Display screen and window size related web page adaptation system

• US 6,300,947 B1
• Filed: 07/06/1998
• Issued: 10/09/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Wistron Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kanevsky, Dimitri
• Primary Examiner(s): Bayerl, Raymond J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Luu, Sy D.
• Application Number:
  US09/110,499
• Time in Patent Office: 1,191 Days
• Field of Search: 345/333-335, 345/342, 345/346, 345/356, 707/501, 707/523, 707/513
• US Class Current: 715/866
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A web page adaptation system and method provides organization of viewing material associated with web sites for visual displays and windows on which these home pages are being viewed. A different viewing-access strategy is provided for such visual devices varying, for example, from standard PC monitors, laptop screens and palmtops to web phone and digital camera displays and from large windows to small windows. A new web site design incorporates features that permit automatic display of the content of home pages in the most friendly manner for a user viewing this content from a screen or window of a certain size. For example, if a size of a display screen or window allows, links are displayed with some text or pictures to which they are linked. Conversely, if a size of a screen or window does not allow display of all textual and icon information on a whole screen or window, the home page is mapped into hierarchically linked new smaller pages that fully fit the current display or window. The unique display strategy of the invention is provided by a web page adaptation scheme that is implemented on a web site server or is incorporated in a web browser (e.g., as a java appelet) or both. This adaptation strategy employs variables that provide size of screen and/or window information from which a call to a web site was initiated.

Claims

1. A method of automatically adapting a viewable information signal received from a wide area network server for display on a display screen associated with a user computer system, the apparatus comprising:

transmitting a user request signal from the user computer system to the network server, the user request signal including information relating to at least one display screen-related attribute associated with the user'"'"'s display screen and information specific to the user'"'"'s request;

generating the viewable information signal in response to the information specific to the user'"'"'s request; and

adapting the viewable information signal in response to the at least one display screen-related attribute to semantically conform the information associated therewith to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed, wherein said adapting step comprises the steps of;

separating web page data for a given web page into a first and a second group, the first and the second group comprising data objects whose sizes can and cannot be estimated from a web script, respectively;

removing at least some of the data objects in the second group from the given web page;

generating hyperlinks to the at least some of the data objects in the second group; and

adding the hyperlinks to the given web page.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said method is implemented by a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform said method steps.

3. A method of automatically adapting a viewable information signal received from a wide area network server for display on a display screen associated with a user computer system, the apparatus comprising:

transmitting a user request signal from the user computer system to the network server, the user request signal including information relating to at least one display screen-related attribute associated with the user'"'"'s display screen and information specific to the user'"'"'s request;

generating the viewable information signal in response to the information specific to the user'"'"'s request; and

adapting the viewable information signal in response to the at least one display screen-related attribute to semantically conform the information associated therewith to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed, wherein said adapting step comprises the steps of;

separating web page data for a given web page into a first group and a second group, the first group comprising data objects having a higher priority thank data objects in the second group;

removing at least some of the data objects in the second group from the given web page;

generating hyperlinks to the at least some of the data objects in the second group; and

adding the hyperlinks to the given web page.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of defining a priority of a data object based upon predefined criteria corresponding to at least one of an importance to a user, a frequency of selection, content dependencies, and hierarchical dependencies.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of defining a priority of a data object based upon predefined criteria corresponding to at least one of a page depth, a time depth, and a volume depth, the page depth corresponding to a number of web pages to be conformed to the user'"'"'s display screen in a single user call, the time depth corresponding to a time period required to adapt at least one of a target web page and a target data object to conform to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed, the volume depth corresponding to an amount of data to be conformed to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising the step of imposing a semantic constraint on at least one of the time depth and the volume depth, so that only web pages conforming to the semantic constraint are made to conform to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed.

7. The method according to claim 3, wherein said method is implemented by a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform said method steps.

8. A method of automatically adapting a viewable information signal received from a wide area network server for display on a display screen associated with a user computer system, the apparatus comprising:

transmitting a user request signal from the user computer system to the network server, the user request signal including information relating to at least one display screen-related attribute associated with the user'"'"'s display screen and information specific to the user'"'"'s request;

generating the viewable information signal in response to the information specific to the user'"'"'s request; and

adapting the viewable information signal in response to the at least one display screen-related attribute to semantically conform the information associated therewith to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed, wherein said adapting step comprises the steps of;

dividing at least two icons into portions; and

combining at least one portion of each of the at least two icons to form a composite icon, wherein information represented by one of the at least two icons is selected when the corresponding portion of the composite icon is selected.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein said method is implemented by a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform said method steps.

10. A method of automatically adapting viewable information signal received from a wide area network server for display on a display screen associated with a user computer system, the apparatus comprising:

transmitting a user request signal from the user computer system to the network server, the user request signal including information relating to at least one display screen-related attribute associated with the user'"'"'s display screen and information specific to the user'"'"'s request;

generating the viewable information signal in response to the information specific to the user'"'"'s request; and

adapting the viewable information signal in response to the at least one display screen-related attribute to semantically conform the information associated therewith to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed, wherein said adapting step comprises the steps of;

dividing a web page into at least two pages; and

hyperlinking the at least two pages together, so that the at least two pages can be viewed on the display screen one of concurrently but in a different configuration than the web page and sequentially.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said dividing step further comprises the steps of:

assigning statistical scores to data objects in the at least two web pages;

generating a matrix comprising the statistical scores;

splitting the data objects into at least two groups, based on predefined criteria; and

forming an individual web page for each of the at least two groups; and

hyperlinking the individual web pages for the at least two groups.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said hyperlinking step hyperlinks the individual web pages for the at least two groups hierarchically.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the predefined criteria is in a form of a question.

14. The method according to claim 10, wherein said method is implemented by a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform said method steps.

15. A method of automatically adapting a viewable information signal received from a wide area network server for display on a display screen associated with a user computer system, the apparatus comprising:

transmitting a user request signal from the user computer system to the network server, the user request signal including information relating to at least one display screen-related attribute associated with the user'"'"'s display screen and information specific to the user'"'"'s request;

generating the viewable information signal in response to the information specific to the user'"'"'s request; and

adapting the viewable information signal in response to the at least one display screen-related attribute to semantically conform the information associated therewith to the user'"'"'s display screen when viewed, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of combining objects in at least one web page that one of include and reference information corresponding to one of a same topic and a similar topic.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the adapting step is rule-based.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the adapting step is statistic-based.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least one display screen-related attribute includes a screen size.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least one display screen-related attribute includes a window size.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the at least one display screen-related attribute comprises a shape of one of the display screen and a window displayed thereon.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of fitting the information to the shape of one of the display screen and the window.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein said fitting step comprises the step of placing at least one of lines, data objects, and text in parallel with at least one edge of the shape of one of the display screen and the window.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of removing at least one object from a web page to be displayed, when the display screen is smaller than a predefined threshold.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of adding at least one object to a web page to be displayed, when the display screen is one of equal to and larger than a predefined threshold, the at least one object corresponding to at least one link comprised in the web page to be displayed.

25. The method of claim 15, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of creating one of an icon, a button, and a hyperlink to collectively represent the combined objects.

26. The method of claim 15, wherein said adapting step comprises the step of separating objects in at least one web page that one of include and reference information corresponding to different topics.

27. The method of claim 15, wherein said adapting step comprises at least one of the steps of:

abbreviating text in a web page;

replacing pictures by portions of the pictures; and

replacing icons by textual names.

28. The method according to claim 15, wherein said method is implemented by a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform said method steps.