JP2012212473A - Information processor and its control program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To acquire a summarized content for a column of a Web content item while reducing complicated operations in an information processor such as a portable terminal with small screen.SOLUTION: When the Web content item is developed into a Web page and displayed, the information processor analyzes the received Web content item to extract columns each of which is to be a constituent unit in a layout of the Web page, compares the display area of each column displayed within a display range 27a in a display state of the Web page by a display device with a threshold to determine whether the display area is sufficient or not. If the display area of the column C3 is not sufficient as a result of the determination, the information processor summarizes the content of the column C3 in a degree of summarization according to the display area by means of preferential summarization of a one with high text strength or the like, and adapts the summarized content of the column for display in a preview display format according to the display area by means of reduction in font or the like.

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for browsing and displaying Web content and a control program therefor.

  Conventionally, in a server / client system in a communication network such as a LAN (Local Area Network), a WAN (Wide Area Network), and the Internet, various Web contents generated and stored by the server device by a Web browser provided in the client device. Is obtained, displayed, and browsed.

  In general, Web contents are described in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), and a Web browser analyzes the document structure and displays it as a Web page.

  In recent years, with the development of various devices, opportunities to browse Web contents on terminals other than PCs (Personal Computers) such as mobile terminals and digital home appliances are increasing. However, the majority of existing Web content is for PCs. It is desirable that such Web content for PCs can be comfortably viewed on terminals other than the PC, but due to physical limitations such as terminal shapes such as differences in screen size and resolution and poor input means. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the same operability and efficiency as a mouse-based browsing environment on a PC.

  Therefore, there is an information display device that can improve the accessibility to a link destination even in a mobile terminal or the like by analyzing the Web content and displaying a list in which only the links in the Web content are extracted separately from the content body. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1).

JP 2006-11536 A

  In the conventional information display device, for example, even if the entire Web content cannot be displayed on one screen, the accessibility to the link existing in the content can be improved, but the effort associated with browsing the entire Web content can be reduced. It does not contribute. In addition, when there are a large number of unnecessary links such as advertisement links such as recent web contents, the list of links becomes enormous. In particular, on a small screen of a mobile terminal, an independent display is provided for the link list. It is difficult to provide a space for the content body so as not to interfere with the content body, and at the same time, the accessibility to the link is deteriorated.

  In addition, as a means of browsing the entire web content comfortably on a mobile terminal, a full browser for mobile phones such as Opera (registered trademark) provides a mode in which columns on the web content are arranged vertically. There are many. In this mode, the content always fits in the horizontal width of the screen and there is no stress that causes the content to be divided. However, the amount of vertical scrolling required increases, and the problem due to the limitation of listability is not fundamentally solved.

  In addition, in a browser for a smartphone such as NetFront (registered trademark) Browser, there is a flow of displaying in the same layout as a PC and supplementing the limitation of listability with an excellent zoom function.

  However, once the characters are zoomed to an easy-to-see size, it is the same that the surrounding content cannot be grasped. In order to secure the list, it is necessary to reduce the size significantly, but in that state, the characters cannot be read, and it is not possible to confirm whether it is really interesting information without zooming.

  As a result, the user repeats zooming back and forth again.

  The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and enables an overview of the contents of a column of Web content to be grasped by reducing complicated operations. In particular, even with a small screen mobile terminal or the like, complicated operations are performed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus and a control program for the same that can reduce the number of users and increase the convenience of browsing web contents.

  Claim 1 is an information processing apparatus for displaying a page including content on a display screen, storage means for storing a page in which a plurality of column areas in which content is to be displayed is laid out, and the page on the display screen When displaying above, for each column area included in the page, determine whether the display size of the column area displayed on the display screen is sufficient display area compared to the threshold value of the column area And a column area that is determined not to have a sufficient display area by extracting the newly updated portion of the content to be displayed corresponding to the column area And display control means for displaying the content of the extracted portion in the corresponding column area.

  According to the present invention, even when the display size of a column area laid out in a page does not have a sufficient display area compared to the threshold value of the column area, at least the content to be displayed in the column area is displayed. The contents of the newly updated part can be confirmed immediately.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a server / client system according to an embodiment of an information processing apparatus of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a server device in the server client system. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a client device in the server-client system. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of Web content acquired from the server device in the client device. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display state of the Web content shown in FIG. 4 in the general Web browser program in the client device. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the types of column summaries used for the preview content for Web content preview and the types of preview UI for presenting the preview summary content to the user. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example in which columns in the Web content in FIG. 4 are summarized by the column summary generation method based on “cutting by text strength”. FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of an RSS source associated with the Web content in FIG. FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example in which the columns in the Web content in FIG. 4 are summarized by the column summary generation method based on “updated part extraction”. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of screen transition in which the “font reduction” UI is applied as the preview UI. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of screen transition in which a “thumbnail reduction” UI is applied as a preview UI. FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen to which an “automatic scroll” UI is applied as a preview UI. FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen in which a “balloon” UI is applied as a preview UI. FIG. 14A is a main flowchart of the Web browser program in the client device, and FIG. 14B is a flowchart showing details of the column preview processing in FIG. 14A. FIG. 15 is a flowchart of the column summarization process when preview summary content is generated by “cutting by text strength”. FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example of a result of totaling the number of characters for each background in the column in order to explain the calculation of the background intensity point. FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example of the text intensity for each line. FIG. 18 is a flowchart of the column summarization process in the case where preview summary content is generated by “extracting an updated part”.

