Compact, portable, and efficient representation of a user interface control tree

• US 8,281,287 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2008
• Issued: 10/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Finocchio, Mark J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tecklu, Isaac
• Assistant Examiner(s): KABIR, MOHAMMAD H
• Application Number:
  US12/037,097
• Publication Number:
  US 20090125820A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,680 Days
• Field of Search: 717/106, 717/136, 717/137, 717/144, 715/237, 715/200
• US Class Current: 717/140
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45512 Command shells

Abstract

A non-tree representation of a UI control tree is provided by a compact UI binary file that is generated by encoding a UI definition markup file expressing UI controls and behavior in human-readable form. The UI binary file is utilized in a runtime environment on a computing device as a source of a binary instruction stream. The stream can be efficiently processed by an interpreter on the device without needing validation between loading and rendering the UI. The encoding places much of the representation into an object and script section of the UI binary file. The interpreter runs this section without it being entirely resident in the device'"'"'s memory to minimize the memory footprint. At runtime, operation code (“op-code”) streams contained in this section are used to build UI objects, and implement scriptable behavior for manipulating the UI objects to render the UI on the device with the designed behavior.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium containing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors disposed in an electronic device, perform a method for implementing a user interface (UI), the method comprising the steps of:

receiving an in-memory op-code stream in an object construction and scripting section of binary code in a file, the in-memory op-code stream not comprising cached bytecode, the binary code being encoded from a declarative markup that includes embedded script, the markup defining a UI including UI control objects; and

interpreting the op-code stream to construct the UI control objects and execute the script at runtime to render the UI in a runtime environment on a device, the interpreting being performed while maintaining a single stack through operation of the object construction and execution of the script.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 in which the runtime environment is one of Common Language Runtime (CLR) or Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 in which the object and scripting section is not loaded into memory during runtime.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 3 in which the interpreting does not include any validating between the construction of the UI control objects and the rendering of the UI.

5. A method for generating a binary instruction stream for creating and manipulating a user interface (UI) for execution on a device at runtime, the method comprising the steps of:

declaratively constructing objects for a UI through a markup;

providing scripted behavior for the objects using script that is embedded in the markup; and

encoding the markup and script to generate an in-memory binary instruction stream containing op-codes that are respectively mapped to the constructed objects and scripted behavior, the in-memory binary instruction stream containing op-codes not comprising cached bytecode, the in-memory binary instruction stream being interpreted while maintaining a single stack through operation of the object construction and execution of the script at runtime.

6. The method of claim 5 in which the binary instruction stream is further configured to be portable across different operating system architectures.

7. The method of claim 6 including a further step of encoding an index to a symbol table with the op-code, the symbol table containing a list of strings used at runtime to reference named entities within the markup.

8. The method of claim 7 including a further step of subjecting the markup to a lexical analysis for checking syntax of the markup.

9. The method of claim 8 including a further step of passing the markup through a validator to validate data types within the markup.

10. A method for generating a user interface (UI) binary file for representing a UI control tree in a compact form, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a UI definition file in human-readable form, the UI definition file expressing a set of UI control behaviors using a declarative syntax for building a plurality of UI objects and embedded script for manipulating built objects;

encoding the UI definition file by emitting an op-code as an in-memory binary instruction stream, the op-codes being selected for implementing the built objects and scripted control behaviors at runtime and the op-codes not comprising cached bytecode; and

generating the UI binary file by persisting the in-memory binary instruction stream, the in-memory binary instruction stream being interpreted while maintaining a single stack through operation of the object building and execution of the scripted control behaviors at runtime.

11. The method of claim 10 in which the declarative syntax uses a markup resource expressed in eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

12. The method of claim 11 in which the embedded script is expressed using an object-oriented programming language.

13. The method of claim 12 including a further step of including an import table in the UI binary file, the import table listing data upon which the markup resource depends, the data being at least one of type, constructor, property, method or event schema.

14. The method of claim 13 in which the import table uses an index and is configured to be sharable.

15. The method of claim 14 including a further step of including an export table in the UI binary file, the export table containing a plurality of type schemas to which one or more dependent external markup resources are bound at runtime.

16. The method of claim 15 including a further step of including a symbol table in the UI binary file, the symbol table comprising a plurality of strings which reference named entities within the UI definition file.

17. The method of claim 16 in which the symbol table is accessed via the index.

18. The method of claim 17 in which the UI binary file is portable across devices.

19. The method of claim 18 in which the devices include ones of personal computers (PCs) and portable devices.