comprises providing access to an hierarchy of nodes including one or more parent nodes and at least one child node in accordance with a role-based accession list.