Content segments
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsPeter Francis Ostertag, Alex Mogilevsky, Michael J. Hillberg, Nicholas Kramer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A span of data in content having an associated hierarchical representation can be specified as a content segment. The span of data can be specified without modifying the hierarchical representation for the content. Events and properties can be specified for the content segment. If desired, content segments can be stacked on top of one another, and they can overlap. Disjoint (e.g., non-contiguous) content segments can be designated, and sub-segments can be processed. A variety of operations can be performed for the content segments, and a user interface service can provide a variety of services for content segments.
Claims53
A method of specifying a span of data within a representation of content associated with a hierarchical representation for the content, the method comprising:
- receiving a designation of the span within the content;
- and
- creating a representation of a content segment associated with the span without modifying the hierarchical representation for the content.
A method of specifying a span of data within a representation of text associated with a hierarchical representation for the content, wherein the hierarchical representation comprises a plurality of nodes representing markup language tags associated with the text, the method comprising:
- receiving a designation of the span within the text, wherein the designation comprises a starting location and an ending location;
- creating nodes in a linking data structure for the starting location and the ending location, wherein the linking data structure is a splay tree linking the hierarchical representation to the text;
- and
- creating a representation of a content segment associated with the span, without modifying the hierarchical representation for the content, wherein the representation comprises references to the created nodes in the linking data structure.
A computer-readable medium having encoded thereon a data structure comprising:
- content;
- a hierarchical representation associated with the content;
- and
- a designation of a span of the content, wherein the designation does not modify the hierarchical representation.
A user-interface service comprising:
- code for receiving a designation of a span of data within content having an associated hierarchical representation;
- and
- code for storing the designation without modifying the associated hierarchical representation.
A user-interface service comprising:
- a function for accepting a designation of a span of content having an associated hierarchically-arranged representation, wherein at least a portion of the content is rendered in a presentation to a user, and the span corresponds to visual locations within the presentation over which an action can be performed;
- a function for accepting a designation of functionality to be invoked when an action is performed over the presentation;
- and
- an event-monitor for detecting when an action occurs within the visual locations, and responsive to such detecting, invoking the functionality.
A user-interface service comprising:
- means for accepting a designation of a span of content having an associated hierarchically-arranged representation, wherein at least a portion of the content is rendered in a presentation to a user, and the span corresponds to visual locations within the presentation over which an action can be performed;
- means for accepting a designation of functionality to be invoked when an action is performed over the presentation;
- and
- means for detecting when an action occurs within the visual locations, and responsive to such detecting, invoking the functionality.
A method of specifying a span of content within content represented by a tree structure having a hierarchy, the method comprising:
- receiving a designation of a beginning and an ending of the span, wherein the span crosses a boundary in the hierarchy;
- and
- designating the span as crossing the boundary in the hierarchy without modifying the tree structure having a hierarchy.
In a user interface service, a method of defining an arbitrary property for a span of content, the method comprising:
- receiving a designation of a beginning and an ending of the span;
- receiving a designation of the property for the span, wherein the property is a custom property not recognized by the user interface service;
- and
- storing the designation of the property.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.