Activating content based on state

• US 7,890,744 B2
• Filed: 04/07/2004
• Issued: 02/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Reddish, Andrew D., Dong, Wenlong, Rogerson, Dale E., Chandrashekar, Sridhar, McRoberts, J. Shane
• Primary Examiner(s): Moazzami; Nasser
• Assistant Examiner(s): Louie; Oscar A
• Application Number:
  US10/819,606
• Publication Number:
  US 20050228781A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,505 Days
• Field of Search: 380/241
• US Class Current: 713/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

A content author provides content to be displayed, including some content elements for which display is conditional on the state of the machine in which the content will be viewed. The conditional statements controlling the display of these content elements, in one embodiment refer to states provided by a state monitor. The state may refer to the state of any aspect of the viewing environment, including hardware, software, firmware, user preferences, software operating modes, and any other detectable state. The resulting content is optionally combined with other similar content via a structural transform. This content is transformed with a presentation transform. One of the transforms checks the states and resolves the conditional statements included by the content author. The result of the transforms is presentation data. A display of this presentation data includes the content which, according to the conditional statements and the state of the viewing environment is appropriate for display.

Claims

1. A method of providing state-dependent content to a user'"'"'s computing environment comprising:

accepting authored pre-transformation content in a content file comprising conditional content to be displayed by the user'"'"'s computing environment only under a certain condition relating to at least one state of the computing environment;

determining said at least one state of the computing environment;

evaluating conditional statements in said authored pre-transformation content relative to said at least one state to determine what conditional content will be displayed; and

producing presentational content for display by the computing environment by at least one structural transform of said accepted authored pre-transformation content based on said determination, wherein said at least one structural transform comprises adding or removing conditional content to or from said pre-transformation content to tailor it to different computing environment states.

2. The method of claim 1, where said determination of said at least one state of the computing environment comprises consulting a state monitor.

3. The method of claim 1, where said at least one state of the computing environment comprises a state selected from the following group:

a state of a user of said computing environment, a state of a hardware element of said computing environment, a state of software present in said computing environment, a state of an application running in said computing environment, user preferences in said computing environment, and controls set in said computing environment.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

combining said accepted authored pre-transformation content with additional content by at least one structural transform defining how said combination should occur.

5. The method of claim 1, where said accepted authored pre-transformation content is in XML format.

6. The method of claim 1, where an input to said structural transform is transform data in XSLT format.

7. The method of claim 1, where said step of producing presentational content comprises removing some portion of said accepted authored pre-transformation content.

8. The method of claim 1, where said step of producing presentational content comprises setting some portion of said accepted authored pre-transformation content to not be displayed.

9. The method of claim 8, where said setting some portion of said accepted pre-transformation authored content to not be displayed comprises allowing a user to see said portion of said accepted authored pre-transformation content only on request.

10. A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of computer-executable instructions, a co-processing device, and a computing device on which the method of claim 1 is performed.

11. A method of producing state-dependent content for display by a user'"'"'s computing environment comprising:

authoring pre-transformation content to be displayed by the user'"'"'s computing environment;

adding to the pre-transformation content at least one conditional marking of some portion of said pre-transformation content to be displayed under a certain condition relating to at least one state of the computing environment;

delivering said conditionally marked pre-transformation content in a content file for the production of presentational content for display by the computing environment by a structural transformation of the conditionally marked pre-transformation content based on an evaluation of said at least one conditional marking relative to the current value of said at least one state, wherein said structural transformation comprises adding or removing content to or from said pre-transformation content to tailor it to different computing environment states.

12. A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of computer-executable instructions, a co-processing device, and a computing device on which the method of claim 11 is performed.

13. A computing system comprising a processor configured to provide state-dependent content to a user'"'"'s computing environment (hereinafter computing environment) comprising:

content storage configured to accept authored pre-transformation content in a content file comprising conditional content to be displayed by the computing environment only under a certain condition relating to at least one state of the computing environment;

at least one state monitor configured to determine said at least one state of the computing environment;

an evaluator configured to evaluate conditional statements in said authored pre-transformation content relative to said at least one state to determine what conditional content will be displayed; and

a transformer configured to produce presentational content for display by the computing environment by at least one structural transform of said accepted authored pre-transformation content based on said determination, wherein said at least one structural transform comprises adding or removing conditional content to or from said pre-transformation content to tailor it to different computing environment states.

14. The computing system of claim 13, where said at least one state of the computing environment comprises a state selected from the following group:

a state of a hardware element of said computing environment, a state of software present in said computing environment, user preferences in said computing environment, and controls set in said computing environment.

15. The computing system of claim 13, further comprising:

a structural transformer configured to combine said accepted authored pre-transformation content with additional content by at least one structural transform defining how said combination should occur.

16. The computing system of claim 15, where said accepted authored pre-transformation content is in XML format.

17. The computing system of claim 13, where an input to said transformer is transform data in XSLT format.

18. The computing system of claim 13, where said structural transform removes some portion of said accepted authored pre-transformation content.

19. The computing system of claim 13, where said structural transform sets some portion of said accepted authored pre-transformation content to not be displayed.

20. The computing system of claim 19, where said setting of some portion of said accepted authored pre-transformation content to not be displayed allows a user to see said portion of accepted authored pre-transformation content only on request.

21. A computing system comprising a processor configured to produce state-dependent content for display by a user'"'"'s computing environment comprising:

a content acceptor configured to accept authored pre-transformation content in a content file to be displayed by the user'"'"'s computing environment;

a conditional marking adder configured to add at least one conditional marking of some portion of said authored pre-transformation content to be displayed under a certain condition relating to at least one state of the computing environment; and

a content deliverer configured to deliver said authored conditionally marked pre-transformation content in the content file for the production of presentational content for display by the computing environment by a structural transformation of the conditionally marked pre-transformation content based on an evaluation of said at least one conditional marking relative to the current value of said at least one state, wherein said structural transformation comprises adding or removing pre-transformation content to or from said pre-transformation content to tailor it to different computing environment states.