System, method, and computer program product for a scalable, configurable, client/server, cross-platform browser for mobile devices

• US 7,987,420 B1
• Filed: 11/06/2000
• Issued: 07/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: iAnywhere Solutions Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: iAnywhere Solutions Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Williams, David J., Gray, Michael R., Weinstein, Rafael Z., Moore, David M., Kloba, David D., Whittaker, Thomas E., Freeman, Joshua E., Upson, Linus M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong; Stephen S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Faber; David
• Application Number:
  US09/705,927
• Time in Patent Office: 3,914 Days
• Field of Search: 715/864, 715/526, 715/500.1, 715/513, 715/523, 715/530, 715200-204, 715/227, 715234-242, 715/255
• US Class Current: 715/238
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

Described herein are systems, methods, computer program products, and combinations and sub-combinations thereof, for enabling web content (as well as other objects) to be loaded on mobile devices (as well as other types of devices), and for users of mobile devices to operate with such web content on their mobile devices in an interactive manner while in an off-line mode.

Claims

1. A method of structuring interactive content for hardware devices, comprising the steps of:

determining display and memory parameters of a device based on device information;

parsing requested content including a plurality of pages into a document having a plurality of objects;

laying out said document according to said display and memory parameters of said device;

generating a document table for said document;

inputting said document and said document table into a content stream, wherein said document table includes object pointers corresponding to respective objects of the plurality of objects, wherein each object pointer includes an attribute pointer that points to a respective object in said content stream and a vtable pointer for accessing an instance method associated with the respective object; and

transmitting said content stream to said device;

wherein said device receives said content stream and uses an attribute pointer that points to an object of said document included in said content stream to selectively access and copy said object from said content stream to a writable memory of said device, thereby enabling notification of said object without copying said entire document to said writable memory of said device, and wherein said attribute pointer is part of an object pointer from said document table in said content stream.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said generating step comprises generating the document table on an object by object basis for said document and wherein said object-by-object basis corresponds to distinguishable pieces of said requested content.

3. The method of claim 1, whereby said document table provides points of reference to the objects of said document.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

compressing said document and encrypting said document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said device is a hardware device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said content stream is stored on said device, further comprising modifying said object, comprising the steps of:

accessing said object pointer corresponding to said object,

copying said object to writeable memory space;

altering said copied object with an instance method accessed using a vtable pointer of said object pointer; and

updating said attribute pointer to point to the writeable memory space of said object that has been altered.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said content stream is stored on said device, further comprising modifying said object, comprising the steps of:

a module to access said object pointer corresponding to said object,

a module to copy said object to writeable memory space;

a module to alter said copied object with an instance method accessed using a vtable pointer of said object pointer; and

a module to update said attribute pointer to point to the writeable memory space of said object that has been altered.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein each vtable pointer points to a respective entry in a vtable, wherein each entry in the vtable comprises at least one function pointer that points to an instance method associated with the corresponding object, further comprising:

modifying said object of the plurality of objects, comprising;

accessing a vtable pointer associated with the object; and

using the vtable pointer to access an instance method associated with the object.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein modifying further comprises:

copying the object into writeable memory.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the modifying step is executed after the inputting said document step.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the object is in a compressed form in the content stream, wherein the modifying further comprises:

decompressing the object before the copying step.

25. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a synchronization token from the hardware device;

wherein at least a portion of data included in the content stream is determined based on the synchronization token.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the synchronization token is a data marker representative of data stored on the hardware device.

27. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

determining whether a previous transmission to the hardware device was successful based on the synchronization token.

7. A computer system of structuring interactive content for hardware devices, comprising:

a module to determine display and memory parameters of a device based on device information;

a module to parse requested content including a plurality of pages into a document having a plurality of objects;

a module to lay out said document according to said display and memory parameters of said device;

a module to generate a document table for said document;

a module to input said document and said document table into a content stream, wherein said document table includes object pointers corresponding to respective objects of the plurality of objects, wherein each object pointer includes an attribute pointer that points to a respective object in said content stream and a vtable pointer for accessing an instance method associated with the respective object; and

a module to transmit said content stream to said device;

wherein said device receives said content stream and uses an attribute pointer that points to an object of said document included in said content stream to selectively access and copy said object from said content stream to a writable memory of said device, thereby enabling notification of said object without copying said entire document to said writable memory of said device, and wherein said attribute pointer is part of an object pointer from said document table in said content stream.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein said generating module generates the document table on an object by object basis for said document and wherein said object-by-object basis corresponds to distinguishable pieces of said requested content.

9. The system of claim 7, whereby said document table provides points of reference to the objects of said document.

10. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

a module to compress said document; and

a module to encrypt said document.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein said device is a hardware device.