  Hereinafter, embodiments for carrying out the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a server / client system according to an embodiment of an information processing apparatus of the present invention.

  This server / client system includes a server device 10 and a plurality of client devices 20 respectively connected to a network N composed of the Internet, WAN, LAN, or the like.

  The server device 10 has a plurality of application programs that function by operating the main body of the server device 10 such as a Web content generation processing program, a registered user management processing program, and a Web page distribution processing program. In response to an access request to the designated website from the requested client apparatus 20, the page of the web content 15a in the requested website is distributed to each client apparatus 20.

  The client device 20 includes a mobile phone, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a PC, and the like, and includes a plurality of application programs that function by operating the main body of the client device 20, such as an Internet connection processing program, a Web browser program 23a, and a Web print program. Have. Then, for example, the server device 10 of a desired website is accessed to obtain the web content 15a, the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) of the web content 15a is analyzed, divided into columns, and a summary is generated in that unit. Then, the display is adapted to the display form for preview according to the display area.

  Note that the intermediate server or the like may be responsible for processing the Web content received from the server device 10. For example, column summarization of Web content may be performed on a server that relays Web content, such as a Proxy server, or another external server connected to the client device 20 and then passed to the client device 20.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of the server apparatus 10 in the server / client system.

  The server device 10 includes a CPU 11 as a computer, and an external storage device 15 such as a ROM 13, a frame buffer RAM 14, and an external hard disk is connected to the CPU 11 via a bus 12.

  Further, an input device 16 such as a keyboard and a mouse, a display device 17 such as an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), and a communication I / F (interface) 18 with the client device 20 are connected to the CPU 11 via the bus 12. .

  The CPU 11 controls the operation of each part of the circuit using the frame buffer RAM 14 as a working memory in accordance with a system program or various application programs stored in advance in the ROM 13. The CPU 11 receives key input signals from the input device 16 and communication I / F 18. The various programs are activated and executed in response to a Web content acquisition request signal or the like corresponding to a user operation from the client device 20 received via the client device 20.

  The web content 15a is updated and generated as appropriate and stored in the external storage device 15, for example.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of the client device 20 in the server client system.

  The client device 20 includes a CPU 21 as a computer, and a ROM 23, a RAM 24, and an external storage device 25 such as a memory card and an optical disk read / write unit are connected to the CPU 21 via a bus 22.

  Further, an input device 26 such as a keyboard and a mouse, a display device 27 including an LCD, and a communication I / F (interface) 28 with the server device 10 are connected to the CPU 21 via the bus 22.

  The CPU 21 controls the operation of each part of the circuit using the RAM 24 as a working memory in accordance with a system program and various application programs stored in advance in the ROM 23. The various application programs are executed in accordance with input signals from the input device 26. It is activated and executed.

  When the server device 10 is a website on the Internet (N) and the client device 20 is a user terminal that can access the website, in response to an access request from the user terminal (20) to the website (10). The Web content 15a described and generated in HTML on the Web site (10) is distributed to the access request source user terminal (20), developed into a Web page by the Web browser program 23a, and displayed on the display device 27. .

  The Web browser program 23a of the client device (user terminal) 20 acquires the Web content 15a in accordance with the access to the server device 10 of the Web site designated by the user, analyzes the HTML of the Web content 15a, and analyzes the column ( It has a column preview control function that divides it into details (to be described later), generates a summary in that unit, and displays the preview in accordance with the preview display form according to the display area. This column preview control function is realized, for example, by a program that plugs in or adds to the Web browser program 23a.

Hereinafter, the column preview control function in the Web browser program 23a of the client device 20 will be described in detail.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of the Web content 15 a acquired from the server device 10 in the client device 20.

  Web content is generally composed of parts with different types of information (header / footer, article body, part for linking users, etc.). Call. The web content 15a illustrated in FIG. 4 has five columns C1 to C5.

  For column extraction and division processing in the Web browser program 23a of the client device 20, any existing method such as a method adopted in a full browser for mobile phones such as Opera (registered trademark) is used. The description thereof is omitted here.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display when the Web content 15a as shown in FIG. 4 is displayed on the display device 27 by a general Web browser program.

  The display range 27a of the browser window that can be displayed on the display device 27 can cover only a part of the Web content 15a. Here, each part of the columns C2, C3, and C4 is displayed. In this case, the column C2 displays a wide part and the horizontal part is cut off somewhat, but it is possible to determine what kind of column it is without particularly scrolling. On the other hand, for columns C3 and C4, what is displayed is only a snippet of the column, and it is likely that the user will be interested in what this column is for. It is difficult to judge whether there is information.

  Therefore, in the Web browser program 23a according to the present embodiment, columns such as columns C3 and C4 that are too narrow in display range are replaced with preview summary contents that provide an overview of the column, and a UI (User Interface) corresponding to the preview display is replaced. By attaching it, it is easy to grasp the entire column with a small display area. Also, as the column display area increases or decreases by scrolling or zooming, the degree of column summarization is also increased or decreased so that the summary does not overflow from the screen.

