Hybrid mobile interactions for native apps and web apps

• US 9,600,455 B2
• Filed: 12/28/2011
• Issued: 03/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Wouhaybi, Rita H, Shaw, David
• Primary Examiner(s): TANK, ANDREW L
• Application Number:
  US13/992,464
• Publication Number:
  US 20140282119A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,910 Days
• Field of Search: 715/240, 715/760, 715/792, 715/835, 715/863
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04803 Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/10 Use of a protocol of communication by packets in interfaces along the display data pipeline

Abstract

There is disclosed a system, including apparatus, methods and computer programs, for running native software applications (apps) and HTML5 web-based apps on a computing device, particularly a mobile computing device, in a multitasking mode of operation. In one embodiment, touch screen displays having one or more browsers are adapted to run one or more HTML5 apps, and receive input from hand gestures. One or more software modules execute on the operating system and are responsive to a dragging gesture applied to an HTML5 app displayed in a full screen mode, to subdivide the screen display and display the HTML5 app in one of the subdivided areas and display icons used to launch a second HTML5 app in a different one of the subdivided areas. The second HTML5 app is run concurrently with the first HTML5 app in order to provide multi-tasking between the first and second apps.

Claims

1. A computing device, comprising:

processor circuitry;

a touch screen configured to provide a screen display output and receive input from hand gestures;

a storage device including instructions, that, when executed with the processor circuitry, performs electronic operations on the computing device including;

generating an indication of a hand gesture based on a hand gesture input received with the touch screen;

receiving, by a browser application including instructions that are operable on the processing circuitry, the indication of the hand gesture, wherein in response to the indication of the hand gesture, the browser application is adapted to;

obtain contextual information displayed in a first web application running in a window of the browser application on the screen display output, wherein the first web application is obtained from a first remote website and is executed locally on the computing device;

divide the window into a first window and a second window, the first window running the first web application, wherein the first window and the second window are concurrently visible on the screen display output; and

display, on the screen display output, in the second window, a plurality of icons, wherein the plurality of icons include a plurality of web application icons for respective web applications and a plurality of native application icons for respective native applications, wherein the plurality of web application icons correspond to the respective web applications obtained from respective websites, and wherein the plurality of web application icons includes a selectable icon corresponding to a second web application of the respective web applications;

wherein a selection and arrangement of the plurality of icons that includes the plurality of web application icons and the plurality of native application icons is determined based on the contextual information displayed in the first web application, wherein the second web application is obtained from a second remote website and is executed locally on the computing device in response to selection of the selectable icon, and wherein the first web application operates in a first browser renderer process of the browser application and the second web application operates in a second browser renderer process of the browser application; and

displaying, on the screen display output, upon selection of the selectable icon, the second web application in the second window of the browser application, wherein the contextual information displayed in the first web application is used to automatically activate navigation in the second web application to content relating to the first web application, and wherein the first web application is concurrently executed and concurrently displayed with the second web application in response to the automatically activated navigation.

2. The computing device of claim 1, wherein each of the first web application and the second web application are coded in a browser-renderable markup language compliant with an HTML5 markup language standard, and wherein the browser application further includes instructions to render web applications coded in a markup language compliant with the HTML5 markup language standard.

3. The computing device of claim 1, the electronic operations further including:

responding to an indication of a second hand gesture applied to the concurrent display of the first web application and the second web application by resizing display proportions between the first web application and the second web application in a split-screen mode.

4. The computing device of claim 1, the electronic operations further including:

communicating, in response to receiving one or more commands during the concurrent display of the first web application and the second web application, information between the first web application and the second web application, wherein the browser application receives the information from the first web application and updates the display, on the screen display output, of the second web application based on comparative data of the first web application and the second web application.

5. The computing device of claim 1, the electronic operations further including providing concurrent display, on the screen display output, of the first web application, the second web application, and one or more additional web applications in a split-screen mode.

6. The computing device of claim 1, wherein the browser application includes a first instance of the browser application providing the first window, and a second instance of the browser application providing the second window.

