Dynamic layout system for remote content

One or more computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing device perform a method of generating an article layout, the method comprising:

• receiving an article content comprising at least text and an image;
• determining a display characteristic of an interface in which an article is to be displayed;
• determining an ideal column width for display of the article content based on the display characteristic;
• determining an ideal number of columns in an individual page of the article layout based on the display characteristic;
• and
• generating an article presentation by inserting the article content into the article layout having the ideal number of columns of the ideal column width.

A method of generating a user interface for an application running on a client device, the method comprising:

• receiving an image and a snippet describing an article, the image and the snippet formatted for use in a content summary, which is a modular summary of the media content that is sized and shaped to be part of a summary cluster, which includes multiple content summaries;
• using a characteristic of the image and the snippet to select a class of templates that are designed to generate the content summary for the article, the class selected from a plurality of available template classes;
• selecting a summary template for the class using a selection rule that considers as input other content summaries in an existing summary cluster to which the content summary will be added;
• generating the content summary by adding the image and the snippet to the summary template;
• adding the content summary to the existing summary cluster;
• and
• receiving a selection of the content summary.