  On the other hand, a column having a sufficient display area such as the column C2 is displayed as it is without any processing, but other processing may be performed as appropriate. For example, the layout is adjusted according to the window width so that the entire text can be read without horizontal scrolling.

This will be specifically described below.
FIG. 6A is a diagram showing the types of column summaries used for the summary content for preview of Web content, and FIG. 6B shows the types of preview UI for presenting the preview summary content to the user. FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 6A, the column summary is generated by “text summary” of the text in the column or “full text” that is not a summary. The degree of column summarization varies depending on the display area of the column. The smaller the display area, the higher the degree of summarization and the shorter the column summary.

  There are three types of text summary generation methods: “cutting out according to text strength”, “extracting updated parts”, and “summary in a general sense”.

  First, a method for generating a column summary by “cutting by text intensity” will be described. This defines a “text strength” that increases in value when the text is more conspicuous, and preferentially cuts out the lines in the column having a stronger text strength, thereby providing a column summary.

  The text strength can be determined according to the style of the in-line text, for example. A style is a font size, font weight (thickness value), or background. The font strength / text weight is high when the font size / weight is large and the background is different. What should I do?

  Stronger and more prominent texts are likely to be important texts such as articles and category titles, and are effective as column summary content, so the basic idea of this generation method is to cut them out preferentially. .

  FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example in which columns in the Web content 15a in FIG. 4 are summarized by the column summary generation method based on this “cutting by text strength”. A specific processing operation for creating a column summary in the Web browser program 23a will be described later.

  According to this generation method, only the characters “news site” are cut out from the column C1. This line has a strong font because it has a large font and uses a different background than the other text.

  In the column C2, all titles and subtitles that are more conspicuous and have a strong text strength are extracted. For the article body with low strength, only the amount that fits in the screen from the beginning of the line is cut out, and the omitted part is replaced with "...".

  In column C3, the vertical width is reduced while maintaining the horizontal width, and only the category title and the article title are displayed. In this example, a small non-bold text line attached to the article title is not included in the display area and is therefore omitted for each line. Also, the article titles are omitted from the back because some of the display area is not enough.

  In column C4, the horizontal width is reduced while maintaining the vertical width, and the wrapping is adjusted so that the text fits in the display range.

  Column C5 is an example of column summary when the vertical and horizontal dimensions are extremely shortened.

  Next, a method for generating a column summary by “extracting an updated part” will be described. This is a summary of the column by extracting only the most recently updated part of the column.

  On news sites, portal sites, etc., old information and information that is always there may have been read or value is low. Therefore, if only new and valuable information is extracted, it becomes easier for the user to quickly determine whether the column should be properly viewed.

  In the present embodiment, RSS (RDF Site Summary) is used as an example of a method for extracting the updated portion. RSS is a language for cataloging resources such as individual pages in a website, and is currently distributed as an inventory of update information for each category of websites and websites. is there. Which RSS page is associated with which Web page is indicated by describing the URL of the RSS with the <link> tag in the HTML source of the Web content 15a.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of the RSS source 15b linked to the Web content 15a of FIG.

  As shown in this figure, RSS has a predetermined hierarchical structure, and individual update information is described in <item> tags. The information to be described is prepared by the web site distributor described by the title 15bT of the updated page described by the <title> tag, the URL 15bL of the article text described by the <link> tag, and the <description> tag The article summary 15bA, the category 15bC described by the <category> tag, the update date and time 15bD described by the <dc: date> tag, and the like.

  Much of the information described in RSS is merely information about which of the pages corresponding to the branches and leaves in the site (in the news site, the detailed body page of the article rather than the top) has been updated. However, information in RSS is scattered on other pages, such as a title being used for a link to this branch and leaf page. For this reason, if the information in RSS is referred, it can be estimated which part of the branch and leaf page described in RSS and the other page linked to it is new.

  FIG. 9 shows an example of summarizing the columns in the Web content 15a of FIG. 4 by the column summary generation method by the “updated part extraction”, that is, an example of the result of extracting and summarizing the updated part from the information by RSS. FIG. A specific processing operation for creating a column summary in the Web browser program 23a will be described later.

  The column C1 is a guide menu portion that always indicates fixed information, and is a portion that has no related description in the RSS, that is, a portion that has no new article. Therefore, according to this generation method, no content is extracted in the column C1.

  In column C2, since there is a new article with title / URL in RSS, the main title of the article in RSS (updated page title 15bT) is extracted. Further, the article body below the Web content 15a is replaced with the article summary 15bA prepared by the Web content distributor in the RSS.

  Column C3 is an example in which not only the title 15bT of the updated page in RSS but also the category 15bC is used. The category name is often used as a title for each category in the Web content 15a, and it is also a keyword that directly indicates what content the column has. Although it is not a newly updated part, the category name is also promising as summary content.

  In addition, this column C3 includes many updated portions and has a very small display range, so even if it is summarized, it does not fit in the display range. Therefore, when the display range is limited, the update date and time 15bD in RSS is referred to, and a newer one is extracted preferentially.

  Columns C4 and C5 are examples of column summaries including links to articles of yesterday whose update date 15aD is old. Yesterday's old article is not extracted because it disappeared from RSS or because the article with the newest update date was prioritized.

