Terminating computer applications

• US 8,510,743 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Issued: 08/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Hackborn, Dianne K., Hjonnevag, Arve, Onorato, Joseph M., Swetland, Brian J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Qing
• Application Number:
  US11/932,613
• Publication Number:
  US 20090113444A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,113 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44594 Unloading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/461 Saving or restoring of program or task context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5022 Mechanisms to release resources

Abstract

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes executing one or more computer applications and ranking the applications according to one or more criteria that change in response to a user'"'"'s interaction with the applications. State information for certain of the one or more applications is saved and one or more applications are terminated in response to a memory condition. Subsequently, one of the terminated applications is revived using the saved state information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for managing computer applications, the method comprising:

executing, by a computing system, multiple computer applications;

ranking, by the computing system, the computer applications based on times at which each of the computer applications was last in focus such that the ranking is based on, for each of the computer applications, an elapsed time that the computer application has been executing without being in focus,

wherein the computer applications were in focus at different times, and

wherein a computer application is in focus if it is in a foreground of a display and able to receive user input;

saving, by the computing system, state information for certain of the computer applications;

in response to a memory condition, terminating, by the computing system and based on the ranking, one or more of the computer applications, wherein an application window of one of the terminated computer applications lost focus, so as to be at least partially visible in a background of the display, before being terminated;

copying the at least partially visible application window;

displaying the copy of the at least partially visible application window after the one of the terminated computer applications has been terminated; and

subsequently reviving, by the computing system, the one of the terminated computer applications using the saved state information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory condition is a memory shortage;

and

further comprising determining, by the computing system, that the computing system is experiencing the memory shortage.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the state information includes dependencies between the computer applications.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein saving the state information further comprises saving the state information to an application memory and then saving the state information to a persistent memory.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein saving the state information further comprises saving the state information to a remote computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the computer applications further comprises generating a program stack of running computer applications.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein ranking the computer applications further comprises ranking the computer applications in response to a detection of a change in focus of a particular of the computer application programs.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the computer application on top of the program stack is in focus.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the computer applications includes ranking the computer applications in descending order such that one of the computer applications that currently is in focus has a highest ranking and another of the computer applications that is last to have been in focus and that has been executing longest without being in focus has a lowest ranking.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the computer applications includes ranking the computer applications in descending order such that all one or more of the computer applications that are not visible to the user are ranked lower than all one or more of the computer applications that are visible to the user.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein terminating, based on the ranking, the one or more of the computer applications includes determining a lowest ranked of the computer applications that has been executing longest without being in focus and terminating the lowest ranked computer application.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting an attempt by the user to close or minimize a window of a computer application that overlays the one of the terminated computer applications and, in response, performing the subsequent reviving of the one of the terminated computer applications.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting that a particular one of the computer applications changed state so as to lose focus and, as a consequence of detecting the change in state, saving the state information for the particular one of the computer applications.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the user is prevented, by the display of the copy of the at least partially visible application window, from realizing that the one of the terminated computer applications has been terminated.

15. A computer-implemented system for managing computer applications, the system comprising:

one or more computer processors;

an application manager, executable by the one or more computer processors, to classify computer applications according to a time at which each of the computer applications was last in focus such that the classification of the computer applications is based on, for each of the computer applications, an elapsed time that the computer application has been executing without being in focus, and to save state information for certain of the computer applications, wherein a computer application is in focus if it is in a foreground of a display and able to receive user input;

an application terminator, executable by the one or more computer processors, to terminate one or more of the computer applications upon the occurrence of a memory shortage and based, at least in part, on the classification of the one or more of the computer applications, to copy an at least partially visible application window of one of the terminated computer applications that lost focus, so as to be at least partially visible in a background of the display, before being terminated, and to display the copy of the at least partially visible application window after the one of the terminated computer applications has been terminated; and

a kernel, executable by the one or more computer processors, to, in response to user interaction with the one or more of the computer applications, revive a terminated computer application using the saved state information.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the application terminator terminates a computer application upon detecting an impending memory shortage.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the state information includes dependencies between computer applications.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein saving the state information further comprises saving the state information to an application memory and then saving the state information to a persistent memory.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein saving the state information further comprises saving the state information to a remote computing device.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the application manager is further configured to generate a program stack of running computer applications based on the classification of each of the computer applications.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the application manager is configured to rank the running computer applications in the program stack in response to detecting a change in the classification of one or more of the computer applications.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the computer application on top of the program stack is in focus.

23. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

computer memory to store a plurality of simultaneously-operating computer applications;

an application manager;

means for temporarily terminating and relaunching the computer applications in response to a computer memory condition by ranking the computer applications according to times at which particular of the computer applications were last in a foreground of a display and able to receive user input such that the ranking is based on, for each of the computer applications, an elapsed time that the computer application has been executing without being in the foreground of the display and able to receive user input; and

an application terminator, executable by one or more computer processors, to copy an at least partially visible application window of one of the terminated computer applications that lost focus, so as to be at least partially visible in a background of the display, before being terminated, and to display the copy of the at least partially visible application window after the one of the terminated computer applications has been terminated.

24. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

executing, by a computing system, multiple computer applications;

ranking, by the computing system, the computer applications based on times at which each of the computer applications was last in focus such that the ranking is based on, for each of the computer applications, an elapsed time that the computer application has been executing since last losing focus,

wherein the computer applications were in focus at different times, and

wherein a computer application is in focus if it is in a foreground of a display and able to receive user input;

saving, by the computing system, state information for certain of the computer applications;

detecting, by the computing system, a pending memory shortage or that the computing system has run out of memory, and in response, terminating, by the computing system, a particular one of the computer applications that has a lowest ranking among the computer applications, wherein an application window of the particular one of the computer applications lost focus, so as to be at least partially visible in a background of the display, before being terminated;

copying the at least partially visible application window;

displaying the copy of the at least partially visible application window after the particular one of the terminated computer applications has been terminated; and

identifying, by the computing system and after the particular one of the computer applications has been terminated, a user attempt to return to the particular one of the computer applications, and as a result, reviving the particular one of the computer applications using the saved state information.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein ranking the computer applications includes ranking the computer applications in descending order such that one of the computer applications that currently is in focus has a highest ranking and another of the computer applications that has been executing a longest amount of time since last losing focus has the lowest ranking.

26. The computer-method of claim 24, further comprising determining, for a particular computer application of the computer applications, the elapsed time that the particular computer application has been executing since last losing focus.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the ranking is maintained by a stack that represents an ordering in which each of the computer applications currently has focus or last lost focus.