System and Method for Providing and Displaying Information Content

Abstract

A system and method is provided for enabling an electronic device to efficiently access information content. A server browser accesses the information content over a network. The accessed information content is retrieved and adapted for presentation for the electronic device. A serializer dynamically formats the adapted information content according to a client browser. The client browser receives and presents the information content on the electronic device. An event translator is included to provide additional compatibility with commercially available client browsers. The information content is formatted to selectively minimize the horizontal scrolling required to view the content. The need for horizontal scrolling is selectively removed where not necessary to preserve the context. Each component or sub-component of the original area, such as a frame, table row, table cell or nested table, is considered separately and may be preserved, resized, or replaced. Where the context requires that the content be wider than the viewable area of the screen, horizontal scrolling is preserved.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 693,292, titled “A System and Method for Providing and Displaying Information Content,” and filed Oct. 24, 2003, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 693,292 is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 280,263, titled “System and Method for Displaying Information Content With Selected Horizontal Scrolling,” and filed Oct. 25, 2002, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and which in turn is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 842,474, titled “System and Method for Accessing Information Content,” and filed on Apr. 25, 2001, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and which in turn claims priority to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 199,858 filed on Apr. 26, 2000, which is also incorporated herein by reference in its entirety....

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]A system and method is provided that enables electronic devices with limited hardware or network capability to successfully access the same feature rich information content as full featured PC-based browsers with a large display screen, extensive user input facilities (e.g., mouse, keyboard, etc), high CPU power, large memory, reliable network connections, a reliable power supply, and so on.

[0016]According to another aspect of the present embodiment, a QDOM converts data content into a document object tree represented by a mutable object having an array structure. Based on the nodes of the object tree, the QDOM generates an array of primitive data types for efficiently developing an optimized standard structure for use by a normalizer or other processing modules. In the manner, the QDOM extends the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) DOM interface definition to an efficient model that provides high speed parsing, storage, and access while minimizing memory resource requirements.

[0018]In another aspect of the present embodiment, a normalizer is utilized to selectively minimize the amount of horizontal scrolling required by the end user. In the exemplary embodiment, the normalizer modifies layout constructs such as tables and frames to achieve the reduction in horizontal scrolling. Nested layout is flattened and objects that are wider than the electronic device screen such as tables or images are analyzed to determine if they can be reduced to fit the screen without affecting context.

[0023]The present embodiments allow for electronic devices with limited hardware capability to access, on the fly, feature rich static and dynamic content, and applications. The server browser enables a client browser that utilizes a particular markup language to access information content that is of any type of markup language or technology. The distributed browser minimizes the functionality required on the device and implements the CPU and memory intensive functions on a server in the network, thus allowing wireless devices, with intermittent, limited connectivity, processing power capability etc. to provide a similar experience achieved with a desktop PC.

[0028]Additionally, the present embodiments provide significantly higher speed and an efficient use of network bandwidth as desired information content can be cached on the server browser and on the client browser, if so desired, to enable quick access to the desired portions of the information content.

[0029]The present embodiments also provide for server browser-centric access to user profile and client browser state information (such as cookies), thereby facilitating the use of multiple devices by a single user.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, this feature rich information content was developed for a standard PC-based browser, not a mobile or portable electronic device that might be limited in memory, screen size, bandwidth, navigation capabilities, power consumption, processing power, etc.

For example, an electronic device, such as portable PDA, with a small screen size may be inappropriate to display the same information content originally intended for a PC-based browser, and viewed on a 15-inch or greater size display monitor.

Consequently, the PDA cannot be able to faithfully access and display information content as it was originally intended to be viewed.

In another example, a mobile or wireless device with only low bandwidth capability may be unable to view information content intended for only high bandwidth applications.

In yet another example, current electronic devices cannot take full advantage of dynamically generated content and interactive Web sites that are typically hosted on today's Web servers.

Currently, information content is sent to the device, but often in a format that the appliance, user, or network cannot conveniently accommodate, which produces undesirable results.

For example, the data content might be unreadable on the display, displayed in an unorganized fashion, be too voluminous or bandwidth intensive to be received or displayed, and so on.

Tables providing content designed for larger desktop screen displays, however, may not fit on smaller screen displays, such as on a personal digital assistant, cell phone, pager or internet information appliances, or even when windows are resized.

The content is then only partially viewable with portions chopped off, which is at a minimum aesthetically displeasing and may also reduce the readability and usability of the content when significant portions are cut off.

Scrolling, however, requires additional input from the user, which is inconvenient, and still does not allow the entire page to be seen at once.

Indiscriminately reducing the width of information content destroys the integrity of the content as the creator intended and possibly results in the loss of information.

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