  In addition, regarding the column C5, the advertisement portion not included in the RSS is also deleted without being extracted. As described above, using RSS has an advantage that information that is not related to a website such as an advertisement can be excluded.

  In this embodiment, RSS is used. However, if the meta information indicates update information of the Web content 15a, information in other formats such as Atom can be used.

  Further, the method itself for extracting the update portion is not limited to the method using update information distributed such as RSS.

  For example, a difference from the Web content stored in the client device 20 at the previous visit is obtained, an update date and time attached to a title or the like is used as a key, a character string / icon image such as “New” or “Update” It is conceivable to detect this.

  Furthermore, only a column that has no or very few update parts, such as the column C1 in FIG. 9, may be combined with a column summary creation method that is different from the column summary generation method according to the “update part extraction”.

  Next, a method for generating a column summary by “summary in a general sense” will be described. This summarizes the sentences in the column in a so-called general sense, syntactically.

  About this general summary technical content, since the existing technique should just be used and it is not the summary of this invention, the description is abbreviate | omitted.

  The result of using this generation method is, for example, like the column C2 in FIG.

  In addition to the summary, only keywords may be automatically picked up from the text in the column and listed.

  On the other hand, when “full text” is used as the column summary used for the Web content preview summary content for the text summary as described above, there is almost no meaning as the summary. This pattern is only meaningful when combined with a preview UI as shown in FIG.

  As for handling of images when generating summary content for preview, when generating summary content for preview, images in the column may not be included in the column summary or may be included in a reduced size (in the example of FIG. 7). The image is excluded from the column summary, and is included as in the column C4 in the example of FIG. Even when an image is included, a large image may be excluded or only an icon with a small size may be included.

  However, depending on the site, important text may be imaged, such as using a font or background for the title to create an image with characters or using an input form button as an image. In order to deal with such a case, only a “long image having a height of about characters and a landscape” may be included in the column summary.

  Next, the types of preview UI for presenting preview summary content to the user will be described.

  In the present embodiment, the preview summary content created by the creation method described above is presented to the user by the method shown in FIG. In other words, there are four types of presentation: “reduction”, “scroll / slide”, “balloon”, and “no processing”. Of these, “reduction” has two types of reduction methods, “font reduction” and “thumbnail reduction”, and “scroll / slide” includes “auto scroll”, “marquee”, and “split slide show”. There are types.

  Note that these methods are not necessarily used alone, and can be used in appropriate combination, for example, “font reduction” + “automatic scrolling”.

  Hereinafter, each type of preview UI will be described.

  FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of screen transition in which the “font reduction” UI is applied as the preview UI.

  This “font reduction” UI, as shown in FIG. 10A, displays the preview summary content with the font reduced, and the display area of the column (columns C3 and C4 in this example) in the display range 27a. The text is displayed so as not to overflow. In this example, “summarization by text strength” of column summarization is used as the summarization method. Of course, the preview UI can display all types of preview summary contents shown in FIG.

  When a user operation such as a scroll operation or a zoom operation is performed from the state of FIG. 10A and the area of the display area of the column in the display range 27a is increased, FIG. As shown, the column summarization level is automatically lowered and replaced with the preview summary content that is longer and closer to the original, or the font reduction degree is lowered and displayed in a larger font.

  When the area of the display area of the column (column C3 in this example) in the display range 27a becomes larger than the threshold, the display is switched to the original display that is not a summary as shown in FIG. In addition, for the column in which the area of the display area is equal to or smaller than the threshold value (column C1 in this example), the display is switched from the original display image to the summary content for preview.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of screen transition in which a “thumbnail reduction” UI is applied as a preview UI. As shown in FIG. 11A, the “thumbnail reduction” UI displays a thumbnail image of the preview summary content of a column, and the area of the display area of the column (in this example, columns C3 and C4) in the display range 27a. By changing the reduction ratio and aspect ratio according to the above, the display is reduced in the display area. In this example, the summarization method uses “full text (as is)” without summarization, and the aspect ratio of the thumbnail is variable.

  Also in this case, a user operation such as a scroll operation or a zoom operation is performed, and the reduction ratio and the aspect ratio are automatically changed according to the increase / decrease of the display area of the column in the display range 27a. For example, when the area of the display area increases, the display is enlarged as shown in FIG. In addition, the degree of column summarization of the summary content for preview may be changed as appropriate.

  When the area of the display area of the column (column C3 in this example) in the display range 27a becomes larger than the threshold, the display is switched to the original display that is not a summary as shown in FIG. In addition, for the column in which the area of the display area is equal to or smaller than the threshold value (column C1 in this example), the display is switched from the original display image to the summary content for preview.

  In addition, since it becomes difficult to see when the aspect ratio changes extremely, an upper limit may be set for the change of the aspect ratio, or the thumbnail may be displayed in the form of margins at the top and bottom or the left and right of the thumbnail without changing the aspect ratio at all.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen to which an “automatic scroll” UI is applied as a preview UI. This “automatic scroll” UI automatically and repeatedly scrolls the column preview summary content within the display area of the column in the display range 27a. That is, within the display range indicated by the double arrow in FIG. 12, the summary content for preview of the column (column C3 in this example) is automatically slowly scrolled from the upper end, and when reaching the lower end, from the upper end again. A display such as scrolling is performed. The preview UI can be displayed for any type of column summary of the preview summary content shown in FIG.

