Web page application controls

• US 9,003,298 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2012
• Issued: 04/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hoke, Tom, Waldman, Lawrence, Lin, Amy, Campbell, Johnny, Prish, Shahar, Battagin, Daniel, Gordon, Harrison
• Primary Examiner(s): Augustine, Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US13/418,489
• Publication Number:
  US 20120173963A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,120 Days
• Field of Search: 715/745, 715/810, 715/834, 715/841, 715/863
• US Class Current: 715/745
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174

Abstract

A web page behavior control (WPBC) menu is provided on a rendered web page for enabling a user to perform actions on a portion of the web page content such as customizing, editing, sharing, analyzing, exporting, and/or annotating the content. The user may automatically activate the menu by performing a unique gesture on the rendered web page and/or by selecting a portion of the web page content. The WPBC menu may provide a list of applications which may be selected for modifying and managing the portion of selected web page content. The application may provide full functionality for managing the web page content in a separate user interface and/or directly on the rendered web page. Furthermore, manipulation of data presentation on the rendered web page such as table properties of a spreadsheet may be enabled through natural gestures.

Claims

1. A method executed at least in part in a computing device for providing gesture based manipulation of presented content on a rendered web page, the method comprising:

presenting a web page behavior enhancement (WPBE) control element on a rendered web page;

in response to detecting activation of the WPBE control element through a gesture,

presenting one or more actions to allow interactions with the rendered web page, wherein the one or more actions are determined based on one or more of capabilities of a web application that presents the rendered web page, capabilities of a browser application that renders the rendered web page, a user preference associated with the rendered web page, and a usage history associated with the rendered web page;

activating a suitable application for managing the presented content; and

presenting a web page behavior control (WPBC) menu displaying one or more suitable applications for manipulating the presented content on the rendered web page;

detecting selection of an application from the WPBC menu;

activating the selected application for managing the presented content;

transforming a selected portion of the presented content to enable modification of the selected portion of the presented content directly on the rendered web page with functionality of the selected application, wherein the presented content is manipulated through one or more of;

customizing, analyzing, editing, selecting, moving, zooming, filtering, sorting, merging, and formatting of the presented content directly on the rendered web page; and

displaying the presented content in a separate user interface associated with one of the suitable application and the selected application to enable manipulation through gestures, directly on the rendered web page.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the presented content includes at least one from a set of:

textual data, spreadsheet data, graphical data, and video data.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

detecting selection of a portion of the presented content on the rendered web page; and

automatically presenting the web page behavior control (WPBC) menu in response to selection of the portion of the presented content, wherein the WPBC menu displays available applications for managing the selected portion of the presented content.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

detecting a unique gesture associated with the rendered web page; and

upon detection of the unique gesture, one of;

automatically activating a suitable application for managing the presented content and automatically presenting the web page behavior control (WPBC) menu.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

enabling at least one from a set of;

a selection of a portion of the presented content and manipulation of the selected portion of the presented content through one or more gestures.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling manipulation of at least one from a set of;

published content presented on the web page, implied content available but not presented on the web page, and related content from a data store associated with the rendered web page through the one or more applications provided by the WPBC menu.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein activation of the WPBE control element is detected from one or more of:

a tap action on the WPBE control element, a swipe action on the WPBE control element, an optically captured gesture, a touch-based gesture, a keyboard entry combination, a mouse input, a voice command, and a pen input.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more applications include one or more of:

a word processing application, a spreadsheet application, a drawing application, a presentation application, a content aggregation application, and a browsing application.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to display of the presented content in the separate user interface associated with the selected application, enabling manipulation of the presented content through gesture input on the separate user interface;

in response to completion of the manipulation, saving modifications to the presented content; and

displaying the modified content on the rendered web page.

10. A server for providing gesture based manipulation of presented content on a rendered web page through a client application, the server comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a web application providing a web page with a web page behavior enhancement (WPBE) control element to be rendered by the client application in conjunction with instructions stored in the memory, wherein the web application is configured to;

enable a user to interact with a user interface associated with the web page through gesture input;

upon detecting one of activation of the WPBE control element and selection of a portion of the presented content, present a web page behavior control (WPBC) menu displaying one or more applications for manipulating the presented content;

present one or more actions to allow interactions with the web page, wherein the one or more action are determined based on one or more of capabilities of the web application, capabilities of the client application, a user preference associated with the web page, and a usage history associated with the web page;

detect selection of an application from the WPBC menu through gesture input;

activate the selected application for managing the presented content;

transform a selected portion of the presented content to enable modification of the selected portion of the presented content directly on the web page with functionality of the selected application, wherein the presented content is manipulated through one or more of;

customizing, analyzing, editing, selecting, moving, zooming, filtering, sorting, merging, and formatting of the presented content directly on the web page; and

display the presented content in a separate user interface associated with the selected application to enable manipulation.

11. The server of claim 10, wherein the WPBE control element is associated with one of the entire web page and one or more portions of the presented content displayed on the web page.

12. The server of claim 10, wherein the WPBC menu is further displayed in response to detection of a predefined unique gesture associated with the web page.

13. The server of claim 12, wherein the web application is further configured to:

enable manipulation of at least one from a set of;

published content presented on the web page, implied content available but not presented on the web page, and related content from a data store associated with the web page through one or more of;

a word processing application, a spreadsheet application, a drawing application, a presentation application, a content aggregation application, and a browsing application provided by the WPBC menu.

14. The server of claim 10, wherein the web application is further configured to:

enable selection of two or more portions of the presented content concurrently;

upon detection of the selection of the two or more portions of the presented content, automatically present the WPBC menu displaying one or more applications for managing the selected portions of the presented content;

detect selection of an application from the WPBC menu; and

activate the selected application for manipulating the two or more selected portions of the presented content.

15. The server of claim 14, wherein the web application is further configured to enable the user to merge the two or more selected portions of the presented content.

16. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for providing gesture based manipulation of presented spreadsheet content on a rendered web page, the instructions comprising:

upon detecting one of;

activation of an embedded web page behavior enhancement (WPBE) control element, selection of a portion of the presented spreadsheet content displayed on the rendered web page, and a unique gesture associated with the rendered web page through gesture input, automatically presenting a web page behavior control (WPBC) menu displaying one or more applications for managing the presented spreadsheet content displayed on the rendered web page;

presenting one or more actions to allow interactions with the rendered web page, wherein the one or more actions are determined based on one or more of capabilities of a web application that presents the rendered web page, capabilities of a browser application that renders the rendered web page, a user preference associated with the rendered web page, and a usage history associated with the rendered web page;

detecting selection of an application from the WPBC menu;

enabling manipulation of the presented spreadsheet content through gesture input on one of the rendered web page and a separate user interface of the application selected from the WPBC menu; and

transforming a selected portion of the presented spreadsheet content to enable modification of the selected portion of the presented spreadsheet content directly on the rendered web page with functionality of the selected application, wherein the presented spreadsheet content is manipulated through one or more of;

customizing, analyzing, editing, selecting, moving, zooming, filtering, sorting, merging, and formatting of the presented spreadsheet content directly on the rendered web page.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions further comprise:

enabling at least one from a set of;

customizing, analyzing, editing, selecting, moving, zooming, filtering, sorting, merging, and formatting one or more rows and columns of the presented spreadsheet content.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the presented spreadsheet content includes at least one from a set of:

table data, chart data, and analysis data.