WO2013025193A1

WO2013025193A1 - Web content capturing, packaging distribution

Info

Publication number: WO2013025193A1
Application number: PCT/US2011/047703
Authority: WO
Inventors: Alexander Skirpa; Eric Fletcher
Original assignee: Savnor Technologies Llc
Priority date: 2011-08-14
Filing date: 2011-08-14
Publication date: 2013-02-21

Abstract

Computer tools, processes, and systems for capturing web content are provided. A webpage is rendered on a user device. An area within the rendered webpage is selected. Metadata describing the location of the web content within the selected area of the rendered webpage is determined and persistently stored within a database. A window is provided on a user device rendering the web content corresponding to the selected area. The web content is rendered within the window in the same context as the web content was initially rendered on the user device. The rendered web content may include partial objects or elements of the web page and provide all the functionality normally associated with the web content.

Description

WEB CONTENT CAPTURING, PACKAGING, DISTRIBUTION

TECHNICAL FIELD

The field of the invention generally relates to a computer tool, a method, and a system and in particular with a specialized computer tool, method, and system for a browser, browser plug-in, or browser extension including a web button or mobile browser.

BACKGROUND

The Internet provides access to unprecedented amount of information and content. On the World Wide Web, users may access content provided by web pages on websites. A web page provides content or resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web. Typically a web page is accessed through a web browser running on a computer which utilizes a layout or rendering engine to render the web content for presentation to a user. The content is typically provided in a hypertext markup language (HTML), extensible hypertext Markup Language (XHML) format and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links.

Users of the Internet have numerous tools available for presenting, parsing and collecting content from web pages. User may bookmark web pages using social bookmarking content collection services, such as Digg, Kaboodle, AddThis, Netvibes, and IGoogle among others, to identify and access web content, RSS feeds, and Podcasts. These services generally allow users to easily identify, access, and reference content provided by a web publisher, but only in the form created, provided, or specified by the web publisher or creator of the content.

Generally a user accesses the content through a web browser. When a user views a web page using a conventional web browser, the user may modify how the browser displays the content to a minimal extent. For example, the user may be able to increase the size of the text displayed, maximize or minimize the browser, and adjust the size of the window displaying the content, scroll through content displayed, block or enable scripts and popup windows, and may move the position of the browser display on a desktop environment the screen. When the window or display of the browser presents less than all of the content on a page, various browser functions (e.g., scroll bars) permit the user to manipulate the content displayed within the window or display. Many web pages display a large amount of content on a single page that may include many different types of content. However, a user only may have interest in a certain portion of the web page. When trying to collect or share this information it is sometimes difficult to point to or describe the area of interest to the user. Often, a user may share a link to the web page using an identifier, such as a uniform resource locator (URL); however, the URLs merely points to the entire page making it difficult for the user to convey only the desired portion. SUMMARY

In one general aspect, computer tools, devices, processes, software, and systems for capturing web content are provided. In general, a webpage is rendered on a user device. An area within the rendered webpage is selected for capture. Metadata describing the location of the web content within the selected area of the rendered webpage is determined and persistently stored within a database. A window is provided on a user device rendering the web content corresponding to the selected area. In one aspect, the dimension of the window may be substantially equal to the dimensions of the area selected for capture. The web content is rendered within the window in the same context as the web content was initially rendered on the user device and may be manipulated and interacted with. The rendered web content may include partial objects or elements of the web page and provide all the functionality normally associated with the web content. The web content may be shared with other users including sending a message with a link configured to render the web content corresponding to the selected area on a user device.

In yet another general aspect, software stored in a storage device to present captured web content of a webpage provided by a web content provider system includes instructions configured to cause one or more processing devices to: determine the location of a selected capture area of the webpage; and render the captured web content corresponding to the selected capture area within a window of an interface of the user device.

The software may include instructions to identify a pixel of the webpage as anchor coordinates for determining the location of the capture area within the webpage. The software also may include instructions to determine the dimensions of the interface window in pixels. The software also may include instructions to determine the dimensions of the selected capture area to be substantially equal to the dimensions of the interface window. The software may include instructions to present any partial objects or elements of the web page that fall within the selected capture area of the webpage.

The software may include instructions to receive markup tags from a service provider system and to determine the location of the selected capture area from the received markup tags. The software also may include instructions configured to receive markup tags configured to position the window corresponding to the location of the selected capture area within the webpage.

The software may include instructions to determine an offset to position the window of the interface at the location of the selected capture area within the webpage to present the captured web content within the window of the interface.

The software may include instructions to present a predetermined advertisement selected in association with the captured web content.

In one general aspect, a method for capturing web content of a webpage provided by a web content provider system rendered in an interface window of the user device a user device, the method comprising: rendering an indication of an area specified by a user input device for capture in the interface window; determining the dimensions of the rendered indication of the capture area by a processing device; determining coordinates associated with the rendered indication of the capture area by the processing device; determining offsets associated with the coordinates relative to the position of the rendered indication within the webpage by the processing device; and transmitting the determined dimensions and the determined offsets to a system service provider for capture of the web content rendered within the indication of the capture area.

The dimensions may be determined or measured in pixels. A pixel corresponding to the coordinates also may be determined. A rectangle bounding the capture area may be rendered according to input from the user input device. The dimensions of the rectangle may be determined, and the location of the upper left hand corner of the rectangle may be determined as the coordinates. An x offset and a y offset specifying the location of the coordinates relative to the upper left hand corner of the webpage also may be determined.