  The “marquee” UI and the “split slide show” UI as the preview UI are not particularly shown, but are not scrolled in the display area of the column in the display range 27a, but for each number of lines that fit in the display area. The summary contents for preview are divided and flowed by a marquee, that is, scrolling in the horizontal direction, or switching like an automatic slide show.

  In any of these “scroll / slide” preview UIs, as in the case of “reduction”, when the area of the column display area becomes larger than the threshold value, the display is switched to the original display which is not a summary.

  FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen in which a “balloon” UI is applied as a preview UI. This “balloon” UI displays thumbnail images of column preview summary contents in the form of a balloon 27c at a timing such as when the mouse pointer 27b is placed on the column or a balloon button (not shown) is pressed. It is. This preview UI can be displayed for any type of column summary of the preview summary content shown in FIG.

  It should be noted that the degree of summarization of the summary content may be appropriately adjusted according to the requirements, such as a very large column for balloon display, or a sufficiently small area of the balloon 27c.

  On the other hand, when the “no processing” UI is applied as the preview UI, the preview summary content of the column is displayed with the same character size without reduction. However, no processing is performed at all, and the degree of summarization is adjusted according to the increase or decrease in the area of the column display area.

  Also in this case, when the area of the display area of the column becomes larger than the threshold value, the display is switched to the original display that is not a summary.

  This preview UI can also display all types of preview summary contents shown in FIG.

  It should be noted that it is preferable that the user can appropriately select which type of preview UI shown in FIG. 6B is used to present the preview summary content to the user. However, it may be fixed to only one type, or not all types but some of them may be selectable.

  Next, the operation of the client device 20 for displaying the preview summary content as described above will be described in detail.

  FIG. 14A is a main process flowchart of the Web browser program 23 a in the client device 20.

  When the Web browser program 23a stored in the ROM 23 is activated in response to a user operation, and the Web content 15a distributed by the server device 10 of the Web site designated by the user is received and acquired, the Web content In 15a, the source structure of the HTML is analyzed and drawn in a frame buffer (not shown) in the RAM 24 (step S1). This process is performed not only by the browser activation operation but also by a user operation for reading a new Web page such as a link click.

  Up to this point, the process is the same as that of a normal browser. Note that, in a normal browser, as shown in FIG. 5, the hardware information of the display device 27 of the client device 20 stored in advance and the current enlargement ratio, etc. are stored in the web content 15a drawn in the frame buffer in the RAM 24. The browser window display range 27a is determined based on the display mode information.

  On the other hand, in this embodiment, a column preview control process is further executed.

  Web content 15a drawn in the frame buffer in RAM 24 is divided into columns using existing algorithms that are functions implemented by many browsers for mobile terminals, such as Opera (registered trademark) and NetFront (registered trademark). (Step S2).

  Then, a column that is in the display range 27a of the browser window but has an insufficient display amount is determined, and preview processing is performed on the column, thereby displaying the preview summary content as described above ( Step S3). Details of the previewing process will be described later.

  Thereafter, it is determined whether scrolling or zooming has been performed by a user operation (step S4). If it is determined that such a user operation has been performed, scrolling or zooming is performed according to the user operation (step S5). Then, every time there is a change in the display amount of each column in the display range 27a, the column previewing process is performed again (step S6).

  After that, or when it is determined in step S4 that there is no scrolling or zooming user operation, it is determined whether or not a transition to another web page is made by the user operation or whether the browser is instructed to end (step). S7). Here, when it is determined that there is no transition to another Web page or a user operation for instructing to end the browser, the process returns to step S4 and the above-described operation is repeated.

  Thus, if it is determined that a user operation of a transition to another Web page or a browser termination instruction has been performed, the process is terminated.

  FIG. 14B is a flowchart showing details of the column preview processing executed in step S3 or step S6.

  First, all the columns within the display range 27a of the browser window, that is, within the screen are specified (step S11).

  Then, individual preview processing is performed for all columns. Therefore, first, “1” is set to the counter n provided on the memory (RAM 24) for counting the number of processed columns (step S12). Thereafter, it is determined whether or not the area of the display area of the nth column to be processed is equal to or less than the preview threshold (step S13).

  Here, when it is determined that the display area area of the processing target column is equal to or smaller than the previewing threshold value, a column summarization process is executed to generate preview summary content in accordance with the area of the display area of the column ( Step S14). Details of the column summarization process will be described later. Then, the generated preview summary content is displayed in the column display area, and one of the preview UIs shown in FIG. 6B is assigned (step S15). Thereafter, the counter n is incremented by “+1” (step S16), and it is determined whether or not the result exceeds the number of columns in the screen (step S17). If it has not been exceeded, it is determined that there is an unprocessed column, and the process returns to step S13 to execute the process for the next column.

