Platform independent presentation composition

• US 9,513,882 B2
• Filed: 04/15/2010
• Issued: 12/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Bykov, Evgueni N., Findik, Ferit, Benson, Ryan S., Otryshko, Volodymyr V.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chowdhury, Ziaul A
• Application Number:
  US12/760,565
• Publication Number:
  US 20110258596A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,427 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Architecture that includes a platform independent, configuration driven, presentation composition engine. The composition engine that allows dynamic generation of multiplatform user experience (UX) based on a data contract. By composition, the user can select the parts, interactions, and constraints between the interaction and parts, as well as the placement with respect to each other. The UX is dynamically composed from components that are targeted to particular data classes. At runtime, platform dependent component implementations are automatically selected by the engine based on the execution platform of the composition host. A user can create or customize the UX without writing code by composing from a wide variety of presentation widgets that access a wide variety of data sources that can work on many platforms. Compositions are targeted to both a data class and presentation type and can be either predefined or generated.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented visualization method executable via a processor and memory, comprising:

receiving a request for a component to be employed in an execution environment;

based on a target data type of a user experience and an execution platform of a composition host in the execution environment, selecting a particular component definition of a plurality of component definitions associated with the component;

selecting one or more data definitions for the selected component definition based on the target data type of the user experience;

at environment runtime, based on the execution platform of the composition host in the execution environment, automatically composing the one or more selected data definitions with the component definition to output the component in the execution environment, the component comprising a platform independent container component that is a container for a base component;

creating the container component when the requested component is not found;

loading the container component with one or more of the base component'"'"'s associated data type properties; and

outputting the container component as the component.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising searching for the component definition based on a data type of the requested component when the component definition is not found.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a custom component based on absence of the component requested.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising applying a global variable to the component to enable data exchange between unrelated data contexts.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising overriding a global variable with a private variable to impose the private variable on one or more child components of the component.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the container component does not have a custom implementation.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the output component binds associated component properties to data context elements to link child components.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the container component does not have a custom implementation.

8. A computer-implemented visualization method executable via a processor and memory, comprising:

receiving a request for a component based on a component execution environment;

based on an execution platform of a composition host in the execution environment and a target data type of a user experience, selecting a particular component definition of a plurality of component definitions associated with the component;

based on the target data type of the user experience, selecting one or more data definitions for the component definition if the component definition is found;

creating a custom component based on the target data type related to the requested component when the component definition is not found;

applying a global variable to the component or the custom component or both to enable data exchange between unrelated data contexts;

at environment runtime, based on the execution platform of the composition host in the execution environment, automatically composing the one or more data definitions with the component definition to output the component in the execution environment, the component comprising a platform independent container component that is a container for a base component;

creating the container component when the requested component is not found;

loading the container component with one or more of the base component'"'"'s associated data type properties; and

outputting the container component as the component.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising overriding the global variable with a private variable to impose the private variable on one or more child components of the component.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising defining data to be passed to the component via a parameter node.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising composing a parent component that includes bindings of properties to child components and bindings of the properties to data components.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the container component does not have a custom implementation.

13. A computer-implemented visualization system having computer readable memory that stores executable instructions executed by a processor, comprising:

a store configured to store definitions that include one or more component definitions and data definitions for components and data associated with one or more user experiences; and

a composition engine configured to, at environment runtime, automatically and declaratively compose an instance of an output component based on a store definition, a target data type of a user experience of a visualization host in an execution environment and an execution platform of a composition host in the execution environment, the output component specific to the user experience of the visualization host in the execution environment, the output component comprising a platform independent container component that is a container for a base component, the base component selected from a plurality of component definitions based on at least one of the store definitions, the execution platform of the composition host in the execution environment and the target data type of the user experience, the composition engine further configured to create the container component when the requested component is not found, load the container component with one or more of the base component'"'"'s associated data type properties, and output the container component as the output component.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the output component includes the base component, the container component, or a combination of base and container components.

15. The system of claim 13, further comprising a component registry via which a component is searched based on the target data type.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the output component is composed based on a data context.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the output component binds associated component properties to data context elements to link child components.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the composition engine includes global variables that enable data exchange between output components in unrelated data contexts.

20. The system of claim 13, wherein the system is configured to override a global variable with a private variable to impose the private variable on one or more child components of the component.