In another general aspect, a method of presenting web content captured from a webpage of a web content provider system performed by one or more processing devices includes: retrieving metadata corresponding to a capture operation from a database including the location of a user specified captured area within a webpage corresponding to the captured web content; determining the dimensions of an interface window to present the captured web content from the retrieved metadata; determining an offset from the retrieved metadata to position the interface window relative to the webpage to present the captured web content within the interface window; creating a data structure populated with at least some of the retrieved metadata and the determined size and the determined offset; translating the data structure into markup tags configured to display the captured web content of the webpage in the interface window on a client device; and transmitting the markup tags to a browser of the client device.

The dimensions determined in pixels. An x offset and a y offset of anchor coordinates of the captured area within the webpage also may be determined. The dimensions of a rectangle bounding the capture area measured in pixels may be determined. An x offset and a y offset specifying the location of the upper left hand corner of the rectangle relative to the upper left hand corner of the webpage also may be determined.

The method also may include determining a context of the captured web content using at least some of the metadata; selecting an electronic advertisement corresponding to the determined context; and serving the electronic advertisement for presentation by the client device.

The method also may include creating an image of the captured web content; analyzing the image to determine a context of the image; selecting an electronic advertisement corresponding to the determined context; and serving the electronic advertisement for presentation by the client device.

The method also may include receiving an indication from a user to share the captured web content with a social networking website or personal start-webpage; translating the metadata into format compatible with an application programming interface (API) of the social networking website or personal start webpage; and transmitting the translated metadata to the social networking website or personal start webpage to present the captured user specified web content.

The method also may include receiving an indication from a user to share the captured web content with a social networking website or personal start-webpage; translating the metadata into format compatible with an API of the social networking website or personal start webpage; and transmitting the translated metadata to the social networking website or personal start webpage to present the captured user specified web content.

The method also may include receiving an indication from a user to share the captured web content; sending an electronic communication with a unique identification corresponding to the captured web content; and receiving the unique identification from a client device presenting the electronic communication, wherein retrieving metadata corresponding to the capture operation including retrieving metadata corresponding to the unique identification; and transmitting the markup tags includes transmitting the markup tags to a browser of the client device presenting the electronic communication.

The details of various embodiments are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages will be apparent from the following description, the drawings, and the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig. 1 is an example of a computer system providing web content.

Fig. 2 is an example of a computer device for use in a computer system.

Fig. 3 is an example of a system diagram.

Fig. 4 is an example of a process for a capture tool.

Fig. 5A is illustration of an example of metadata used in of capture operation.

Fig. 5B is illustration of a capture operation. Fig. 5 C is an example of a method for a capture operation.

Fig. 5D is an example of a method of display of a capture area.

Fig. 6 is an example of a database structure.

Fig. 7 is an example of a flow chart with regard to a capture and a display process.

Fig. 8 is an example of a flow chart for capture logic and display logic.

Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 are examples of screen shots illustrating web content and use of a capture tool.

Fig. 16 illustrates an example of a screen shot of the display window of a maximized capture interface.

Fig. 17 illustrates an example of a screen shot of the capture interface open in the tab of a browser window.

Fig. 18 is an example of a flow chart for sharing captured content. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description provides universal content referencing, capturing, packaging, and distribution methods, systems, and computer tools that work in conjunction with web content interfaces provided by a computing device. The tools, methods, and systems support manipulation and distribution of a user selected area of web content from a web page. The computer tool also may be implemented as a browser, as a plug-in or extension to a browser, a button on a webpage, or embedded within web content. In particular, the tools, methods, and systems are configured to manipulate a user defined area of a webpage, capture the area, package the area, and distribute the package to others as desired. In addition, the system allows website creator to monitor how their websites and web pages are being accessed, used, and distributed.

For example, a user may select a user input on a website (e.g., a button) to cause a tool

(e.g., a marquee select tool) to define an area of the webpage (e.g., a rectangular box), and package the defined area (e.g., using a URL or other hyperlink) and send the defined area (e.g., by email with the link embedded therein) to another user that when activated provides the selected area and its content in a new dynamically created pop-up window, an expandable pop- up window, or a browser window. Alternatively, the tool may be provided by a browser, a plug- in or extension to a browser, a button, or as a widget to define the area of the webpage. An initial, dynamically created pop-up window's size and content viewport is configured to coincide with the area of the webpage that was defined by a user using the computer tool. The user defined area can then be manipulated and shared with other users via a communications service, such as email or messaging, or published on the web for sharing with a user population at large, such as on a user home page or various social networking websites. Various implementations, embodiments, configurations, and variations are described in greater detail below.

The computer tool is implemented by a computer device of a communications system. Fig. 1 shows one block diagram of an example of communications system 100. The communications system 100 includes one or more computer devices 101, one or more content provider systems 110, such as service provider systems, servers and server systems, Internet Service Providers, and websites, and various communication paths 130. As the communications system 100 is device and source agnostic, the computer tool is designed to work with any web- accessible user device, as explained in further detail below.

A computer device or computer system 101, referred to herein and throughout as a user device, may be any type of electronic device that presents, plays, or renders content, such as a web page accessed from the Internet or World Wide Web for a user. Typically, a computer device includes one or more processing devices as described below. For example, the user device may be a consumer electronics device, a mobile phone, a smart phone, a personal data assistant, a digital tablet/pad computer, a hand held/mobile computer, a personal computer, a notebook computer, a work station, a vehicle computer, a game system, a set-top-box, or any other device that can implement a user interface and/or browser to communicate with, access, and present content from the Internet or World Wide Web to a user.

