Portlets having different portlet specific enablement states

• US 7,853,882 B2
• Filed: 04/11/2006
• Issued: 12/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hassell, Daniel, Cheng, Tsz S., Fitzpatrick, Gregory P., Thomas, Mathews
• Primary Examiner(s): Campbell; Joshua D
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALVESTEFFER, STEPHEN D
• Application Number:
  US11/402,567
• Publication Number:
  US 20070240063A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,708 Days
• Field of Search: 715/741, 715/743
• US Class Current: 715/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

A method for selectively securing portlets can include a step of providing a portal that includes multiple portlets. A portlet enablement event associated with a set of at least one of the portlets can be determined. The set include a number of portlets less than a total number of portlets in the portal. Responsive to the portlet enablement event, portlet enablement states can be changed for each portlet in the set without changing portlet enablement states of portlets not included in the set. Different portlet enablement states can include enabled, disabled, and access restricted states.

Claims

1. A method for selectively enabling portlets comprising:

providing a portal including a plurality of portlets, wherein each portlet has an associated portlet security level that indicates a maximum sensitivity level of information able to be presented in the portlet;

determining a portlet enablement event associated with a set of at least one of the plurality of portlets, wherein said set is less than a total number of portlets in the plurality of portlets, wherein said determined set corresponds to the portlet security levels of the portlets;

presenting the portal, including the plurality of portlets, wherein each portlet comprises portlet specific graphically rendered enablement selectors, wherein said enablement selectors comprise a logout selector, a login portlet selector, a login all currently disabled or restricted portlet selector;

responsive to the portlet enablement event, changing portlet enablement states of each portlet in the set without changing portlet enablement states of portlets in the plurality that are not part of the set, wherein at least one of the portlets of the portal includes customized data for a user, and wherein said enablement selections permit a user to dynamically adjust an enablement state of that portlet while interacting with the portal, said portlet enablement states comprising an enabled state, a disabled state, and an enabled in an access restricted state, and wherein the providing, determining, presenting, and changing of the method are performed by a processor of a machine responsive to executing computer-readable instructions of a computer program product that is digitally encoded in a tangible storage medium.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a manually triggered change where a user has selected a change of an enablement state for the set of presented portlets associated with the portlet enablement event, wherein the changing step changes the portlet enablement state from an enabled state to a disabled state, wherein at least one of the plurality of portlets is in an enabled state, after said changing of the portlet enablement states, permitting the user to continue to interact with the portal comprising the plurality of portlets, at least a portion of which having enablement states changed during an interactive session with the user.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a manually triggered change where a user has selected a change of an enablement state for the set of presented portlets associated with the portlet enablement event, wherein the changing step changes the portlet enablement state from a disabled or enabled state to a restricted access state, wherein at least one of the plurality of portlets is in an enabled state, after said changing of the portlet enablement states, permitting the user to continue to interact with the portal comprising the plurality of portlets, at least a portion of which having enablement states changed during an interactive session with the user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the portlet enablement event is a manually triggered event based upon a user selection.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the portlet enablement event is an automatically triggered event, wherein said enablement event is based upon an automatically detected change of location of a location beacon, after said changing of the portlet enablement states, permitting the user to continue to interact with the portal comprising the plurality of portlets, at least a portion of which having enablement states changed during an interactive session with the user.

6. The method of claim 1, at least one of the set of portlets is visually provided with an enablement selector to allow a user to change an enablement state of the at least one of the set of portlets, and wherein each of the plurality of portlets are provided with their own enablement selectors.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of portlets comprise a plurality of independent enablement states, which permit each portlet to selectively be enabled, disabled, or enabled in an access restricted fashion, wherein said enablement selector associated with each portlet permits a user to change an independent enablement state of that portlet.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving an enablement authorization for one portlet of the at least two portlets; and

responsive to the enablement authorization adjusting the enablement state of the one portlet to an enabled state, wherein an enablement state for each other portlet of the set remains unchanged.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving via a manually entered user input an enablement authorization for the set of portlets associated with the portlet enablement event; and

responsive to the enablement authorization adjusting the enablement state of each portlet in the set to an enabled state, after said adjusting of the portlet enablement states, permitting a user to continue to interact with the portal comprising the plurality of portlets, at least a portion of which having enablement states changed during an interactive session with the user.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

initially logging onto the portal, wherein the logging step includes providing user identification and authorization data;

authorizing access to the portal based upon the user identification and authorization data; and

responsive to the authorizing step, enabling each of the plurality of portlets.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein content of at least one of the portlets in the set is obscured by a visual overlay.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein a communication connection to a Web site associated with a disabled one of the portlets is severed while the portlet is in a disabled state, and wherein a communication connection to a different Web site associated with an enabled one of the portlets is simultaneously maintained, wherein the disabled communication with the portlet in the disabled state is able to be dynamically re-enabled during an interaction session of a user and the portal responsive to a manually entered user input.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein each portlet in the set includes confidential user information, and wherein the portlets of the plurality not included in the set lack confidential user information.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said steps of claim 1 are performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

15. A software interface for a computing system resulting from a computer program product stored in a storage medium executing on hardware comprising:

a Web portal executed on a computing platform comprising hardware responsive to code stored in a physical storage medium of the computing platform and containing a plurality of portal segments, wherein each portal segment is associated with a segment specific enablement state, wherein enablement states for each of the portal segments include an enabled state, an access restricted state, and a disabled state, wherein said access restricted state comprises a state where a visual modality is disabled while a speech modality is enabled or a state where a security level filter having a plurality of configurable values is enabled such that data presented in that portal segment is sanitized to a security level no greater than a value of the security level filter, and wherein portal segments having a disabled state are presented as disabled portal segments, wherein each of the portal segments has portal segment specific enablement selectors, wherein said enablement selectors comprise a logout selector, a login selector, a login all currently disabled or restricted portal segment selector, wherein said enablement selectors further comprise a selector for a security filter, a selector for an audio-only modality, and a selector for a visual overlay.

16. The software interface of claim 15, further comprising:

a plurality of user selectable controls for manually changing the enablement state of each of the portal segments, a selection of any of said controls dynamically changes the enablement state for the associated portal segments while permitting interactions with the portal to continue.

17. A system for displaying Web content comprising:

a portal server executed on a hardware computing platform based on code stored in a storage medium of the hardware computing platform and associated with a

Web portal comprising a plurality of portlets, wherein each of the portlets is associated with a portlet specific enablement state, wherein the enablement states for each of the portlets are independent of enablement states of the other portlets, said portlet enablement states comprising an enabled state, a disabled state, and an enabled in an access restricted state, and wherein said portal server is configured to trigger a change in an enablement state of specific ones of the portlets without manual user input based upon a detected enablement event, said detected enablement event comprising at least one of;

an event determined by a change in geographic position of a computing device presenting said Web portal; and

an event determined by an expiration of a portlet specific expiration timer;

a Web browser, executed on said computing device and based on code stored on a storage medium of the computing device, the computing device in communication with the portal server and configured to render the portal and the included portlets, wherein at least one rendered portlet is in an enabled state, wherein at least one rendered portlet is in a disabled state, wherein content is displayed within rendered portlets having an enabled state, wherein portlets having a disabled state are displayed as disabled portlets, and

wherein the Web browser includes a set of user selectable controls for altering an enablement state of the rendered portlets, said set of user selectable controls comprising a logout selector, a login portlet selector, a login all currently disabled or restricted portlet selector, wherein said user selectable controls further comprise a selector for a security filter, a selector for an audio-only modality, and a selector for a visual overlay.