System for speeding up web site use using task workflow templates for filtration and extraction

• US 8,438,471 B2
• Filed: 07/13/2009
• Issued: 05/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vm-Robot, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Lightfish, Inc.
• Inventors: Black, Alistair D'Lougar, Thorpe, John R
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Velez-Lopez, Mario M
• Application Number:
  US12/460,064
• Publication Number:
  US 20110010612A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,394 Days
• Field of Search: 715/204, 715/234, 715/236, 715/239
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation

Abstract

A system for speeding up rendering of and interacting with one or more web pages to accomplish some task using the internet. In a system comprising one or more client computers which can be cell phones, laptops or desktop computers coupled in any way to the internet and a template server and other web servers coupled to the internet, a microbrowser under control of a task workflow template is executed either by a client computer or the template server. The task workflow templates are custom defined workflows which define one or more web pages which need to be accessed and the data from each web page that needs to be extracted. The data defined in the task workflow template (and only that data) is extracted by the microbrowser and displayed on the client computer. Faster rendering results. Interaction by filling in of forms and extraction of data from the web pages that result when the form data is sent to the web server allows accomplishing of tasks using the internet much faster, especially using cell phones.

Claims

1. A process for processing one or more web pages, comprising:

A) fetching a task workflow template;

B) executing the instructions in a step of said task workflow template using a microbrowser so as to retrieve HTML or XHTML document(s) of a web page specified by said step in said task workflow template;

C) searching for specific desired information in said HTML or XHTML document where each piece of information sought is specified in a module in said step, where each module contains one or more items that extracts and displays a single display item, form element or conditional expression, each said module and item containing locators which are parsers that take instruction on how to parse through the HTML or XHTML document specified in the step and extract the desired data and where each said locator is the means by which items extract the content the item in intended to extract and render it for display, and wherein each said locator searches through said HTML or XHTML document either by searching for specific HTML or XHTML tags which enclose said specific desired information said HTML or XHTML tags being specified in said task workflow template, by use of regular expressions or searching by string matching or searching by location of said specific desired information in said HTML or XHTML document, and extracting only said specific desired information and, in the case the desired information is a form element, also extracting said HTML tags or said XHTML tags which enclose said desired information from each of said web pages which is specified in said task workflow template; and

D) displaying on a computer executing said microbrowser only said desired information extracted from said one or more web pages by inputting said extracted desired information and any HTML or XHTML tags extracted with it to a browser which renders said desired information as a human readable display.

2. A process for processing a plurality of web, pages comprising:

A) fetching a task workflow template from local storage on a computer programmed with a microbrowser;

B) controlling execution of said computer using said microbrowser to execute instructions which are part of a first step module which is part of said task workflow template fetched in step A so as to identify a specific web page and cause said computer to retrieve and store the HTML or XHTML document of said web page identified in said step module;

C) extracting one or more elements from said HTML or XHTML document including a form element that requires a user of said computer to enter information to fill in said form;

D) displaying said form element extracted from said web page on a display of said computer executing said microbrowser;

E) receiving user input entered by a user via one or more input devices of said computer executing said microbrowser;

F) sending said information entered by said user to a server on the internet which supplied the HTML document fetched in step B;

G) controlling execution of said computer using said microbrowser to execute instructions which are part of a second step module which is part of said task workflow template fetched in step A so as to identify a second web page which is generated by said server to which said user information was sent in step F, said second web page being generated by said server in response to receiving said user information and cause said computer to retrieve and store the HTML document of said second web page identified in said step module;

H) controlling execution of said computer using said microbrowser to execute instructions which are part of one or more list, form and/or item modules which are part of said second step module to extract only the information from said HTML document of said second web page which is specified in said list, form and/or item modules; and

I) displaying on said computer executing said microbrowser only the information extracted from said second web page.

3. The process of claim 2 further comprising the step of, before step A, displaying a task list of the task workflows templates that are stored locally on the computer using said microbrowser and receiving user input selecting one of said task workflow templates for execution, and wherein step A comprises fetching said task workflow template selected by said user.

4. The process of claim 3 further comprising the step of, after receiving said user input selecting said task workflow template, fetching at least the version number of said task workflow template and checking said version number against the version number of the task workflow template designed to accomplish the same task and stored on a template server, and if the task workflow template stored locally on said computer executing said microbrowser indicates said task workflow template said user selected is obsolete, downloading the latest version of said task workflow template stored on said template server.