One example of a user device is shown in Fig. 2; however, it will be appreciated that this device is only exemplary and that any number of, types of, or configurations of different components and software may be incorporated into or omitted from the computer device. For example, the user device may include a number of components including one or more of the following: one or more processing devices 201, one or more storage devices 202, and one or more communications interfaces 203. A user device also may include additional elements, such as one or more input devices 204 (e.g., a display, a keyboard, a key pad, a mouse, a pointer device, a trackball, a joystick, a touch screen, microphone, etc.), one or more output devices 205 (e.g., speakers), a display 206, one or more interfaces 207, communications buses 208, controllers 209, removable storage devices 210, and at least one power source 211. Additional elements not shown may include components of a digital camera, an optical reader (e.g., a bar code scanner or an infrared scanner), an RFID reader, and antennas/transmitters and/or transceiver. A user device also may include one or more associated peripheral devices (not shown), such as, for example, a display, a memory, a printer, an input device, an output device, and speakers. As is appreciated by those skilled in the art, any of these components (other than at least one processing device) may be included or omitted to create different configurations or types of user devices, for example, to perform specific or specialized needs or tasks, generalized needs or multiuse tasks, or for various performance criteria, such as, mobility, speed, cost, efficiency, power consumption, ease of use, among others.

The processing device 201 may be implemented using one or more general-purpose or special purpose computers, such as, for example, a processor, a controller and an arithmetic logic unit, a digital signal processor, a microcomputer, a field programmable array, a programmable logic unit, a microprocessor or any other device capable of responding to and executing instructions in a defined manner. The processing device may run an operating system (OS) and one or more software applications that run on the OS including applications that communicate with content provider systems and present content received from the content provider systems to the user. The processing device also may access, store, manipulate, process, and create data in response to execution of the applications. For purpose of simplicity, the description of a processing device is used as singular; however, one skilled in the art will appreciated that a processing device may include multiple processing elements or device and multiple types of processing elements or devices. For example, a processing device may include multiple processors or a processor and a controller. In addition, different processing configurations are possible, such as serial processers, parallel processors, a quad processor, a main processor and a display processor or caching processor, among others. As used herein, a processing device configured to implement a function A includes a processor programmed to run specific software. In addition, a processing device configured to implement a function A, a function B, and a function C may include configurations, such as, for example, a processor configured to implement both functions A, B, and C, a first processor configured to implement function A, and a second processor configured to implement functions B and C, a first processor to implement function A, a second processor configured to implement function B, and a third processor configured to implement function C, a first processor configured to implement function A, and a second processor configured to implement functions B and C, a first processor configured to implement functions A, B, C, and a second processor configured to implement functions A, B, and C, and so on.

The software applications may include a computer program, a piece of code, an instruction, or some combination thereof, for independently or collectively instructing or configuring the processing device to operate as desired. Examples of software applications include: an operating system, drivers to control and/or operate various components of the user device (e.g., display, communications interface, input/output devices, etc.). In addition a user interface application may be provided, such as a browser, a mini browser, a mobile device browser, a widget, or other programs that interact with the content provider systems to provide or present content and a user interface or conduit for presenting the content, among other features including browser based tools, plug-in, and extension applications, such as Java, Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player, and a Flash Player (e.g., Adobe or Macromedia Flash). The applications may be resident in the processing device, loaded from a storage device, or accessed from a remote location or a storage device, as described in greater detail below. Once the applications, such as a browser, are loaded in or executed by the processing device, the processing device becomes a specific machine or apparatus configured to perform a function, such as to provide a user interface to render, present, provide, and interact with content from a content provider system. That is to say a user device with a processing device programmed in a certain way is physically different machine than that of a user device without that program as its memory elements are differently arranged and/or configured.

The software, applications, content, and data may be embodied permanently or temporarily in any type of machine, component, physical or virtual equipment, computer storage medium or device, or in a propagated signal wave capable of providing instructions or data to or being interpreted by the processing device. In particular, the software, applications, content, or data may be stored by one or more computer storage devices 202, 210 including volatile and non-volatile memories that store digital data (e.g., a read only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a flash memory, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a compact disk, a tape, a DROM, a flip-flop, a register, a buffer, an SRAM, DRAM, PROM, EPROM, OPTROM, EEPROM, NOVRAM, or RAMBUS), such that if the storage device is read or accessed by the processing device, the specified steps, processes, and/or instructions are performed and/or data is accessed, processed, and/or stored. The computer storage device may include an I/O interface, such that data and applications may be loaded and stored in or accessed or read from the computer storage device allowing the applications, programming, and data to be used, updated, deleted, changed, augmented, or otherwise manipulated. The computer storage device may be removable, such as, for example, a disk drive, a card, a stick, or a disk that is inserted in or removed from the user device.

