Website builder systems and methods with device detection to adapt rendering behavior based on device type

• US 9,147,004 B2
• Filed: 09/07/2012
• Issued: 09/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cimpress Schweiz GmbH (Cimpress Plc)
• Original Assignee: Cimpress Schweiz GmbH (Cimpress Plc)
• Inventors: Coursol, Sebastien
• Primary Examiner(s): Mills, Frank D
• Application Number:
  US13/606,329
• Publication Number:
  US 20140075283A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,117 Days
• Field of Search: 715/234
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

Mobile website building tools which may be used to build a mobile-ready website from a mobile device includes a design studio application downloaded for executing on the mobile device. The design studio application detects a device type and enables dynamic preview rendering if the device type is a traditional computing device, and for device types that are mobile devices, batches user modifications to a website under construction until a preview or save request is made by the user.

Claims

1. A client device, comprising:

a display screen;

one or more user input devices for entering user input;

one or more computer-readable program storage media having stored thereon a website building application for building a website from the client device, the website building application comprising processor-executable instructions;

one or more computer-readable data storage media;

one or more processors executing the instructions of the website building application to

(a) communicate with a remote server which renders a user-configurable website template,

(b) present a graphical user interface on the display screen, the graphical user interface presenting to a user of the client device

the rendered user-configurable website template and one or more controls for editing elements of the website template to create a user-customized website, the controls responsive to user input from the one or more user input devices

to generate one or more of user edits and synchronization-type requests,

(c) determine whether the client device is a first device type or a second device type,

(d) if the client device is of the first device type, dynamically send to the server updates corresponding to user edits as user updates are generated by at least one of the controls for rendering of an updated user-configurable website template by the server, and receive and display the server-rendered updated user-configurable website template on the display screen, and

(e) if the client device is of the second device type, queue and store the user edits in the data storage media and, only upon generation by at least one of the controls of a synchronization-type request, batch a plurality of the queued user edits, and send to the server a batch request to process updates corresponding to the batched queued user edits and render a batch-updated user-configurable website template by the server, and receive and display the server-rendered batch-updated user-configurable website template on the display screen.

2. The client device of claim 1, wherein the website building application is configured as a guided wizard comprising a plurality of different pages wherein each page allows a user of the mobile device to customize or edit at least one different feature of the website.

3. The client device of claim 1, wherein the website building application is downloaded from the server.

4. The client device of claim 1, wherein at least one of the controls comprises a syntactic language format translation tool which allows a user to enter text formatting syntax directly into a text box, which is translated by the syntactic language format translation tool into a Rich text display when rendered.

5. The client device of claim 4, wherein the syntactic language format translation tool parses different formatted sections of text into respective different fields, and presents the different fields in the graphical user interface as separately editable.

6. The client device of claim 5, wherein one or more of the controls allow the user to reposition the separately editable fields relative to each other.

13. The client device of claim 1, wherein the first device type is a non-mobile device type, and the second device type is a mobile device type.

14. The client device of claim 1, wherein the synchronization-type request comprises a request for a preview of the user-configurable website template updated with the user edits, or a request to save the user edits to the user-configurable website template.

7. A server device system, comprising:

computer-readable non-transitory data storage media storing therein a website template and a website building application for building a website from the client device, the website building application comprising processor-executable instructions which, when executed by one or more processors of a client device direct the processors to

(a) communicate with a remote server which renders a user-configurable website template,

(b) present a graphical user interface on a display screen of the client device, the graphical user interface presenting to a user of the client device the rendered user-configurable website template and one or more controls for editing elements of the website template to create a user-customized website, the controls responsive to user input from the one or more user input devices to generate one or more of user edits and synchronization-type requests,

(c) determine whether the client device is a first device type or a second device type,

(d) if the client device is of the first device type, dynamically send to the server updates corresponding to user edits as user updates are generated by at least one of the controls for rendering of an updated user-configurable website template by the server, and receive and display the server-rendered updated user-configurable website template on the display screen, and

(e) if the client device is of the second device type, queue and store the user edits in computer-readable data storage media of the client device and, only upon generation by at least one of the controls of a synchronization-type request, batch a plurality of the queued user edits, and send to the server a batch request to process updates corresponding to the batched queued user edits and render a batch-updated user-configurable website template by the server, and receive and display the server-rendered batch-updated user-configurable website template on the display screen;

one or more computer-readable program storage media having stored thereon a website building application server, the server comprising computer-executable instructions operable to

serve the website building application to a client device,

render the website template for display on a client device and serve to the client device the rendered website template,

receive from the client device one or more updates corresponding to user edits to the website template, apply the received updates to the website template, render the updates website template, and serve to the client device the rendered updated template.

8. The server device of claim 7, wherein the first device type is a non-mobile device type, and the second device type is a mobile device type.

9. The server device of claim 7, wherein the synchronization-type request comprises a request for a preview of the user-configurable website template updated with the user edits, or a request to save the user edits to the user-configurable website template.

10. An article of manufacture, comprising:

one or more non-transitory computer-readable program storage media having stored thereon a website building application for building a website from the client device, the website building application comprising processor-executable instructions which, when executed by one or more processors of a client device direct the processors to

(a) communicate with a remote server which renders a user-configurable website template,

(b) present a graphical user interface on a display screen of the client device, the graphical user interface presenting to a user of the client device the rendered user-configurable website template and one or more controls for editing elements of the website template to create a user-customized website, the controls responsive to user input from the one or more user input devices to generate one or more of user edits and synchronization-type requests,

(c) determine whether the client device is a first device type or a second device type,

(d) if the client device is of the first device type, dynamically send to the server updates corresponding to user edits as user updates are generated by at least one of the controls for rendering of an updated user-configurable website template by the server, and receive and display the server-rendered updated user-configurable website template on the display screen, and

(e) if the client device is of the second device type, queue and store the user edits in computer-readable data storage media of the client device and, only upon generation by at least one of the controls of a synchronization-type request, batch a plurality of the queued user edits, and send to the server a batch request to process updates corresponding to the batched queued user edits and render a batch-updated user-configurable website template by the server, and receive and display the server-rendered batch-updated user-configurable website template on the display screen.

11. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the first device type is a non-mobile device type, and the second device type is a mobile device type.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the synchronization-type request comprises a request for a preview of the user-configurable website template updated with the user edits, or a request to save the user edits to the user-configurable website template.