Embedded Web View Latency Reduction via Preview Rendering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Applications with embedded web views experience significant delays in loading web views, leading to a poor user experience due to latency in wireless communications and inconsistencies in transition speed between native and web views.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves providing preview data to the web view controller to render a cached version of the web page while downloading instance data, allowing for a seamless transition from a preview view to a full view, using techniques like AJAX to manage the presentation of views on a computing device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a web view controller is used to download and render web pages, then the application can be quickly updated by changing web pages on a web server, but there is a significant delay in loading web views due to wireless communication latency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a caching mechanism that pre-downloads and stores web page content, images, and other resources in the device's local data storage before they are needed. When a user navigates to a web view, the cached content is immediately rendered without requiring real-time network downloads, thus eliminating the loading delay while maintaining the ability to quickly update content through server changes.
2Productivity
If embedded web views are used to enable quick content updates, then the update-release cycle is reduced to minutes, but the user experience deteriorates due to inconsistent transition speeds between native and web views
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a local copy of the web view controller that operates independently from the network connection. The cached web page content is rendered in this local copy, making the transition speed comparable to native views. This copying approach allows the web view to load immediately from local storage while still displaying updated content that was previously fetched from the server.
3Reliability
If a web view controller downloads web pages in real-time, then the content is always current, but the transition speed is slow due to network latency on mobile devices
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary downloading and caching of web page content, images, and resources before the user actually navigates to the web view. This advance preparation stores the content in local data storage, enabling immediate rendering when the user transitions to the web view, thus achieving both fast transition speed and content freshness through periodic background updates.
Data Source
AI summary
To help reduce latency when an application presents an embedded web view, the application may provide to a web view controller not only a base uniform resource indicator of a web application defining the web view but also preview data for the web view controller to render for presentation together with a cached version of the web view. In accordance with script logic defined by the web application, the web view controller may then (i) incorporate the provided preview data into the cached version of the web view and render the result as a preview view for presentation at a user interface, (ii) download instance data for the web view while the preview view is presented, and (iii) upon receipt of the instance data, establish and render a full version of the web view based on the instance data, for presentation at the user interface.