The communications interface 203 may be used to exchange data and content with the content provider system using various communications paths. The communications interface may be implemented as part of the processing device or separately to allow the processing device to communicate or send and receive data using the communications paths. The communications interface may include two or more types of interfaces, including interfaces for different types of hardware and/or software to interact with different types of communications media and protocols and to translate information/data into a format that may be used by the processing device. Similarly, the interface may translate information/data received from the processing device to a format that may be transmitted to the service provider system via a communications path. The communications paths 130 may be configured to send and receive signals (e.g., electrical, acoustic, electromagnetic, or optical) that convey or carry data representing various types of analog and/or digital data including programming, software, media, and content, among others, for presentation to a user. For example, the communications paths may be implemented using various communications media and one or more networks comprising one or more network devices (e.g., network interface cards, fiber media converter, servers, routers, switches, hubs, bridges, repeaters, blades, processors, and storage devices). The one or more networks may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), an Ethernet, a global area network (GAN), a cloud network, a plain old telephone service (POTS) network, a digital subscriber line (DSL) network, an integrated services digital network (ISDN), a synchronous optical network (SONNET)/SDH, Passive and Active Optical Networks (PON or AON), a packet switched network, V.92 telephone network modems, IRDA, USB, Firewire, EIA RS-232, EIA-422, EIA-423, RS-449, RS-485, ITU, Tl and other T-carrier links, and El and other E- carrier links, varieties of 802.11, GSM Um radio interface, Bluetooth, IEEE 802. l lx Wi-Fi, TransferJet, Etherloop , ARINC 818 Avionics Digital Video Bus, G.hn/G.9960, or a combination of two or more of these networks to name a few.

In addition, the communications paths may include one or more wireless links (e.g., microwave, radio, and satellite) that transmit and receive electromagnetic signals, such as, for example, radio frequency, infrared, and microwave signals, to convey information/data signal using any one of a number of communications protocols, for example, communications links may include IMT-2000, such as 2G (GSM, GPRS, EDGE, EDGE Evolution, CSD, HSCSD), 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G (W-CDMA, HSPDA, HSUPA, UMTS-TDD, FOMA), 4G, and IEEE 802.11 standards, such as Wi-Fi or WLAN. In one example, a communications path may include the Internet or World Wide Web or components found therein.

Data and content may be exchanged between the content provider system and the user device through the communication interface and communication paths using any one of a number of communications protocols. In particular, data may be exchanged using a protocol used for communicating data across a packet- switched internetwork using, for example, the Internet Protocol Suite, also referred to as TCP/IP. The data and content may be delivered using datagrams (or packets) from the source host to the destination host solely based on their addresses. For this purpose the Internet Protocol defines addressing methods and structures for datagram encapsulation. Of course other protocols also may be used. Examples of an Internet protocol include Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).

The computer tool may be used to access, render, and/or present content, such as web pages and their associated web content that are provided by content provider systems. The content provider system 120 facilitates access to, organization of, and presentation of content to users in addition to providing many services. Examples of services provided by content provider systems include storefronts, news, blogs, entrainment, social media and networks, content sharing, among many others. The content provider system may store and manage content, such as web pages and websites in a location that is centralized and/or remote from the perspective of the user. The central location may be one physical location, such as a room, building, or campus providing the hardware components of the system. However, in reality the central location may be virtual or distributed where services are provided, content are accessed from, and data is stored over a number of distributed systems and/or locations. In other words, although the content provider systems are shown in Fig. 1 as being a single entity, other configurations wherein the applications, processing, services, content, and data are distributed both in terms of devices and geographical location are within the meaning of the content provider system. Additionally, the content provider system may use third parties to host the web page or website and may initiate services as needed on demand, for example, using cloud computing wherein the locations and structure providing the services changes size, and physical location, distribution, and even equipment dynamically over time.

The content provider system may include one or more communications devices, processing devices, memories/storage devices, communications interfaces, network devices, and communications paths (as described in detail above for computer devices 101) to store, process, manipulate, organize, consolidate, maintain, and present communications, content, and data for a user. Descriptions of communications devices, processing devices, storage devices, software, communications interfaces, network devices, and communications paths are all described above and are incorporated herein by reference and are not repeated in the interest of brevity.

The computer tool works may be configured to work in conjunction with a service provider system 110. The service provider system provides a mechanism to capture web content by allowing a user to identify and persistently store descriptive data for a user specified portion of a webpage. The service provider system also provides a mechanism to share the captured content with other users. The service provider system also provides a mechanism to gather analytics for capture operations and information regarding the sharing of captured content and provides a management tool to allow registered users to view the analytical data gathered from the capture operations including a reporting mechanism to view and analyzed the gathered analytics. In addition, the service provider system allows advertising to be served to users and others they share content with based on the actual content that was captured. In addition, users that share content may become advertising affiliates of the service provider system and receive credit or share in click through revenue generated from sharing the web content with others. In one example, the service provider system 110 may include a one or more security devices 141 (e.g., firewalls), web servers 143, an application server 144, an SQL server, MySQL server, or another database system 145 and a mirror servers 148, and associated memory 150 and backup memory devices 152. The web server 143 may provide initial communication with client devices and provide services, such as a web page and/or portal configured to provide access to the services provided by the service provider system. Application server 144 may be configured to provide capture services, display services, email services, as explained in greater detail below. Server 145 may provide proxy services and associated memories 150 and 152 may provide caching of web content. Server 148 may provide database management services and analytic services and associated memories 150 and 152 may store descriptive metadata and analytical information. It is understood, however, that the example given in Fig. 1 is for illustrative purposes only, and that many different configurations, combinations of devices, and numbers of devices may be provided for any particular content provider system 110. However, one or more processing devices, such as the servers, are provided to provide the services and functionality described herein for the service provider system. For example, cloud architecture also may be used to implement a service provider system 110, as described below. In addition, although only one of each server (e.g., 143, 144, 145, and 148) and associate memories 150 and 152 are shown, it will be appreciated that in actual implementation other configurations of servers or combining of servers may be provided or banks of a number of these machines as necessary may be provided to handle the number of users, data, and traffic that a particular implementation of a service provider system 110 handles.