  On the other hand, if it is determined in step S13 that the display area area of the processing target column exceeds the previewing threshold value, it is determined whether or not the column is displaying the preview summary content. (Step S18). If it is determined that the display state is not the preview summary content but the original display image, the process proceeds to step S16. On the other hand, when it is determined that the preview summary content is being displayed, the preview is canceled, that is, the display is returned from the preview summary content to the original display image (step S19), and the process returns to step S16. move on.

  Thus, when the processing for all the columns in the display range 27a of the browser window, that is, the screen is completed, the value of the counter n becomes “the total number of columns + 1”. It is determined that the number of columns exceeds the number of columns in the screen, and the preview processing for the columns is terminated.

  The column summarization process executed in step 14 is a process for generating preview summary content that summarizes a column by any of the methods shown in FIG. In the following, two examples of text summarization “cutting out by text strength” and “extracting updated parts” will be described. As for the text summary “summary”, existing technology can be used, and when “full text” is used as column summary, no special processing is required. Description is omitted.

  FIG. 15 is a flowchart of the column summarization process when preview summary content is generated by “cutting by text strength”. This is an example of the screen shown in Fig. 7, which calculates the text strength of each line in the column and cuts out the more important (conspicuous) text preferentially, thereby realizing a method of extracting only the important part of the column. is there.

  That is, first, it is confirmed whether or not the text intensity has already been calculated and stored in the memory (RAM 24) for the column currently being processed (step S21). This is always no in the first summarization process. If the calculation has been completed, the process proceeds to step S25 described later in order to reuse the previous calculation result as it is.

  If it is determined that the text strength has not been calculated, the column is divided into rows and the text strength for each row is calculated (step S22). Details of the calculation of the text intensity will be described later. Next, sorting is performed in descending order of the calculated strength and in ascending order of the row number (upper in the column) (step S23), and the sorting result is stored in the memory (step S24).

  Next, the remaining area counter provided on the memory (RAM 24) is initialized to the value of the area of the column display region (step S25). Then, “1” is set to a counter m provided on the memory (RAM 24) for counting the number of processed rows (step S26). After that, the m-th line is taken out from the line sorted in descending order of text strength and line number, and the number of characters that can be displayed in the remaining area indicated by the value of the remaining area counter is taken out from the line. The number of characters allowed by the area is cut out and stored in the memory (step S27). Since the remaining area is reduced by this cutting, the display area of the mth row is subtracted from the remaining area counter (step S28).

  Thereafter, it is determined whether or not the remaining area indicated by the remaining area counter is greater than 0 (step S29). If it is determined that it is still larger than 0, the counter m is incremented by “+1” (step S30), and it is determined whether or not the result exceeds the number of rows in the column (step S31). If it has not exceeded, it is determined that there is an unprocessed line, and the process returns to step S27 to execute the process for the next line.

  Thus, if it is determined in step S29 that the remaining area is 0 or less, or if it is determined in step S31 that the counter m has exceeded the number of rows in the column, that is, all the rows in the column have been processed. For example, the preview summary content is generated by combining all the texts cut out in step S27 and stored in the memory (step S32), and the column summarization process is terminated.

  Each cut-out text is maintained in the same style as the original display unless there is a style change (font reduction, etc.) in the preview UI, so that there is no sense of incompatibility when compared with the original display.

  Further, in the flowchart of FIG. 15, regarding the lines having the same text strength, the upper one is preferentially cut out, and in some cases, the lower line is not displayed at all. Therefore, for lines at the same level of strength, if there is not enough remaining area to display all text on all lines, the number of characters to be cut out for each line is determined by even distribution, and the heads of all lines are cut out and displayed. You may make it do. In this method, the end of the line is omitted, but since all the lines are visible, even if there is important content below, at least the beginning of the line can be seen by the user.

Next, the text intensity for each line calculated in step S22 will be described.
“Text strength per line” is the sum of the strength points calculated for each style information such as “font size”, “font weight (thickness)”, “background”, etc. of the text. .

  That is, as the font size and font weight values increase, the text characters themselves become more conspicuous. Another common design for websites is to make a visual break by changing the background to a single line to make it stand out. The calculation method is determined so that the text strength is increased for such lines containing conspicuous text.

  Note that the calculation method described here is merely an example, and any calculation method may be used as long as it is based on the basic idea of “specifying prominent important text”.

For index values that make the text stand out when the style value is large, such as font size and font weight, first, the minimum value f _min and maximum value f _max of the index value of the in-column text are obtained. Then, normalization is performed so that the minimum value f _min of the index value is 0 point and the maximum value f _max is 100 points, and the mode value f of the index value in the row is used as a representative value, and the intensity is calculated by the following equation (1). Calculate points.

Intensity point = {(f−f _min ) / (f _max −f _min )} × 100 (1)
That is, when the intensity for each line is obtained, the mode value f of the font size (or weight) in that line is used as a representative value, and the value obtained by the above formula becomes the value of the font size (or weight) intensity point.

  On the other hand, for index values that are stronger as a minority, such as the background, first, the number of characters is tabulated for each value of the index.

  FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example of the result of counting the number of characters for each background in the column. This is because the number of characters having background color #xxx in the column, background image XX. This is the result of totaling the number of characters s for each background, such as the number of characters with gif.

Then, the majority background with the largest number of characters is normalized to 0 points and the background with the fewest minorities to 100 points, the number of characters in the line is s, the maximum number of characters per row in the column is s _max The background intensity point is calculated by the following equation (2), where the number of characters is s _min .