5. A computer apparatus comprising:

a cell phone computer or laptop computer or desktop computer having a processor connected by a bus to main memory and non volatile storage and a display and one or more input devices if said display is not itself a touchscreen and the only input device needed, said bus also coupling said processor to a communication interface including one or more radio frequency transmission and reception circuits, modulator circuits and, if said computer is a cell phone computer or a laptop using a cellular system broadband access card for internet access, cellular data communication protocol software that controls said processor to carry out a data transport protocol for a cellular system data path used by said cell phone to communicate with servers on the internet;

said processor being programmed with software comprising an operating system kernel, a storage input/output driver, drivers for said display and one or more input devices if said other input devices work, a microbrowser and a TCP/IP protocol stack and said cellular data communication protocol software if said computer is a cell phone, said software controlling said processor to carry out the following process;

A) fetching a task workflow template from local storage on a computer programmed with a microbrowser;

B) controlling execution of said computer using said microbrowser to execute instructions which are part of a first step module which is part of said task workflow template fetched in step A so as to identify a specific web page and cause said computer to retrieve and store the HTML or XHTML document of said web page identified in said step module;

C) extracting one or more elements from said HTML or XHTML document including a form element that requires a user of said computer to enter information to fill in said form;

D) displaying said form element extracted from said web page on a display of said computer executing said microbrowser;

E) receiving user input entered by a user via one or input devices of said computer executing said microbrowser;

F) sending said information entered by said user to a server on the internet which supplied the HTML or XHTML document fetched in step B;

G) controlling execution of said computer using said microbrowser to execute instructions which are part of a second step module which is part of said task workflow template fetched in step A so as to identify a second web page which is generated by said server to which said user information was sent in step F, said second web page being generated by said server in response to receiving said user information and cause said computer to retrieve and store the HTML or XHTML document of said second web page identified in said step module;

H) controlling execution of said computer using said microbrowser to execute instructions which are part of one or more list, form and/or item modules which are part of said second step module to extract only the information from said HTML or XHTML document of said second web page which is specified in said list, form and/or item modules; and

I) displaying on said computer executing said microbrowser only the information extracted from said second web page.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said software is structured to control said processor to perform the following additional steps before step A:

loading a list of task workflow templates;

displaying on said display of said computer said list of task workflow templates;

receiving user input selecting one of said task workflow templates for execution; and

checking a version number of said task workflow template selected by said user against the version number of a task workflow template stored on a template server to do the same task, and if the task workflow template stored on said computer executing said microbrowser is obsolete, downloading the task workflow template from said template server and storing and executing said task workflow template downloaded from said template server.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein said software is structured to control said processor to perform the steps of the recited process in the following way:

step A is performed by fetching a stock quote task workflow template from local storage of said computer or from a template server on the internet;

step B is performed by controlling said computer to fetch the HTML or XHTML document of a web page which provides stock quotes;

step C is performed by searching to locate in said HTML or XHTML document tags which are described in said first step module, said tags enclosing a form element for a form which is displayed on said web page which provide stock quotes and provides a place for a user of said web page to enter ticker symbols for stocks for which said user is interested in obtaining a quote, and wherein step C is also performed by searching in said HTML or XHTML document for tags which are described in said first step module which enclose a form element which is displayed on said web page which provides stock quotes to allow a user to select a displayed icon in order to give a submit command to request the quotes after the user is done entering ticker symbols, and wherein step C extracts and stores the form elements so located;

step D is performed by displaying said form element to enter ticker symbols and said form element to give said submit command to on the display of said computer which is executing said microbrowser;

step E is performed by receiving user input as to the ticker symbols for the stock of interest and the submit command;

step F is performed by sending a request for stock quotes for the stocks having the ticker symbols entered by the user to the server which supplied the HTML or XHTML document fetched in step B;

step G is performed by executing instructions of said second step module to cause said computer to fetch the HTML or XHTML document for the web page which said server contacted in step F responds with after receiving the ticker symbols for the stocks for which said stock quotes are desired;

step H is performed by searching to locate in said HTML or XHTML document tags which are described in said second step module which enclose elements which are the ticker symbols of the one or more stocks for which stock quotes were requested and extracting and storing those symbols, and wherein step H is further performed by searching to locate in said HTML or XHTML document tags which are described in said second step module which enclose elements which are the prices of the one or more stocks for which stock quotes were detected and extracting and storing said prices; and

step I is performed by displaying on the display of the computer executing said microbrowser the ticker symbol and price information extracted in the next previous step.