Although, one configuration is shown in Fig. 1 , others may be used. For example, other types of hardware may be used, such as various types of computers (e.g., a PC or a Macintosh) featuring any of various processors (e.g., an Intel Core, Pentium, Celeron, Server or Workstation processors) running any of several operating systems (e.g., Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, or Linux). In addition, languages such as hypertext markup language (HTML), extensible Markup Language (XML), ASP, Ajax, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), and various other protocols may be used.

In addition, service provider system may be configured to provide a location that is centralized and/or remote from the perspective of the user. The central location may be one physical location, such as a room, building, or campus providing the hardware components of the system. However, in reality the central location may be virtual or distributed where services are provided, content are accessed from, and data is stored over a number of distributed systems and/or geographic locations. In other words, although the content provider systems are shown in Fig. 1 as being a single entity, other configurations wherein the applications, processing, services, content, and data are distributed both in terms of devices and geographical location are within the meaning of the service provider system. Additionally, the service provider system may use third parties to host the web page or website and may initiate services as needed on demand, for example, using cloud computing wherein the locations and structure providing the services change size, and physical location, distribution, and even equipment dynamically over time.

In another example, the service provider system may be hosted utilizing an accelerated cloud infrastructure. A cloud processing network includes a virtualizer network of accelerators for virtual servers. The virtualizer utilizes a Storage Domain Servers (SDS), network switchers, and a Storage Area Network (SAN) to provide a variety of server capacity and functionality that is emulated and provided as a load-balanced resource. The network is connected to various servers and their corresponding data storage and databases of one or more content providers allowing easy access to many different servers having multiple operating systems (e.g., UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac OS, and Backup). As a result, a variety of server operating systems and capacity may be provided to the end user of the user devices. The cloud processing network may be part of the service provider system 110 or hosted by a third party.

The accelerators provide virtualized servers (8+ cores, 32+GB RAM) with vast amounts of NAS storage. The accelerators are deployed within the cloud of a fast networking and routing fabric (e.g., Force 10), and efficient hardware load balancers (e.g., F5 Networks). Various applications, such as Apache, Nginx, MySQL, PHP, Ruby on Rails, and JAVA are preinstalled.

The Accelerators use full root access to provide control of setup and security configurations. The configuration provides accelerators that deliver massive scalability, both vertical and horizontal. For example, on the vertical scale the accelerators come in sizes ranging from 1/4GB of Ram up to 32GB of RAM. On the horizontal scale, application-layer accelerators may be added that use hardware load balancing to support potentially hundreds of nodes.

The computer tool may be implemented in conjunction with a service provider system 110 using a feature or tool, such as a button or embedded program on a web page or website, or as a browser, a plug-in or extension to a browser, or as a widget (e.g., operating on a portable device, a mobile device, or a smart phone). In particular, the computer tool may provide functionality, such as allowing a user to perform one or more of the following: define an area or portion of a web page, manipulate the defined area and/or web content associated with the area of the webpage, and share the defined area and/or content associated with the area, in particular web content, such as content provided by a content provider system 120 on a web page or website. A web page provides content or resources that are suitable for the World Wide Web or the Internet. Typically, a web page is accessed through a user interface, such as a graphical user interface. One example of a graphical user interface is a web browser running on a user device which renders the web content for presentation to a user. Examples of a web browser that provides a graphical user interface include Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera, or the web browser may be text-based, like Lynx. The web content that makes up a webpage is typically provided in some type of markup language, such as an HTML or a XHTML format and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links. The web content includes a collection of markup tags. A document made up of the markup tags forms a webpage.

A web page may be retrieved from a local computing device or from a remote computing device, such as a web server. The web server or host may restrict access or publish the web page on a network, including the World Wide Web. A web page is requested by a client computing device and served from a web server using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), for example, by a content provider system 110.

Web pages may consist of files of static text stored within a file system of a web server

(e.g., a static web page), or the web page may be constructed by server-side software when the page is requested by a browser (e.g., a dynamic web page). Web browsers may provide additional tools, plug-in, or extensions, such as scripting languages to make web pages more responsive to user input once the web page is rendered or presented by the browser of client computing device.

Web pages typically include information, such a markup tags, that tell the browser how to render the web content for presentation to the user. For example, the information may include colors and fonts of text and backgrounds. In addition, the information also may contain links to images and other media that are to be rendered in the final presentation to a user by way of a rendering and/or layout engine running on a computing device of the user device. Typically, the information may include layout, typographic, and color-scheme information that is provided by CSS instructions. The information is provided as HTML forming the web page or may be provided by a separate file that is referenced to form the HTML of the web page.

Images typically are stored on the web server as separate files; however, HTTP also makes provisions to provide related files, such as images and style sheets requested by the browser as it processes the web page for rendering. For example, an HTTP 1.1 host web server maintains a connection with the client browser until all resources related to the web page have been requested and provided to the client browser. Web browsers usually render images along with the text and other material of the webpage that is presented to the user. Client-side computer code or software, such as JavaScript or code implementing Ajax may be embedded in the HTML of a webpage or, like CSS style sheets, the code may be provided as separate linked downloads specified in the HTML. Scripts run on the client computing device, if the user allows them to, and can provide additional functionality for the user after the page has downloaded.

A web page includes content as an information set. The information set may include numerous types of information that is presented to a user. For example, the web page may include information that is able to be seen, heard, or otherwise interacted with by the end user. Information may include: textual information with diverse render variations and non-textual information. Non-textual information may include: static images on raster graphics (typically GIF, JPEG or PNG) or vector formats as SVG or Flash; animated images (typically Animated GIF and SVG but also may be Flash), Shockwave, or Java applet; audio, (typically MIDI or WAV formats or Java applets); and video (WMV (Windows), RM (Real Media), FLV (Flash Video), MPG, MOV (QuickTime)). The web page may include interactive information that is more complex that is glued to interface as provided by dynamic web pages.

