Apple patent involves custom coding display languages
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 1, 2007 at 9:40am
Apple has been granted a patent (number 20070255722) for data-driven page layout by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Apple says that custom coding display pages in a language such as XML often requires considerable time as well as knowledge of the language.
Typically, templates based upon code may be used to facilitate the process of creating display pages. However, the use of such templates still requires a code build, which takes time and may require some knowledge of the code, for example, if a problem is encountered during the build. Thus, there is a need for a more efficient way of creating display pages.
The patent involves a method for creating a display page, comprising: creating an instance of a display page led at least in part on a display page structure derived from a previously-created display page at least in part by extracting from the previously-created display page one or more structural objects of the previously-created display page and one or more structural relationships between them, but not corresponding content of the previously-created display page; and providing an editing interface configured to enable the instance of the display page to be edited at least in part by manipulating, within a graphical representation of a current structure of the display page, a graphical representation of a structural object comprising the display page.
Apple says that the invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a composition of matter, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computer network wherein program instructions are sent over optical or electronic communication links. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. A object such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task includes both a general object that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific object that is manufactured to perform the task. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention.
The inventors are Jonathan B. Leffert and Ellis Verosub. The graphic below illustrates an embodiment of a web page.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
