US 8,301,783 B2Granted

Method, system, and computer program product for efficiently serializing navigational state in a portal

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsStefan Behl, Carsten Leue, Falk Posch

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Abstract

The present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product for efficiently serializing navigational state into URLs or the header of the new portal page by using a complete stream-based serialization. The inventive serialization is divided into two sub-processes which are both stream-based. The first stream-based serialization sub-process which is hierarchy-oriented uses the hierarchical object representation of the navigational state and transforms it into a series of events. The events serve as the input for various strategies for compacting information that is associated with these events. At the end of the sub-process the compacted navigational state information carried by the received events is transformed into a character-based representation and the hierarchical structure of the navigational state is derived from the order of the received events and transformed into an additional character-based representation both being directly streamed to the second sub-process. The second stream-based serialization sub-process which is hierarchy-independent uses the result of the first sub-process and applies further compression and character encoding strategies and finally streams the compressed and character encoded information into a URL or header of said new Portal page. Both sub-processes are seamlessly linked together. The inventive stream-based serialization method is efficient because it minimizes the overall processing time needed to generate a URL and also effective because it makes sure that the serialization result is as short as possible to meet the requirements regarding URL length and markup size.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method for efficiently serializing navigational state in a Portal, wherein said Portal is running in a server system, wherein said server system includes a communication component which allows communication between said Portal and a client browser via a communication channel, wherein said Portal determines a layout of a requested Portal page, invokes rendering of page elements belonging to said Portal page, and transmits said Portal page to the client browser for displaying, wherein at least one page element of said Portal page provides a link comprising functionality for initiating rendering of a new page or a new page element by said Portal, wherein each user interaction by clicking said link at said at least one page element generates a new navigational state of said Portal, wherein said new navigational state describes a current view of said Portal as a result of all previous navigational interactions of a particular client, wherein in response to a client request for a new Portal page said new navigational state is encoded in a serialized form into one of each uniform resource location (URL) or into a header of the new Portal page, wherein said method comprises the following two sub-processes:

a first stream-based serialization sub-process being hierarchy-oriented that uses a hierarchical object representation of said new navigational state and transforms the new navigational state into a series of events, wherein said events in said series of events serve as input for a selection of strategies for compacting information that is associated with the events, wherein at an end of said sub-process compacted navigational state information carried by said events is transformed into a character-based representation of said navigational state information and a hierarchical structure of said new navigational state is derived from an order of said events and transformed into an additional character-based representation of said navigational state information both character-based representations being directly streamed to said second sub-process,
a second stream-based serialization sub-process being hierarchy-independent that uses a result of said first stream-based serialization sub-process and applies a plurality of further compression and character encoding strategies and finally streams compressed and character encoded information into one of a URL and header of said new Portal page,
wherein both sub-processes are linked together.

A system for efficiently serializing navigational state in a Portal, wherein said Portal is running in said system, wherein said system includes a communication component executing in memory of a computer which allows communication between said Portal and a client browser via a communication channel, wherein said Portal determines a layout of a requested Portal page, invokes rendering of page elements belonging to said Portal page, and transmits said Portal page to the client browser for displaying, wherein at least one page element of said Portal page provides a link comprising functionality for initiating rendering of a new page or a new page element by said Portal, wherein each user interaction by clicking said link at said at least one page element generates a new navigational state of said Portal, wherein said new navigational state describes a current view of said Portal as a result of all previous navigational interactions of a particular client, wherein in response to a client request for a new Portal page said new navigational state is encoded in a serialized form into one of each uniform resource location (URL) or into a header of the new Portal page, wherein said system performs method that comprises the following two sub-processes:

a first stream-based serialization sub-process being hierarchy-oriented that uses a hierarchical object representation of said new navigational state and transforms the new navigational state into a series of events, wherein said events in said series of events serve as input for a selection of strategies for compacting information that is associated with the events, wherein at an end of said sub-process compacted navigational state information carried by said events is transformed into a character-based representation of said navigational state information and a hierarchical structure of said new navigational state is derived from an order of said events and transformed into an additional character-based representation of said navigational state information both character-based representations being directly streamed to said second sub-process,
a second stream-based serialization sub-process being hierarchy-independent that uses a result of said first stream-based serialization sub-process and applies a plurality of further compression and character encoding strategies and finally streams compressed and character encoded information into one of a URL and header of said new Portal page,
wherein both sub-processes are linked together.

A computer program product for efficiently serializing navigational state in a Portal, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, wherein said Portal is running in a server system, wherein said server system includes a communication component which allows communication between said Portal and a client browser via a communication channel, wherein said Portal determines a layout of a requested Portal page, invokes rendering of page elements belonging to said Portal page, and transmits said Portal page to the client browser for displaying, wherein at least one page element of said Portal page provides a link comprising functionality for initiating rendering of a new page or a new page element by said Portal, wherein each user interaction by clicking said link at said at least one page element generates a new navigational state of said Portal, wherein said new navigational state describes a current view of said Portal as a result of all previous navigational interactions of a particular client, wherein in response to a client request for a new Portal page said new navigational state is encoded in a serialized form into one of each uniform resource location (URL) or into a header of the new Portal page, wherein said computer readable program when executed in memory of a computer performs a method that comprises the following two sub-processes:

a first stream-based serialization sub-process being hierarchy-oriented that uses a hierarchical object representation of said new navigational state and transforms the new navigational state into a series of events, wherein said events in said series of events serve as input for a selection of strategies for compacting information that is associated with the events, wherein at an end of said sub-process compacted navigational state information carried by said events is transformed into a character-based representation of said navigational state information and a hierarchical structure of said new navigational state is derived from an order of said events and transformed into an additional character-based representation of said navigational state information both character-based representations being directly streamed to said second sub-process,
a second stream-based serialization sub-process being hierarchy-independent that uses a result of said first stream-based serialization sub-process and applies a plurality of further compression and character encoding strategies and finally streams compressed and character encoded information into one of a URL and header of said new Portal page,
wherein both sub-processes are linked together.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.