Web page may provide for "on page" interaction, such as interactive text (e.g., DHTML); interactive illustrations (e.g., "click to play" image to games, typically using script orchestration, Flash, Java applets, SVG, or Shockwave); buttons (e.g., forms providing alternative interface, typically for use with script orchestration and DHTML) "between pages" interaction (e.g., hyperlinks: standard "change page" reactivity); forms providing more interaction with the server and server-side databases.

The web page also may include internal or hidden information, such as comments; metadata with semantic meta-information, charset information, Document Type Definition (DTD), diagramation and style information (e.g., information about rendered items, such as image size attributes, and visual specifications, such as CSS.

The webpage also may include dynamically adapted information elements that depend on the rendering browser or end-user location (e.g., through the use of IP address tracking and/or "cookie" information). Some information elements, such as a navigation bar may be uniform for all website pages. This information is supplied by technologies like web template systems.

A website typically includes a group or collection of web pages that are linked together, or have some other coherent method of navigation between the web pages. In one example, a website may be a number of web pages that are stored in a common directory of a web server. The website includes an index page, and depending on the web server settings, the index page may have many different names. In one example, the index page is index.html. When a browser visits a homepage for the website, or any URL pointing to a directory rather than a specific file, the web server serves the index page to the requesting browser. If no index page is defined in the configuration, or no such file exists on the server, either an error or directory listing is served to the browser.

Typically, a user establishes a connection or link between the content provider system and a user device to interact with a content provider system and access content provided by the content provider system, such as a web page. The user accesses the content using the user device running an application allowing the user device to communicate with the content provider system. In one example, the application may be implemented as a browser running on the processing device. The browser may include any application that communicates with a web server primarily using hypertext transfer protocols (HTTP) (e.g., HTTP/1.1) along with various extensions, plug-ins, and tools to fetch, present, manipulate, and interact with content and/or provide access to services provided by the content provider system. HTTP allows the browser to submit information to servers in addition to fetching content from them. Content may be located by the browser using a URL as an address. Many browsers also support a variety of other URL types and their corresponding protocols, such as Gopher (a hierarchical hyperlinking protocol), file transfer protocol (FTP), real-time streaming protocol (RTSP), and an SSL encrypted version of HTTP (HTTPS). Content may be provided in HTML that is identified using a MIME content type. The browser may support a variety of formats in addition to HTML, such as the JPEG, PNG, and GIF image formats, and can be extended to support additional formats through the use of extensions, plug-in and/or scripts. The combination of HTTP content type and URL protocol specification allows images, animations, video, sound, and streaming media to be embedded in the content. Examples of various plug-ins and tools include Java, Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player, and a Flash Player (e.g., Adobe or Macromedia Flash).

The user interface or browser provides electronic content generated by the applications, servers, and databases of the content provider and service provider systems. Once the user device establishes a link with the system, the user device and content provider system exchange data. Data may be transmitted from the content provider or service provider system to the browser in a markup language used by a client application, browser resident, or computer tool running on the user device and its operating system to render the page for presentation by a display device. Data also is transmitted from the user device to the system to provide indications of user interaction with the user interface (e.g., accessing a hyperlink to another web page or providing a credit card number for payment). The data sent to the user device may be in any markup language that may be interpreted by the client application, browser, or tool running on the user device, such as HTML, the JavaScript programming language, CSS and/or XML. In one example, data may be transferred between the content provider and the user device using an HTML and/or XML format to render the webpage (i.e., present the webpage) from markup tags provided by the web content provider system. The user interface or browser may include one or more areas, portions, boxes, windows, scroll/slider bars, tools, menus, buttons, and tabs and combinations of these to present the webpage and allow the user interact with and manipulate the webpage. The functionality of the user interface may be accessed or activated through use of one or more user inputs of the user device. For example, items and content on the screen may be selected and manipulated using one or more screen position indicators or visual effects (e.g., a pointer, a cursor, a highlighting, a transparency, a color, an animation, or an effect) controlled by one or more user input devices (e.g., a key, a keyboard/pad, a touch screen/pad, a mouse, a joystick, a track ball, and a stylus) as is common in graphical user interfaces (e.g., a pointer controlled by a mouse to click and double-click to activate, select, and drag items within a window, browser, or desktop environment).

In most cases, items may be selected, clicked, or tapped to designate, activate, or provide some functionality associated with the items. The following description makes reference to mouse clicking, such as right mouse clicking or left mouse clicking. For consistency this terminology is used throughout the following examples; however, one skilled in the art will appreciate that this is only one example of implementing a user selection and input within a browser, an interface, or a computer tool. For example, one or more keys may be selected to control or manipulate a selection from a keypad or keyboard; or a joy stick or trackball may be used instead of mouse to input a user selection. In addition, other methods may be used with different interfaces, such as tapping with one or more fingers or stylus on a touch screen. In addition, different combinations of inputs may be arranged as desired (e.g., single selection or double selection) to instruct the computer to active different functionalities or act in a desired manner.

