US 6,781,609 B1Granted

Technique for flexible inclusion of information items and various media types in a user interface

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsKevin S. Barker, Charles E. Burkett, David B. Lection, Roland A. Merrick

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Abstract

A method, system, and computer program product for flexibly including descriptive information items, and the various media resources used for those items, in a user interface (UI). One markup language document is used for the UI data content, and a separate markup language document is used for specifying the descriptive items and media resources to be used along with that content. This technique enables dynamically altering the descriptive items and media resources to be used for a UI document, without requiring change to the UI document itself This technique also enables developing the descriptive items and media resources separately from developing the UI document, without a requirement to share common files between these development efforts. The specifications of descriptive information items and media resources can be efficiently reused among multiple UI documents.

Claims35

Dependent claims

A computer program product for flexibly including descriptive items and media types in a user interface, said computer program product embodied on a computer-readable medium and comprising:

computer-readable program code means for processing a first document that specifies user interface (UI) content, wherein said first document is encoded in a markup language and said UI content comprises one or more data items to be rendered to a user;
computer-readable program code means for processing a second document that identifies, in at least one media format, one or more descriptive items, wherein:
said second document is encoded in said markup language;
each of said descriptive items provides information that is renderable to the user to further describe one or more of the data items;
and said first document includes, for selected ones of said data items, a reference to one of the descriptive items;
computer-readable program code means for expanding the reference for each selected one of the data items, thereby creating a media-enhanced version of the first document, wherein the media-enhanced version includes the one or more data items of the UI content and also includes, for each of the selected ones of the data items, the descriptive item referenced therefrom in each of the at least one media formats;
and
computer-readable program code means for rendering said media-enhanced version of the first document.

5 more elements

A system for flexibly including descriptive items and media types in a user interface, comprising:

means for processing a first document that specifies user interface (UI) content, wherein said first document is encoded in a markup language and said UI content comprises one or more data items to be rendered to a user;
means for processing a second document that identifies, in at least one media format, one or more descriptive items, wherein:
said second document is encoded in said markup language;
each of said descriptive items provides information that is renderable to the user to further describe one or more of the data items;
and the first document includes, for selected ones of the data items, a reference to one of the descriptive items;
means for expanding the reference for each selected one of the data items, thereby creating a media-enhanced version of the first document, wherein the media-enhanced version includes the one or more data items of the UI content and also includes, for each of the selected ones of the data items, the descriptive item referenced therefrom, in each of the at least one media formats;
and
means for rendering said media-enhanced version of the first document.

5 more elements

A method for flexibly including descriptive items and media types in a user interface, comprising the steps of:

processing a first document that specifies user interface (UI) content, wherein the first document is encoded in a markup language and said UI content comprises one or more data items to be rendered to a user;
processing a second document that identifies, in at least one media format, one or more descriptive items, wherein:
the second document is encoded in the markup language;
each of the descriptive items provides information that is renderable to the user to further describe one or more of the data items;
and the first document includes, for selected ones of the data items, a reference to one of the descriptive items;
expanding the reference for each selected one of the data items, thereby creating a media-enhanced version of the first document, wherein the media-enhanced version includes the one or more data items of the UI content and also includes, for each of the selected ones of the data items, the descriptive item referenced therefrom, in each of the at least one media formats;
and
rendering said media-enhanced version of the first document.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.