Persistent Photo Tray for Web Album Creation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional online photo service providers lack user-friendly features for selecting and managing digital photos, including inefficient multi-photo selection, obstructive thumbnail sizes, lack of image count feedback, and loss of selection state when navigating between web pages, making it cumbersome to gather and organize photos for albums.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for maintaining a persistent photo tray on a website, utilizing a browser window with a photo tray that tracks and updates thumbnail images using cookies, allowing for efficient selection, monitoring, and storage of images, with features like on-demand display, automatic width adjustment, and persistent selection across pages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional websites allow photo selection by clicking individual photos in browser windows, then users can select photos, but the process becomes time-consuming when selecting large groups of photos
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the photo tray functionality within the browser window, allowing users to drag and drop photos directly in the browser interface rather than navigating through multiple pages. This virtual environment enables batch selection and maintains selection state persistently, dramatically reducing the time required to select large groups of photos.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a photo tray as an intermediary component between the user and the photo selection process. This tray acts as a temporary holding area where selected photos are accumulated, allowing users to select multiple photos in one operation rather than individually, thus improving productivity.
2Ease of operation
If thumbnail images maintain the same size during dragging, then images remain visible, but they block the view of a large portion of the browser window
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic scaling of thumbnail images based on their state. When photos are selected and dragged to the photo tray, they are automatically resized to a smaller dimension. This dynamic adjustment allows the browser window to display more content at once while maintaining ease of operation, as users can still see and interact with the thumbnails effectively.
3Ease of operation
If the browser window displays maximum number of digital photo images, then visibility is optimized, but the layout becomes complex when browser size changes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a dynamic layout system that automatically adjusts the photo grid configuration based on the browser window dimensions. When the browser size changes, the layout dynamically reconfigures to maintain optimal visibility and simplicity, preventing complex arrangements while ensuring maximum photo display capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes key layout parameters such as grid column count, row height, and thumbnail size based on the available browser space. This parameter adjustment ensures that the layout remains simple and intuitive while maximizing the number of visible photos, adapting smoothly to different browser sizes without creating complexity.
4Adaptability or versatility
If photo selection is not preserved across web page navigations, then website navigation is flexible, but user selection state is lost requiring re-selection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a persistent copy of the photo tray state that survives web page navigations. By maintaining selection information in the browser's memory or local storage, the system allows users to navigate between pages while preserving their photo selections, eliminating the need to re-select photos and thus reducing time loss.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary action by pre-loading and maintaining the photo tray state before the user navigates away. This ensures that when the user returns or navigates to different pages, the selection state is already preserved and ready, eliminating the need for re-selection and maintaining workflow continuity.
Data Source
AI summary
Method and system for maintaining a persistent photo tray on a website are disclosed. The method includes displaying a photo tray in a browser window for storing one or more thumbnail images, maintaining a unique identifier for each of the one or more thumbnail images, tracking the unique identifier of each thumbnail image using a corresponding cookie, monitoring the one or more thumbnail images in the photo tray, and updating the corresponding cookie in response to changes to the thumbnail images in the photo tray.