Many modern webpages often require more screen space for all the content that is associated with the web page than is available for a particular display resolution associate with any particular user device. Most conventional browsers provide an interface to control or manipulate the information that is presented for a particular display resolution. For example, some conventional browsers place scrollbars (e.g., a bar at the side and/or bottom of the screen) that allow the user to position the window to see and access all the content associated with the web page. However, conventional browsers are limited in the presentation of content. For example, a conventional browser generally provides a rectangular window which displays a portion of the web page to a user. A user interface may be used to manipulate or move the window relative to the content of the rendered web page. While a user may generally maximize or adjust the size of the window that presents the content within the confines of a particular display resolution associated with the user device, the window may still not display all of the content associated with the web page. In addition, modern web pages provide such a large amount of content and variety of content, that the user may only be interested in a particular portion of the web page that has the desired content. While conventional browsers allow users to bookmark a page to easily return to a desired page at a future time, every time the user accesses the web page, the user must still navigate the window back to the desired position within the webpage to present the desired content. In addition, when trying to share content with another user, the user may cut and paste a URL to the web page containing the content the user wishes to share and place the URL into an email. However, this does not immediately indicate to the recipient the specific content the user intends to share. Other services provide means of bookmarking and sharing content that is bookmarked; however, not all content on a web page may be bookmarked.

The novel capture tools, systems, and processes described herein permit a user to specify, select and/or define portions or areas of web content from a web page for capture and manipulation. In particular, the capture tool is configured to define a selected area of a webpage for capture by a user. The captured content may be displayed on the desktop, user interface, and other types of screens and/or displays. Once the content is captured, the captured content may be organized, manipulated and shared. In addition, the capture tools, systems, and processes provide a mechanism to identify and persistently store data (e.g., metadata associated with the capture operations) that is descriptive of the capture area selected by a user. For example, a database stores descriptive data for the user-defined capture area that allows the capture area of the webpage to be recreated or rendered by a browser or user interface. In addition, when the capture area is rendered or presented by an interface, such as a browser, the functionality associated with the web content provided by the interface also is provided. In addition, the user defined capture area is able to render or present partial objects or elements that fall within the capture area allowing a user to capture with precision the intended or desired area of the webpage. In addition, servers may cache source web pages, where possible and permitted, to allow for efficient retrieval of the captured content. The capture tools, systems, and processes also provide a mechanism to share the captured content with other users which is accomplished by retrieving the data describing captured content and creating a message allowing the recipient to access or interact with the captured web content as it was captured by the original user who selected the content for capture. The capture tools, systems, and processes also provide a mechanism to translate the shared message, retrieve the descriptive data for the captured area and open an interface, such as a browser showing a targeted view of the captured area. The capture tools, systems, and processes also provide a mechanism to gather analytics, such as descriptive data for selection operations and information regarding the sharing of selected content. In addition, a user management tool provides a mechanism to allow registered users, such a webmaster to view the analytical data gathered from the capture operations including a reporting mechanism to view and analyzed the gathered analytics. The gathered analytical information and/or metadata may be used to target advertisements to those who capture and/or or view the capture areas. In addition, users who share capture areas may become affiliates of the service provider and earn credit or shares of click-through revenue associated with sharing captured content.

Fig. 3 further illustrates one example of a system diagram 300 for an implementation of a capture tool, system, and related processes. As shown in Fig. 3, the system includes a content provider system 120, a system service provider 110, a user device 101, and a communications system 301. It should be noted that Fig. 3 is provided to illustrate various elements of the systems and their interrelationships and flow of data and signals; however, any number of user devices, processing devices; content providers, as explained above, for example, with regard to Figs. 1 and 2, may be used and the configuration, number, and types of elements in Fig. 3 should not be considered limiting.

The content provider system 120 includes one or more processing devices, such as a server 305 associated with a storage device configured to provide web content, such as a web page 310.

A service provider system 110 includes one or more processing devices and one or more storage devices. For example, the service provider system may include a first processing device 315, such as a caching server, a second processing device 317, such as an application server, and a storage device 318, such as a database.

The user device 101 includes one or more processing devices (and associated storage device) configured to provide a user interface 320, such as a browser that accesses the webpage provided by the content provider system.

The communication system may be any type of communications system capable of transmitting digital or analog messages to a user device. In this example, the communications system may be an electronic mail server.

The capture tool may be implemented as one or more of a browser capture function, a browser extension or plug-in function, or an embedded webpage capture function, such as a button, that operates in conjunction with the service provider system. In the example shown in Fig. 3, a browser accesses a webpage for presentation to a user via the interface of the user device. The user may manipulate the webpage in a manner typical of using the web browser. The capture tool implements capture logic 325 and display logic 330 within the user interface, such as a browser. The logic is software executed by at least one processing device of the user device to perform the functions described herein. The capture logic is configured to allow a user to specify, indicate, and/or select an area 335 of a webpage rendered by the browser and capture the web content associated with the specified area. The captured web content has the functionality associated with the captured web content and can include partial objects or elements of the captured web page. The display logic is configured to allow a user to access the captured web content associated with the captured area, manipulate the captured web content, and share the captured web content with other users. The capture logic and display logic may be implemented, for example, using JavaScript to provide a client capture and a client display process. In an implementation using the browser or extension/plug-in the JavaScript is specific to the type of browser (e.g., a Chrome API for the Google Chrome Browser) and is injected into the rendered webpage by the browser or extension/plug-in. In an implementation having an embedded webpage capture function, the JavaScript is browser agnostic and is embedded into the webpage by the webmaster of the content provider system. In the embedded implementation, the capture function is configured to provide capture only of the web content of the webpage or website that the embedded capture function resides on; whereas the browser or extension/plug-in may be used with any webpage that is capable of being rendered by the browser. Both of these implementations are described in further detail below.