13. A tangible, computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having control logic embodied in said medium that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform operations to structure interactive content for hardware devices, said operations comprising:

determining display and memory parameters of a device based on device information;

parsing requested content including a plurality of pages into a document having a plurality of objects;

laying out said document according to said display and memory parameters of said device;

generating a document table for said document;

inputting said document and said document table into a content stream, wherein said document table includes object pointers corresponding to respective objects of the plurality of objects, wherein each object pointer includes an attribute pointer that points to a respective object in said content stream and a vtable pointer for accessing an instance method associated with the respective object; and

transmitting said content stream to said device;

wherein said device receives said content stream and uses an attribute pointer that points to an object of said document included in said content stream to selectively access and copy said object from said content stream to a writable memory of said device, thereby enabling notification of said object without copying said entire document to said writable memory of said device, and wherein said attribute pointer is part of an object pointer from said document table in said content stream.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said generating comprises generating the document table on an object by object basis for said document and wherein said object-by-object basis corresponds to distinguishable pieces of said requested content.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, whereby said document table provides points of reference to the objects of said document.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, said operations further comprising:

compressing said document; and

encrypting said document.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said device is hardware device.

18. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said content stream is stored on said device, said operations further comprising modifying said object of said content stream, wherein said modifying comprises:

accessing said object pointer corresponding to said object,

copying said object to writeable memory space;

altering said copied object with an instance method accessed using a vtable pointer of said object pointer; and

updating said attribute pointer to point to the writeable memory space of said object that has been altered.

19. A method of structuring interactive content for mobile devices, comprising:

determining display and memory parameters of a device based on mobile device information;

parsing requested content into a document having a plurality of discrete objects, each discrete object having a format based on at least said display and memory parameters;

laying out said document according to said display and memory parameters of said device;

generating a document table based on an object-by-object basis for said document;

compressing said document according to said object-by-object basis;

encrypting said document according to said object-by-object basis;

inputting said document into a content stream according to said object-by-object basis;

inputting said document table into said content stream according to said object-by-object basis, wherein said document and said document table form said content stream according to said mobile device information, wherein said document table includes object pointers corresponding to respective objects of the plurality of objects and wherein each object pointer includes an attribute pointer that points to a respective object in said content stream; and

modifying an object of the plurality of objects, wherein said object corresponds to distinguishable pieces of said requested content, wherein said modifying comprises;

accessing an object pointer in said document table within said content stream, wherein the object pointer is an object pointer of the document table, and wherein said object pointer contains a vtable pointer for accessing instance methods and an attribute pointer for accessing said object within said content stream,

selectively copying said object to a writeable memory thereby enabling modification of said object without copying said entire document to said writable memory of said device,

altering said copied object with said instance methods, and

updating an attribute pointer of said object pointer to the writeable memory space of said object that has been altered.

20. A computer system of structuring interactive content for mobile devices, comprising:

a module to determine display and memory parameters based on mobile device information;

a module to parse requested content into a document having a plurality of discrete objects, each discrete object having a format based on at least said layout and rendering parameters;

a module to generate a document table based on an object-by-object basis for said document;

a module to compress said document according to said object-by-object basis;

a module to encrypt said document according to said object-by-object basis;

a module to input said document into a content stream according to said object-by-object basis, wherein said document table includes object pointers corresponding to respective objects of the plurality of objects and wherein each object pointer includes an attribute pointer that points to a respective object in said content stream;

a module to input said document table into said content stream according to said object-by-object basis, wherein said document and said document table form said content stream according to said mobile device information, wherein said device uses an attribute pointer of an object pointer corresponding to an object of said document included in said content stream to access said object in said content stream and wherein said object pointer is one of said object pointers of said document table; and

a module to modify said object, wherein said content stream is stored on said device, wherein said object corresponds to distinguishable pieces of said request content, wherein means for modifying comprises;

a module to access said object pointer in said document table within said content stream, wherein said object pointer contains a vtable pointer for accessing instance methods and an attribute pointer for accessing said object within said content stream,

a module to selectively copy said object to a writeable memory space thereby enabling modification of said object without copying said entire document to said writable memory of said device,

a module to alter said copied object with said instance methods, and

a module to update an attribute pointer of said object pointer to the writeable memory space of said object that has been altered.

28. A method for receiving and modifying data at a device, comprising:

receiving a content stream including a document and a document table,

wherein the document includes a plurality of objects laid out according to display and memory parameters of the device, wherein the document table includes a plurality of pointers corresponding to respective objects of the plurality of objects, wherein each object pointer includes an attribute pointer that points to a respective object of the plurality of objects and a vtable pointer for accessing an instance method associated with the respective object;

storing at least said document in a first memory, and wherein said document cannot be modified from said first memory;

accessing an object pointer from said document table corresponding to an object of said document;

accessing an attribute pointer of said object pointer that points to said object;

selectively copying said object from said first memory to a second memory using said attribute pointer, wherein the second memory is a writeable memory;

modifying said copied object in said second memory; and

updating said attribute pointer to point to said copied object in said second memory.