8. A template server apparatus comprising:

a server computer;

software controlling said server computer including an operating system, transport protocol software for communication on the internet, driver software and a microbrowser structured to control said server computer in accordance with the instructions in a task workflow template;

and wherein said microbrowser is structured to control said template server to carry out the following process;

A) receive login information from said client computer, said login information identifying a user of said client computer;

B) authenticating said user of said client computer;

C) if said user is not authenticated, waiting for login information from a user who is authentic;

D) if said user is authenticated, opening a configuration file for the user and locating a list of task workflow templates this user may access;

E) creating a web page containing said list of task workflow templates and sending said web page to said client computer for display;

F) receiving a request from a user of said client computer requesting execution by said template server of a task workflow template identified by said user;

G) fetching the task workflow template identified by the user and loading it into memory for execution by said template server;

H) executing a microbrowser on said template server using said task workflow template to guide processing to fetch the HTML or XHTML documents or one or more web pages identified in said task workflow template;

I) searching the fetched HTML or XHTML documents of said one or more web pages identified in said task workflow template to find and extract information identified in said task workflow template;

J) creating one or more web pages using said extracted information and sending them to said client computer for display by a browser executing on said client computer;

K) determine if any user input form data has been received from said client computer as a result of said extracted data sent to said client computer displaying a form on a display of said client computer which required user input entered on said client computer to fill out said form or if preset data exists in said task workflow template to fill in blanks on said form;

L) if user input form data has been received from said client computer or if preset data exists to fill in blanks in said form, sending said user input form data or said preset data to the server coupled to said internet which supplies the web page from which the form displayed by said client computer was extracted;

M) fetching the HTML or XHTML document of any web page identified in said task workflow template which results from sending, in step L, of said user input form data back to said server which supplied the web page from which the form was extracted;

N) extracting any data from said HTML or XHTML document fetched in step M which is identified in said task workflow template;

O) storing any data extracted in step N in a web pages and sending it to said client computer for display by a browser executing on said client computer;

P) repeating steps K through O until step K determines that no user input form data has been received from said client computer or no preset data exists to fill in a form such that the user of the client computer is done interacting so as to request web pages which result from supplying of data;

Q) after step K determines that no user input form data has been received from said client computer, determining if any further web pages are identified in said task workflow template which need to be processed;

R) if further web pages are identified in said task workflow template to be processed, repeating steps K through O until processing reaches step Q again and step Q determines that no further web pages are identified in said task workflow template that need to be processed and ending processing of said task workflow template.

9. A client computer apparatus, which can be a cell phone, laptop or desktop computer, comprising:

a cell phone, laptop or desktop computer programmed with software comprising an operating system, a browser, driver software, transport protocol software and other software which are capable of controlling said cell phone, laptop or desktop computer to communicate with one or more servers on the internet through the data path of a cellular phone service provider and/or the internet through an internet service provider; and

a template server control program which cooperates with said software to control said cell phone, laptop or desktop computer to communicate with a template server coupled to said internet to cause said template server to execute user specified task workflow templates using a microbrowser to extract from one or more web pages and send said extracted to said cell phone, laptop or desktop computer for display using said browser;

and wherein said template server control program is structured to control said cell phone, laptop or desktop computer to perform the following process;

A) display an icon or menu command or some other user interface tool which can be invoked to cause said template server control program to launch into execution on said cell phone, laptop or desktop computer (hereafter simply referred to as the client computer);

B) displaying on a display of said client computer a login form for a user of said client computer to enter user name and password for the user'"'"'s account on said template server;

C) receiving user name and password entered by a user of said client computer and sending said user name and password to said template server;

D) receiving from said template server a web page which includes a list of the task workflow templates this user can cause said template server to execute;

E) receive user input selecting a task workflow template for execution by said template server and sending said selection data to said template server;

F) receiving one or more web pages from said template server containing data extracted by said template server from one or more web pages identified in said task workflow template identified by said user of said client computer and sent to said template server in step E, said extracted data in said web pages being data identified in said task workflow template;

G) displaying on said client computer the extracted data contained in said web pages received from said template server;

H) determining if any of said displayed data is a form element and determining whether user input form data has been entered in said form element or preset data has been fetched to fill in said form element, and receiving said user input form data filled in by said user of said client computer or said fetched preset data used to fill in said form element, and sending at least said user input form data or said fetched preset data to said template server;

I) repeating steps F and G and H until step H determines that no further user input form data has been entered or no further preset data exists to be sent to said template server.