7. A method, comprising electronic operations implemented with processor circuitry of an electronic device, the electronic operations including:

generating an indication of a hand gesture based on receiving a hand gesture input by a touch screen;

receiving, by a browser application, the indication of the hand gesture;

obtaining, by the browser application, contextual information displayed in a first web application running in a window of the browser application on a screen display of the electronic device, wherein the first web application is obtained from a first remote website and is executed locally on the electronic device;

dividing the window into a first window and a second window, the first window executing the first web application, wherein the first window and the second window are concurrently visible on the screen display;

displaying, on the screen display of the electronic device, in the second window, a plurality of icons, wherein the plurality of icons include a plurality of web application icons for respective web applications and a plurality of native application icons for respective native applications, wherein the plurality of web application icons correspond to the respective web applications obtained from respective websites, and wherein the plurality of web application icons includes a selectable icon corresponding to a second web application of the respective web applications, wherein a selection and arrangement of the plurality of icons that includes the plurality of web application icons and the plurality of native application icons is determined based on the contextual information displayed in the first web application, wherein the first web application is operating in a first browser renderer process of the browser application and the second web application is operating in a second browser renderer process of the browser application; and

displaying, on the screen display of the electronic device, upon selection of the selectable icon, the second web application in the second window of the browser application, wherein the contextual information displayed in the first web application is used to automatically activate navigation in the second web application to content relating to the first web application, and wherein the first web application is concurrently executed and displayed with the second web application in response to the automatically activated navigation.

8. The method of claim 7, the electronic operations further including receiving user commands wherein the user commands include one or more hand gestures applied to the touch screen, wherein the touch screen is configured to provide the screen display.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the hand gestures include a dragging motion applied to an edge of a browser user interface of the browser application.

10. The method of claim 7, the electronic operations further including displaying one or more icons used to select and launch a native application, the icons displayed within the second window.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein each of the first web application and the second web application is provided according to a browser-renderable markup language compliant with an HTML5 markup language standard.

12. The method of claim 7, the electronic operations further including changing an allocation of the first window and the second window in the screen display responsive to detecting one or more additional user commands.

13. The method of claim 7, the electronic operations further including communicating information between the first web application and the second web application, wherein the browser application receives the information from the first web application and updates the display of the second web application based on comparative data of the first web application and the second web application.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein the first web application is executed and displayed by a first instance of the browser application.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein the second web application is executed and displayed by a second instance of the browser application.

16. At least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium comprising a plurality of instructions that, in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the computing device to provide a browser graphical user interface of a browser application configured to:

generate an indication of a hand gesture based on receiving a hand gesture input by a touch screen;

receive the indication of the hand gesture;

obtain contextual information displayed in a first web application running in a window of the browser application on a screen display of the computing device wherein the first web application is obtained from a first remote website and is executed locally on the computing device;

divide the window into a first window and a second window, the first window executing the first web application, wherein the first window and the second window are concurrently visible on the screen display of the computing device;

display, on the screen display of the computing device, in the second window, a plurality of icons, wherein the plurality of icons include a plurality of web application icons for respective web applications and a plurality of native application icons for respective native applications, wherein the plurality of web application icons correspond to the respective web applications obtained from respective websites, and wherein the plurality of web application icons includes a selectable icon corresponding to a second web application of the respective web applications, wherein a selection and arrangement of the plurality of icons that includes the plurality of web application icons and the plurality of native application icons is determined based on the contextual information displayed in the first web application, wherein the first web application is operating in a first browser renderer process of the browser application and the second web application is operating in a second browser renderer process of the browser application; and

display, on the screen display of the computing device, upon selection of the selectable icon, the second web application in the second window of the browser application, wherein the contextual information displayed in the first web application is used to automatically activate navigation in the second web application to content relating to the first web application, and wherein the first web application is concurrently executed and displayed with the second web application in response to the automatically activated navigation.

17. The machine readable storage medium of claim 16, the plurality of instructions further to cause the browser application to:

receive user commands, wherein the user commands include one or more hand gestures applied to the touch screen, wherein the touch screen is configured to provide the screen display.

18. The machine readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the hand gestures include a dragging motion applied to an edge of the browser graphical user interface.

19. The machine readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein each of the first web application and the second web application are coded in a browser-renderable markup language compliant with an HTML5 markup language standard.

20. The machine readable storage medium of claim 16, the plurality of instructions further to cause the browser application to:

receive one or more user commands to resize display proportions between the first window and the second window in a split-screen mode; and

responsive to the user commands to resize display proportions, update the screen display of the first web application and the second web application.

21. The machine readable storage medium of claim 16, the plurality of instructions further to cause the browser application to:

communicate information between the first web application and the second web application, wherein the browser application receives the information from the first web application and updates the display of the second web application based on comparative data of the first web application and the second web application.