Background intensity point = {(s−s _min ) / (s _max −s _min )} × 100 (2)
That is, the smaller the number of characters, the higher the number of points.

  Then, the text intensity point as a total intensity including all the font size, font weight, and background intensity points calculated in this way is calculated by weighting and adding each intensity point according to the following equation (3). The

Text strength point = Weight _fs × Font size strength point
+ Weight _fw x font weight strength point
+ Weight _bg x background intensity point (3)
The intensity of each index value is normalized to 0 to 100 points, but whether the text is noticeable depends on the font weight and the background rather than the font size. Therefore, adjustment is made by assigning weights individually.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an example of the text intensity for each line calculated by the above calculation formula.
This is an example using the column C3 of FIG. The font size weight _fs is “1”, the font weight weight _fw is “1.5”, and the background weight _bg is “2”.

  In the case of this example, the text strength point has the strongest title (400 points) indicating the category name (400 points) and the next strongest article title in the category (250 points). The weakest (0 points) is an explanatory note attached below the article title.

  In this way, the text strength is determined so as to increase in the order of conspicuousness.

  FIG. 18 is a flowchart of the column summarization process in the case where preview summary content is generated by “extracting an updated part”. This realizes a method of extracting only the most recently updated portion in the column and using it as summary content for preview of the column, which is an example of the screen shown in FIG.

  That is, first, it is confirmed whether or not the RSS associated with the Web content 15a of the Web page being processed is already acquired and stored in the memory (RAM 24) (step S41). This is always no in the first summarization process. If it has already been acquired, the process proceeds to step S44, which will be described later, in order to reuse the previously acquired one as it is.

  If it is determined that the RSS has not been acquired, it is checked whether there is an RSS associated with the Web content 15a of the Web page (step S42). If it is determined that there is no RSS, summarization by this method is impossible, the preview summary content as output is emptied, and the column summarization process is terminated.

  On the other hand, if it is determined that the RSS exists, the RSS is newly acquired and stored in the memory so that it can be used in the next processing (step S43).

  Then, a text that matches the title included in the update information in the RSS is searched from the text in the web content 15a of the web page, extracted and stored in the memory (step S44). The matched text is hereinafter referred to as title text. Then, it is determined whether or not this title text exists (step S45). If it does not exist, there is no updated portion in this column, so that the summary content for preview is emptied and the column summary processing is terminated. .

  If it is determined that title text exists, for each of them, if there is a summary sentence in RSS, it is acquired. Therefore, first, “1” is set to the counter m provided on the memory (RAM 24) for counting the number of processed title texts (step S46). Thereafter, it is determined whether or not there is a summary for the mth title text in the RSS (step S47). Here, if there is no summary, it will progress to step S49 mentioned later. On the other hand, if there is a summary, the summary is acquired from RSS and stored in the memory as the m-th title summary sentence (step S48). Then, the counter m is incremented by “+1” (step S49), and it is determined whether or not the result exceeds the number of title texts (step S50). If it has not been exceeded, it is determined that there is an unprocessed title, and the process returns to step S47 to execute processing for the next title text.

  Thus, if it is determined in step S50 that the counter m has exceeded the number of title texts, that is, all the title texts have been processed, all the title texts stored in the memory and the corresponding titles obtained from RSS. The summary contents for preview are combined in order to generate the summary contents for preview (step S51), and the column summarization process is terminated.

  Note that in the generation of preview summary content in step S51, the title summary sentence obtained from the RSS is arranged so as to be attached below the corresponding title text.

  Each title text is maintained in the same style as the original display unless there is a style change (font reduction or the like) by the preview UI, so that there is no sense of incompatibility when compared with the original display.

  If it is determined in step S42 that there is no RSS, or if it is determined in step S47 that there is no update part in the column, the preview summary content must be emptied. Only the column may generate the preview summary content by another method shown in FIG.

  As described above, according to the server / client system according to the embodiment of the information processing apparatus of the present invention, when displaying the Web page on the browser, the Web content 15a is divided into columns and the browser window is now displayed. If the display area of a column in the range 27a is not sufficient, a summary content for preview that is a summary of the content of the column is created and displayed in that portion, and the display method is also reduced font or automatic By adding a preview UI such as scrolling, the small display area is compensated, so even if the list is low, such as zooming on a small screen, what kind of column can be seen at the edge of the screen? The user can know the outline, and the user's trouble of scrolling unnecessarily just to check the column contents is greatly reduced. The user is able to Web browsing more comfortable. It should be noted that the degree to which the column is summarized (whether it is shortened or lengthened) is automatically adjusted according to the display area of the column.

  Also, if there is a change in the area of the column display area due to scrolling, zooming, etc., the text with high strength is preferentially summarized, the updated part is extracted and summarized in a general sense, Since the summary content for preview is created by automatically adjusting the degree of summarization, it is possible to perform display suitable for the area of the display area, and display closer to the original as the area of the display area increases. Therefore, it is possible to effectively use a limited screen space in accordance with the display state at that time.

  Also, even if the column display area is too small to display a sufficient summary, scrolling a few times can display a sufficient summary, which is much less than the usual (no summary displayed) case. By grasping the contents of the column by the number of times, it can be judged whether the information is of interest.

