SELECTING AND MANIPULATING WEB CONTENT

• US 20080168388A1
• Filed: 01/05/2007
• Published: 07/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Computer Incorporated (Apple Inc.)
• Inventors: Decker, Kevin
• Granted Patent: US 8,656,295 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/800
• 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 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

Systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products are described for automatically resizing or repositioning an area of interest, identifying a portion of a document for display, so that the area of interest aligns with one or more edges of a structural element in the document. A method is provided that includes receiving input to resize (or reposition) an area of interest associated with a clipping of content. The clipping displays a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest. The document has a plurality of structural elements. A boundary associated with a structural element in the document is determined. The area of interest is automatically resized (or repositioned) based on the boundary.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving input to resize an area of interest associated with a clipping, the clipping displaying a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest, the document having a plurality of structural elements;

determining a boundary associated with a structural element in the document; and

automatically resizing the area of interest based on the boundary.

2. The method of claim 1, where:

the boundary of the structural element identifies a portion of the perimeter of the structural element.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a snapping boundary from among a plurality of candidate snapping boundaries, each candidate snapping boundary being associated with one or more of the plurality of structural elements and having a respective boundary associated therewith.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

resizing the area of interest based on the snapping boundary.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

selecting the one or more candidate snapping boundaries from among the plurality of structural elements based on a direction of the user input.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the size of one or more structural elements in the plurality of structural elements; and

selecting the structural element from among the one or more structural elements based on the size of each of the one or more structural elements.

7. The method of claim 1, where:

the document is a web page.

8. The method of claim 1, where:

structural elements in the web page include;

document sections, tables, images and paragraphs.

9. The method of claim 1, where:

structural elements in the web page are identified according to a respective style associated with each element.

10. The method of claim 1, where:

the boundary of the structural element is identified by vertical and horizontal extents, each extent identifying one side of a bounding box of the structural element.

11. A method comprising:

receiving input to move an area of interest associated with a clipping, the clipping displaying a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest, the document having a plurality of structural elements;

determining a boundary associated with a structural element in the document; and

automatically moving the area of interest based on the boundary.

12. The method of claim 11, where:

the moving aligns the area of interest with the boundary of the structural element.

13. The method of claim 11, where:

the boundary of the structural element identifies a portion of the perimeter of the structural element.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining a snapping boundary from among a plurality of candidate snapping boundaries, each candidate snapping boundary being associated with one or more of the plurality of structural elements and having a respective boundary associated therewith.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

moving the area of interest based on the snapping boundary.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

selecting the one or more candidate snapping boundaries from among the plurality of structural elements based on a direction of the user input.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining the size of one or more structural elements in the plurality of structural elements; and

selecting the structural element from among the one or more structural elements based on the size of each of the one or more structural elements.

18. The method of claim 11, where:

the document is a web page.

19. A method comprising:

receiving user input identifying a portion of a web page presentation, the web page having a plurality of structural elements;

determining respective boundaries associated with one or more of the structural elements in the web page; and

selecting a portion of the web page based on the boundaries.

20. The method of claim 19, where the structural elements corresponding to HTML or XHTML elements.

21. The method of claim 19, where receiving user input includes:

specifying a bounding box, the bounding box identifying the portion of the web page presentation, the identifying portion including a part of one or more of the plurality of structural elements.

22. The method of claim 21, where selecting the portion of the web page includes:

for each given structural element being only partly identified by the identifying portion, determining whether the given structural element is completely selected based on the respective boundaries.

23. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

presenting the selected portion of the web page presentation without presenting the unselected portion of the web page.

24. A computer program product, encoded on a computer-readable medium, operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

receive input to resize an area of interest associated with a clipping, the clipping displaying a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest, the document having a plurality of structural elements;

determine a boundary associated with a structural element in the document; and

automatically resize the area of interest based on the boundary.

25. A computer program product, encoded on a computer-readable medium, operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

receive input to move an area of interest associated with a clipping, the clipping displaying a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest, the document having a plurality of structural elements;

determine a boundary associated with a structural element in the document; and

automatically move the area of interest based on the boundary.

26. A computer program product, encoded on a computer-readable medium, operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

receive user input selecting a portion of a web page, the web page having a plurality of structural elements;

determine respective boundaries associated with one or more of the structural elements in the web page; and

select a portion of the web page based on the boundaries.

27. A system comprising:

means for receiving input to resize an area of interest associated with a clipping, the clipping displaying a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest, the document having a plurality of structural elements;

means for determining a boundary associated with a structural element in the document; and

means for automatically resizing the area of interest based on the boundary.

28. A system comprising:

means for receiving input to move an area of interest associated with a clipping, the clipping displaying a portion of a document corresponding to the area of interest, the document having a plurality of structural elements;

means for determining a boundary associated with a structural element in the document; and

means for automatically moving the area of interest based on the boundary.

29. A system comprising:

means for receiving user input selecting a portion of a web page, the web page having a plurality of structural elements;

means for determining respective boundaries associated with one or more of the structural elements in the web page; and

means for selecting a portion of the web page based on the boundaries.