Methods, systems, and programming for computer display of images, text, and/or digital content

A method of displaying a web page comprising:

• accessing a web page's content, including one or more images and one or more strings of displayable text;
• laying out the web page for display at a given virtual screen resolution having a given horizontal and vertical pixel resolution so as to determine a layout position for each of said images and each portion of one of said strings that is to be displayed on a separate line, with said layout positions being determined in a layout space having a virtual pixel width equal to the larger of (a) a minimum width required by the contents of the web page, if such a minimum width exists, or (b) the horizontal resolution of the virtual screen resolution, which ever is larger, said laying out including:
• treating said images and displayable characters in said displayable text as having respective layout sizes in said layout space;
• flowing displayable characters of said strings of across line boundaries, based on the layout size of said displayable characters, by breaking portions of strings that cross a line boundary into separate single line strings, each of which fits on a single line in said layout space;
• and
• displaying at least a portion of said laid out web page in a display shown on a display screen at a given scale factor, including:
• displaying both said images and single line character strings at locations in said display corresponding to the positions at which they have been laid out in said layout space, scaled as a function of said given scale factor;
• representing each of said images in said display by a corresponding bitmap that has a size relative to the image's layout size determined as a function of said given scale factor;
• representing a given single line strings by an image composed from a plurality of separate font bitmaps representing the characters in said string, where the image of an individual character of said string has a pixel size relative to the character's layout size determined as a function of said given scale factor;
• performing said layout and displaying of said web page at each of at least two different virtual screen resolutions;
• wherein:
• the layout performed at a first, larger, one of said virtual screen resolutions lays out said images and strings at a first, relatively small, set of respective sizes relative to said larger virtual screen resolution;
• the layout at a second, smaller, one of said virtual screen resolutions lays out said images and strings at a second, relatively large, set of respective sizes relative to said smaller virtual screen resolution;
• and
• the given scale factors used, respectively, in the displaying performed at the first and second virtual screen resolutions are such that the images and text appear at smaller pixel sizes in the display of the layout produced using said larger virtual screen resolution and appear at larger pixel sizes in the display of the layout produced using said smaller virtual screen resolution;
• and
• the layout at the smaller virtual screen resolution makes text lines shorter relative to the size of fonts shown on those lines.

A computing device comprising:

• one or more memory devices for storing information, including programming information;
• one or more processors for processing information in response to said programming information;
• one or more input devices for receiving inputs from a user that can be supplied to one or more of said processors;
• a display screen on which information can be shown to a user under control of said one or more processors;
• wherein said programming information includes programming for causing said computing device, under control of said one or more processors, to perform the following functions:
• accessing a web page's contents, including one or more images and one or more strings of displayable text, where the contents of said web page do not specify a designated layout position for each of said images and text;
• laying out the web page in a layout space having a horizontal and a vertical layout resolution, so as to determine a layout position in said layout space for each of said images and each portion of one of said strings that is to be displayed on a separate line in said layout space, said laying out including:
• treating said images and characters of said displayable text as having respective layout sizes in said layout space;
• flowing displayable characters of said strings across line boundaries, based on the layout size of said displayable characters, by breaking portions of strings that cross a line boundary into separate single line strings, each of which fits on a single line in said layout space;
• and
• displaying at least a portion of said laid out web page in a display shown on a display screen at a selected scale factor, including:
• displaying both said images and single line character strings at locations in said display corresponding to the positions at which they have been laid out in said layout space, scaled as a function of said selected scale factor;
• representing each of said images in said display by a corresponding bitmap in said display that has a pixel size relative to the image's layout size determined as a function of said selected scale factor;
• and
• representing a given single line strings by an image composed from a plurality of separate font bitmaps representing the characters in said string, where the image of an individual character of said string has a pixel size relative to the character's layout size determined as a function of said selected scale factor;
• wherein:
• said displaying of a portion of said laid out web page is performed at each of at least two different selected scale factors;
• and
• the shape and pixel alignment of a character represented by one of said font bitmap at a given scale factor has been selected to improve readability as a function of the size of said font bitmap used to represent the character at the given scale factor, causing a given character in a given string in two displayings of a given portion of said web page layout performed at different selected scale factors to be displayed with font bitmaps of different pixel size that represent the given character with different shapes and pixel alignments.

A computing device comprising:

• one or more memory devices for storing information, including programming information;
• one or more processors for processing information in response to said programming information;
• one or more input devices for receiving inputs from a user that can be supplied to one or more of said processors;
• a display screen on which information can be shown to a user under control of said one or more processors;
• wherein said programming information includes programming for causing said computing device, under control of said one or more processors, to perform the following functions:
• accessing a web page's content, including one or more images and one or more strings of displayable text;
• laying out the web page for display at a given virtual screen resolution having a given horizontal and vertical pixel resolution so as to determine a layout position for each of said images and each portion of one of said strings that is to be displayed on a separate line, with said layout positions being determined in a layout space having a virtual pixel width equal to the larger of (a) a minimum width required by the contents of the web page, if such a minimum width exists, or (b) the horizontal resolution of the virtual screen resolution, which ever is larger, said laying out including:
• treating said images and displayable characters in said displayable text as having respective layout sizes in said layout space;
• flowing displayable characters of said strings of across line boundaries, based on the layout size of said displayable characters, by breaking portions of strings that cross a line boundary into separate single line strings, each of which fits on a single line in said layout space;
• and
• displaying at least a portion of said laid out web page in a display shown on a display screen at a given scale factor, including:
• displaying both said images and single line character strings at locations in said display corresponding to the positions at which they have been laid out in said layout space, scaled as a function of said given scale factor;
• representing each of said images in said display by a corresponding bitmap that has a size relative to the image's layout size determined as a function of said given scale factor;
• representing a given single line strings by an image composed from a plurality of separate font bitmaps representing the characters in said string, where the image of an individual character of said string has a pixel size relative to the character's layout size determined as a function of said given scale factor;
• performing said layout and displaying of said web page at each of at least two different virtual screen resolutions;
• wherein:
• the layout performed at a first, larger, one of said virtual screen resolutions lays out said images and strings at a first, relatively small, set of respective sizes relative to said larger virtual screen resolution;
• the layout at a second, smaller, one of said virtual screen resolutions lays out said images and strings at a second, relatively large, set of respective sizes relative to said smaller virtual screen resolution;
• and
• the given scale factors used, respectively, in the displayings performed at the first and second virtual screen resolutions are such that the images and text appear at smaller pixel sizes in the display of the layout produced using said larger virtual screen resolution and appear at larger pixel sizes in the display of the layout produced using said smaller virtual screen resolution;
• and
• the layout at the smaller virtual screen resolution makes text lines shorter relative to the size of fonts shown on those lines.