WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

• US 20110191407A1
• Filed: 01/24/2011
• Published: 08/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Regents of the University of California (University of California)
• Original Assignee: Regents of the University of California (University of California)
• Inventors: Ong, Kian Win, Fu, Yupeng, Papakonstantinou, Yannis, Zhao, Keliang
• Granted Patent: US 9,052,908 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

Techniques, systems, apparatus and computer-program products are disclosed for developing a web-hosted shared database system with improved user interface and reduced programming. In one aspect, using a web application development framework includes declaratively specifying a web application'"'"'s pages using page configurations. The framework can automatically coordinate page state with the state of a database server and an applications server, so that the specified page is first rendered and then one or more portions of the page can be updated in response to a server data change, Also, programs that are executed when a request is issued are declaratively specified using program configurations. Either or both of the page configurations and the program configurations can be implemented by access to a unified application state virtual database. Further, the unified application state virtual database can include the persistent database of the application and transient memory-based data, such as session and page data.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

establishing access to at least two scoped data sources, wherein each scoped data source has one or more corresponding data source instances;

receiving, by a processor, a request and selecting, for each of the at least two scoped data sources, a data source instance;

receiving, by the processor, one or more commands, each command referring to at least one of the at least two scoped data sources; and

performing, responsive to the one or more commands, one or more operations on the selected data source instances.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each received command comprises a read command or a write command.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a scoped data source of the at least two scoped data sources comprises a database.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one received command comprises a read command expressed in a declarative query language.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one received command comprises a read command expressed in a declarative mapping language.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one received command comprises a write command expressed in a declarative update language.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a scoped data source of the at least two scoped data sources comprises a session-scoped data source.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a scoped data source of the at least two scoped data sources comprises a window-scoped data source.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a scoped data source of the at least two scoped data sources comprises a request-scoped data source.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein performing one or more operations further comprises at least one of:

determining that a received command comprises a read command to be performed on a scoped data source residing on a client and copying data from the client to a server before performing the read command; and

determining that a received command comprises a write command to be performed on a scoped data source residing on the client and copying data from the server to the client after the write command is performed.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein performing one or more operations further comprises:

performing, for each command, an equivalent command on each of the selected data source instances.

12. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a page configuration that specifies an association between a markup language and results of one or more read commands performed over data sources, wherein at least one of the data sources comprises a database and at least one of the data sources includes values corresponding to user interface controls on a page instance;

computing, in response to one or more detected events, a result of the one or more read commands; and

rendering the computed result on a client display, wherein the rendering is performed with reference to the specified association.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein at least one of the one or more read commands comprises a declarative query.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein computing a result of the one or more read commands further comprises computing the result by partial update of the page instance.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein:

the page configuration specifies one or more visual units and associates one or more output attributes of at least one of the one or more read commands with an attribute of the one or more visual units; and

the computed result is rendered on the client display by the one or more visual units.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the computed result includes nesting.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the computed result includes variability.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the computed result includes ordering.

19. A system comprising:

a page configuration and a plurality of data sources stored on computer-readable media; and

a computing system including processor electronics configured to perform operations comprising;

receiving the page configuration specifying an association between a markup language and results of one or more read commands performed over the data sources;

computing a result corresponding to the one or more read commands to initialize a page instance;

rendering the computed result on a client display;

computing, in response to a detected event, a second result of the one or more read commands by partial update of the page instance, wherein the partial update is computed with reference to the specified association; and

rendering the computed second result on the client display.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein at least one of the data sources comprises a database.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein at least one of the one or more read commands comprises a declarative query.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein:

the page configuration further specifies a visual unit and associates one or more output attributes of the one or more read commands with one or more attributes of the visual unit; and

the computed second result is rendered on the client by the visual unit.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein at least one of the computed result and the computed second result includes nesting.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein at least one of the computed result and the computed second result includes variability.

25. The system of claim 19, wherein at least one of the computed result and the computed second result includes ordering.