System and method for browsing tabbed-heterogeneous windows
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsAaron J. Sauve, Charles Cummins, Cornelis K. Van Dok, Tony E. Schreiner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed to a method for managing multiple content windows. The content windows may host a web browser, a shell view, a word processing application, and the like. A set of content windows are grouped into a frame in a manner such that a taskbar shows one item for the set of content windows. Each content window is associated with a tab for the frame. A content-specific menu may be associated with each tab. The content-specific menu includes a set of commands based on the heterogeneous content hosted in the content window. The set of commands provide functionality to the heterogeneous content.
Claims11
A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components for implementing tabbed browsing, the components comprising:
- a tab window manager component;
- a plurality of tab window components, each configured to manage communication between the tab window manager component and an individual tab out of a plurality of tabs, the plurality of tab window components having a one-to-one relationship with a plurality of content windows and each content window being associated with one of the plurality of tabs, each content window having respective heterogeneous content and being processed by a respective thread;
- a tab user interface component configured to render a user interface for the plurality of tabs, the user interface providing a content-specific menu based on the heterogeneous content in the content window;
- and
- a browser frame component configured to broker communications between the tab window manager component and the tab user interface component;
- wherein the browser frame component, the tab window manager component, the tab user interface component, and the plurality of tab window components are processed by a single thread and the tab window manager component manages cross-thread communication between the single thread and each of the content window threads.
A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components for implementing tabbed browsing, the components comprising:
- a tab window manager component;
- a plurality of tab window components, each configured to manage communication between the tab window manager component and an individual tab out of a plurality of tabs, the plurality of tab window components having a one-to-one relationship with a plurality of content windows and each content window being associated with one of the plurality of tabs, each content window having respective heterogeneous content and being processed by a respective thread;
- a tab user interface component configured to render a user interface for the plurality of tabs, the user interface providing a content-specific menu based on the heterogeneous content in the content window;
- and
- a browser frame component configured to broker communications between the tab window manager component and the tab user interface component;
- wherein the browser frame component, the tab window manager component, the tab user interface component, and the plurality of tab window components are processed by a single thread and the tab window manager component manages cross-thread communication between the single thread and each of the content window threads.
One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for performing a method comprising:
- displaying a user interface of a tabbed browser application for switching between heterogeneous content, the user interface including a navigation bar, a tab band, and a content area;
- upon receiving an add tab signal, displaying a new tab within the tab band;
- downloading heterogeneous content in the content area associated with the new tab, wherein the downloading occurs in the background using a separate thread;
- upon receiving another add tab signal, displaying another new tab within the tab band;
- downloading heterogeneous content in the content area associated with the other new tab, wherein the downloading occurs in the background using another separate thread different from the separate thread;
- wherein upon one of the tabs hanging, the other tabs not hanging.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.