Displaying content on a mobile device

• US 9,529,780 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2014
• Issued: 12/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Priyadarshan, Eswar, Mohammed, Irfan, Cuccinelli, Joseph, Chittari, Ravikiran, Miller, Andrew, Vadrevu, Jayasurya, Rothman-Shore, Jeremy W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu, Viet
• Assistant Examiner(s): EDWARDS, JAMES A
• Application Number:
  US14/276,242
• Publication Number:
  US 20140337716A1
• Time in Patent Office: 959 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/00 Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/221 Parsing markup language streams streaming G06F40/149

Abstract

A method for facilitating the rendering of a web page on a mobile device includes providing an enhanced DOM tree for the web page that includes web page components and their display coordinates. A rule set is applied to the DOM tree, thereby selecting components for display on the mobile device. A mobile-device-specific version of the source code is generated based on the selected components.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

receiving source code of an original web page in response to a request for the original web page;

parsing the source code of the original web page to identify components of the original web page, yielding identified components;

rendering the original web page in order to yield a rendered original web page;

scanning the rendered original web page to determine display coordinates of the identified components;

annotating the source code of the original web page by associating the display coordinates with the respective identified components, thereby generating an enhanced document object model (DOM) tree for the original web page, wherein the display coordinates associated with the respective identified components include at least one dimensional value for the respective identified components, the at least one dimensional value defines a height or width for the respective identified components;

generating, by the computer, a mobile device specific enhanced DOM tree for the original web page by excluding, using a predefined rule set, at least one identified component of the original web page from the enhanced DOM tree for the original web page, wherein the at least one excluded web page component is not replaced; and

storing the mobile device specific enhanced DOM tree on a physical storage medium.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the source code of the original web page comprises XML.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the display coordinates associated with the respective identified components also include one of a horizontal distance or a vertical distance of the respective identified components from an origin located on the original web page.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the predefined rule set comprises a rule for selecting one or more identified components for inclusion or exclusion from the enhanced DOM tree based at least in part on the coordinates at which the one or more components are rendered in a web page by a web browser.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more components comprise a heading component and a body text component of the original web page and the rule set comprises a rule that the heading and body text components are both selected for inclusion in, or both selected for exclusion from, the enhanced DOM tree based at least in part upon a determination that the heading and body text are both rendered within a threshold offset value from the origin.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the predefined rule set comprises a rule for selecting one or more identified components for inclusion in the enhanced DOM tree based at least in part upon a determination that the one or more components share a common coordinate.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the predefined rule set comprises a rule that selects a component for inclusion in the enhanced DOM tree based at least in part upon a determination that the component comprises an image and that the coordinates of the rendered image are within a threshold value from the origin.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a mobile-device-specific version of the source code based at least in part on the mobile device specific enhanced DOM tree.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

providing the mobile-device-specific version of the source code to a mobile device for rendering thereon.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the rule set comprises one or more scope attributes that define whether the rule set is specific to at least one of:

the web page, or the domain at which the original web page is hosted.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the rule set is specific to a model of the mobile device.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein applying a rule set to the enhanced DOM tree further comprises categorizing the structural components.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the categories comprise one or more of text components, advertisements, navigational components, multimedia components and images.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the determination of the components to be included when rendering the web page on the mobile device further comprises at least one of:

automatically selecting one or more categories of components to be included, or automatically selecting one or more categories to be excluded.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein a publisher of the original web page determines one or more rules for selecting the components to be included when rendering the web page on the mobile device.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein generating a mobile device specific version of the source code comprises at least one of:

automatically generating source code to reduce a size of one or more images, or automatically generating source code to reduce a font size of one or more identified components that include text.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the categories are selected by a predefined rule set that is manually generated.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the mobile device specific enhanced DOM tree and the original web page to a mobile device in response to a request for the original web page.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein rendering the original web page comprises rendering the original web page in a browser application to determine the display coordinates of identified components.

20. A system for facilitating the display of a mobile device specific version of an original web page on a mobile device, the system comprising:

a web page parser application configured to generate an enhanced document object model (DOM) tree for the original web page from the source code of the original web page, the enhanced DOM tree comprising;

(i) web page components identified by parsing source code of the web original page, and (ii) display coordinates of said components, the web page parser application further configured to annotate the source code of the original web page by associating the display coordinates with the respective identified components in the enhanced DOM tree, wherein the display coordinates associated with the respective identified components include at least one dimensional value for the respective identified components, the at least one dimensional value defines a height or width for the respective identified components;

a component selection module configured to;

(x) apply a predefined rule set to the enhanced DOM tree, the predefined rule set defining which components are to be selected for inclusion when rendering the web page on the mobile device, wherein the selecting excludes at least one identified component from the selected components, and (y) generate a mobile-device-specific version of the source code based on the selected components; and

a physical storage device for storing the mobile-device-specific version of the source code for subsequent transmission to a mobile device.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising:

a web server application which, upon request of the original web page by the mobile device, transmits the mobile-device-specific version of the source code to the mobile device for display.

24. The system of claim 20, wherein the predefined rule set is generated by a publisher of the original web page.

22. An article of manufacture having non-transitory computer-readable program portions embodied thereon for creating a mobile-device-specific version of an original web page, the article comprising non-transitory computer-readable instructions for:

generating an enhanced document object model (DOM) tree for the original web page, the enhanced (DOM) tree being generated from the source code of the original web page, the enhanced DOM tree comprising;

(i) web page components identified by parsing source code of the original web page, and (ii) display coordinates of said components, annotating the source code of the original web page by associating the display coordinates with the respective identified components in the enhanced DOM tree, wherein the display coordinates associated with the respective identified components include at least one dimensional value for the respective identified components, the at least one dimensional value defines a height or width for the respective identified components;

applying a predefined rule set to the enhanced DOM tree, the predefined rule set defining which components are to be selected for inclusion when rendering the web page on the mobile device, wherein the selection excludes at least one identified component from the selected components; and

generating a mobile-device-specific version of the source code based on the selected components.

23. The article of manufacture of claim 22, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable program portions embodied thereon further comprise instructions for providing the mobile-device specific version of the source code to a mobile device for rendering thereon.