  In addition, when generating summary content for preview, the text extracted for summarization is displayed in the same font / background style as the original display unless there is a request for font reduction on the preview UI. Therefore, the appearance of the summary content is unified with the original display without any sense of incongruity, and the user suddenly changed the background color after scrolling. Web browsing is possible without any confusion.

  In addition, it is possible to compensate for the small size of the display area by performing preview display including font reduction, thumbnail reduction, automatic scrolling, marquee, split slide show, and thumbnail balloon. If the user can arbitrarily select whether to add the preview UI, it is possible to display in a display form that the user feels most comfortable to view.

  In the embodiment, the column preview control function is installed in the Web browser program 23a of the client device 20 in a normal server / client system to acquire and display the content 15a of the Web site specified by the user. Explained the case. On the other hand, when the content 15a of the Web site specified by the user is acquired and displayed on the thin client terminal in the server-based computing system (SBC), it is activated by an input event from the thin client terminal. A column preview control function similar to that described above may be installed in the Web browser of the server device.

  Note that each processing method by the information processing apparatus described in the embodiment, that is, each processing method shown in the flowcharts of FIGS. 14, 15, and 18 is a program that can be executed by a computer. Store and distribute in a medium of an external storage device 25 (15) such as a memory card (ROM card, RAM card, etc.), magnetic disk (floppy disk, hard disk, etc.), optical disk (CD-ROM, DVD, etc.), semiconductor memory, etc. be able to. Then, the computer (CPU 21 (11)) of the information processing apparatus reads the program stored in the medium of the external storage device 25 (15) into the storage device (flash ROM 23 (13) or RAM 24 (14)) and reads this program. By controlling the operation by the program, the column preview control function described in the embodiment can be realized, and the same processing can be executed by the method described above.

  Further, program data for realizing each of the above methods can be transmitted on the communication network (N) in the form of a program code, and from a computer device (program server) connected to the communication network (N). The above-described column preview control function can be realized by fetching the program data and storing it in a storage device (flash ROM 23 (13) or RAM 24 (14)).

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention when it is practiced. Furthermore, the one embodiment includes inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriately combining a plurality of disclosed constituent elements.

N ... Network 10 ... Server device 11 ... CPU
12 ... Bus 13 ... ROM
14: Frame buffer RAM
15 ... External storage device 15a ... Web content 15b ... RSS source 15bT ... Updated page title 15bL ... Article text URL
15bA ... Summary of article 15bC ... Category 15bD ... Update date 16 ... Input device 17 ... Display device 18 ... Communication I / F
20 ... Client device 21 ... CPU
22 ... Bus 23 ... ROM
23a ... Web browser program 24 ... RAM
25 ... External storage device 26 ... Input device 27 ... Display device 27a ... Display range of browser window 27b ... Mouse pointer 27c ... Balloon 28 ... Communication I / F
C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 ... column

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and its program for displaying content information.

An object of this invention is to provide the information processing apparatus which can improve the convenience of browsing the received content.

Claim 1 is an information processing apparatus for displaying content information on a display screen, and includes a receiving means for receiving content information via a network, and content information received this time by the receiving means that is newly updated. and extraction means to output Remove the moiety, it is characterized in that the content information extracted portion by said extraction means comprising a display control means for displaying on the display screen.

According to the present invention, it is possible to immediately confirm the content of a newly updated portion of content.

Claims (7)

An information processing apparatus that displays a page including content on a display screen,
Storage means for storing a page in which a plurality of column areas in which content is to be displayed are laid out;
When displaying the page on the display screen, the display size of the column area displayed on the display screen is sufficiently larger than the threshold value of the column area for each column area included in the page. A judgment means for judging whether or not the area;
For the column area determined to be not sufficient display area by this determination means, the newly updated part is extracted from the contents to be displayed corresponding to the column area, and the extracted part is displayed. Display control means for displaying content in the corresponding column region;
An information processing apparatus comprising: The display control means displays the entire content to be displayed corresponding to the column area for the column area determined to be a sufficient display area by the determination means in the corresponding column area.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1. When it is determined that the display size of the column area of the column area in which the extracted portion of the content is displayed is a sufficient display area, the display control unit displays the content in the content area. Display the entire content to be done,
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2. The display control means extracts a newly updated portion of the content based on RSS of each content portion included in the content.
The information processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3. The display control means extracts a newly updated portion of the content based on date and time information of each content portion included in the content.
The information processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3. The display control means displays a marquee when displaying the content in the column area.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information processing apparatus is an information processing apparatus. A program for controlling a computer of an information processing apparatus that displays a page including content on a display screen,
The computer,
Storage means for storing a page in which a plurality of column areas in which content is to be displayed are laid out;
When displaying the page on the display screen, the display size of the column area displayed on the display screen is sufficiently larger than the threshold value of the column area for each column area included in the page. Judgment means for judging whether or not the area,
For the column area determined to be not sufficient display area by this determination means, the newly updated part is extracted from the contents to be displayed corresponding to the column area, and the extracted part is displayed. Display control means for displaying content in the corresponding column region;
A computer-readable program designed to function as a computer.

Images