SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ACCELERATING USER INTERACTIONS ON TOUCHSCREEN DEVICES

• US 20170277366A1
• Filed: 03/28/2016
• Published: 09/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Narayanan, Padmanabhan, Ravinanthanan, Thulasi Devi
• Granted Patent: US 10,521,078 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0266 using meta-data, objects or commands for formatting management information, e.g. using eXtensible markup language [XML]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70

Abstract

Disclosed systems and methods provide an integrated hypermedia engine (IHE) that monitors and predicts user activity on spawned document windows and spliced network management CLI/GUI sessions. In embodiments, the IHE pro-actively assists a user to efficiently use device-related documentation in an intuitive manner that requires minimal user interaction and, thereby, reduces the likelihood of human error, e.g., when configuring network devices involves multi-tiered, dynamic configuration paths. The IHE may acts as bridge between document windows and spliced network management sessions, for example, to enable seamless transfer of a CLI command from a document window to an inline GUI panel launched by a CLI session when constructing a command line. In embodiments, a context-ware IHE may create and take advantage of documentation tags by interpreting relationships between commands to enable auto-navigation of the document. Certain embodiments provide for monitoring and mapping a CLI/GUI output back to the appropriate documentation.

Claims

1. A method to improve interfacing with a configurable device, the method comprising:

via a document handler, launching a document viewer to spawn a document viewer window that displays a document;

via a session handler, launching a spliced network management (SNM) session to spawn a SNM session window to establish a back-end connection to a network device;

in response to a user selecting both the document viewer window and the SNM session window, associating the document with the SNM session;

parsing the document by identifying commands for the network device in the document;

in the document viewer, generating tags associated with the identified commands;

in response to the user selecting one of the tags, injecting the selected command into the network device via the back-end connection for execution; and

instructing the document handler to proceed to a following command.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein identifying commands in the document further comprises selecting from a database of commands a list of commands that is compatible with the network device.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the selected command is a parameterized command that is injected into the network device via a command line of the SNM session.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein selecting the command comprises modifying the command prior to injecting the command into the command line.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the spliced SNM session communicates an output from the network device to the SNM window.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising receiving and parsing the output to obtain a configuration state of the network device.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising controlling the document viewer and the spliced SNM session by an integrated hypermedia engine that monitors and manages interactions between at least the document window and the SNM window to enable auto-navigation within the document.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising, based on a feature dependence tree, grouping command sequences as features to maintain dependencies within the document.

9. An integrated hypermedia engine (IHE) to accelerate interactions using a touchscreen-enabled device, the IHE comprising:

a document handler comprising a document parser that parses the document by identifying commands for a network device to be displayed in a document viewer, the document handler associating tags with the identified commands; and

a session handler that launches a spliced network management (SNM) session, the document viewer and the SNM session being built into and controlled by the IHE to monitor and manage interactions between a user, a document window, and a SNM window to enable auto-navigation within the document, the IHE configured to perform the steps of;

in response to the user selecting on a touchscreen-enabled device the document window and the SNM session, creating an association between a document displayed in the document window and the SNM session, based on a type of the document;

generating the tags;

injecting the command from the document viewer into a command line of the SNM window, in response to the user selecting a command by selecting a tag; and

instructing the document handler to auto-navigate to another SNM command.

10. The IHE according to claim 9, wherein the document parser provides user-selectable parsing options to associate the tags with SNM commands based on a set of command categories.

11. The IHE according to claim 9, wherein the session handler accesses a parameterized command in a command buffer and presents in the SNM window options using an inline GUI panel.

12. The IHE according to claim 10, wherein the command line is presented with an input parameter for the parametrized command, the input parameter having been selected by the user via the inline GUI panel, and with a placeholder that when selected initiates a new SNM session.

13. The IHE according to claim 10, wherein at least one of the document handler and the session handler is launched as a child application in response to the user starting an ICLI application.

14. A system to accelerate CLI interactions on touchscreen-enabled devices, the system comprising:

an integrated hypermedia engine (IHE) comprising a document handler and a session handler;

a network device coupled to the IHE via back-end connection, the document handler and the session handler respectively launch a document viewer and a spliced network management (SNM) session, the document handler comprising a document parser that identifies network device commands in the document viewer and associates tags with the network device commands, the IHE configured to perform the steps of;

in response to a user selecting on a touchscreen-enabled device a document window and the SNM session, creating an association between a document displayed in the document window and the SNM session, based on a type of the document;

verifying that the document may be mapped to the network device;

generating the tags;

injecting the command from the document viewer into a command line of an SNM window, in response to the user selecting a command by selecting a tag; and

instructing the document handler to auto-navigate to another SNM command.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the spliced SNM session communicates commands to the network device via the back-end connection and communicates an output from the network device to the SNM window.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein the session handler further comprises a device parser that monitors a sequence of commands issued by a user and receives and parses the output to learn a configuration state of the network device and renders the configuration state to the SNM window.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein the device parser groups a sequence of commands as a feature to maintain dependencies within the document based on a feature dependence tree.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the IHE detects a current feature being configured in the SNM window based on the sequence of commands and causes the document viewer to auto-navigate through the document to guide the user through subsequent feature configurations steps.

19. The system according to claim 16, further comprising an IHE-controlled console area that displays interactions between the user, the document, and the user-selected SNM session.

20. The system according to claim 18, wherein one or more interactions involve at least one of a voice recognition interface and a gesture-based input.