The application server 317 provides a capture service 340, a display service 342, a proxy service 344, a databases management service 346, and a communications service 348 that works in conjunction with the client side capture and display logic of the user device. The capture service is configured to receive requests to capture portions of a webpage and process the requests to persistently store data associated with captured areas in a relational database. In addition, a database management service controls creation, maintenance, and access to capture data. In one example, the relational database may be implemented using an SQL server and related storage device. The server capture service also is configured to work with a proxy service. The proxy service directs caching of webpages by a caching server when caching of a webpage is allowed by the content provider system. In this case, a caching server, such as a Squid caching server or Varnish caching server, accesses the webpage from the content provider system and caches a copy of the webpage provided by the content provider system. Alternatively, the webpage may be cached on a storage device associated with the client device; however, the cached page is then only accessible by the specific client device with access to the cached storage associated with the client device. When a call for captured content is made by a user device, the proxy service is used to determine if the content is cached and to serve the cached content.

The server display service is configured to receive requests to present the captured web content by the client display logic of a user device. The request to present the captured web content may be made by the client capture logic as part of the capture process or from the client display logic as part of a display function, such as accessing a bookmark, activating a desktop widget, accessing a shortcut/icon/favicon linked to a specific identification or URL associated with the captured web content, or accessing content shared via an electronic communication. The display service is configured to process the request by determining an identification (ID) associated with the request, retrieving associated data from the relational database and a source page from the web page or proxy service, and create data configured to present the captured web content 350 associated with the ID by the client display logic.

The communications service is configured to receive and process requests to share the captured web content with other users. The communications service is configured to extract an ID from the request, determine associated data from the database, generate a message and send the message to the specified user. In one example, the user is specified with an email address, and the service provides a URL associated with the captured data in an email that is sent to a communications service, such as an email server which forwards the email to the specified address. In addition, if an HTML enabled email service is provided, then the interface window for presenting the captured web content may be inserted into the body of the email.

Fig. 4 shows one example 400 of a high level flow chart. As shown in Fig. 4, operations and services are illustrated with respect to client side operations (e.g., the capture operation and display operation) 401 executed by the client user device and the server side services (e.g., the capture service, display service, and communications service) 402 executed by the service provider system or content provider system. The user may begin a capture operation 410 using a capture tool accessed by the user interface associated with the browser or through capture logic embedded in a webpage that is accessed by the browser (although if embedded in the webpage, the capture logic may only be used to capture content on that webpage or from that content provider system) 411. The capture tool may be accessed using a user input device. The user input device activates the capture logic to begin the capture operation. The user then selects whether to capture live or cached content.

The caching proxy service is configured to programmatically cache source pages on the caching server. When a user selects the option of capturing cached content, a GET request for the URL currently rendered by the client browser is initiated and the webpage associated with the URL is stored in the caching server. The cached content is then served back to the user, allowing the user to capture content from the cached page. As a result, the user is able to capture web content as it appeared on a webpage as of a fixed point in time. This is especially useful in capturing content from dynamic webpages that change over time and allows the capture tool to perform archiving among its many other uses.

In essence, the capture operation becomes a two-step process when capturing cached content. The first step involves actually caching the page and serving that as the source page, while the second step is the actual capture operation. The capture operation is functionally identical to a capturing live content, the only difference being that the source page for the capture is being served from the service provider system via the caching proxy.

The functional components of the Caching Proxy service are server side. The service consists of the ProxyServlet class, the ProxyAdapter class, and an implementation of the ProxyFacade interface. The ProxyServlet class is responsible for: receiving the request to cache the current page URL; preparing the domain URL data for transport to the relational database where the domain and URL persist; retrieving a proxy configuration from the application context; delegating a call to cache the page to the proxy server to the ProxyAdapter class; writing out the resulting cached content to the browser. The ProxyAdapter class is responsible for: creating and pre-pending a generic HTML base tag to the cached page; delegating call to cache page to the proxy server to the ProxyFacade implementation. The ProxyFacade implementation is responsible for: using the current page URL to create java.net.URL instance; opening a connection to the caching server using a java.net. Proxy instance and requesting the page using the URL instance which returns the cached content if the page is currently cached, or issues a GET request to the original URL to cache the page; and reading the cached content into a string and returning the string.

Once the user selects the content to be captured, the capture tool provides an indication within the webpage as presented by the user device. The indication may be manipulated within the presented webpage, for example, using a user input device. The indication identifies an area of the webpage as presented by the user device that the user desires to capture (i.e., the capture area). The indication may take one of many forms. For example, the indication may be a visual indication to identify an area of the webpage as presented by the user device. The visual indication may include one or more of highlighting the area, visually altering the area, visually contrasting the capture area with the rest of the presented page, such as with shading, shadowing, transparency over the remainder of the page or the visual indication may be a border that surrounds the capture area, such as a line or marching ants. The capture area also may be a geometric or non-geometric shape. The user may draw the capture area using a user input device or the user interface may provide a predetermined shape for capture of the area, which may then be manipulated to alter both its size and position with relation to the presented web content and thereby specify the capture area. For example, a predetermined window may be sized appropriately according to a corresponding user device type, such a smart phone, tablet, or Ultra Mobile PC to aid user's selection and capture. Such a feature is especially useful in environments with small displays or limited user inputs (e.g., touch screen or small key pad associated with mobile and smart phones).

In addition, the user may adjust the webpage relative to the indication using, for example, a grab or pan feature in which a pointer controlled by a user input device selects a point on the web page and moves the web page in conjunction with the selected point and relative to the fixed position of the predetermined area indication thereby in changing the content presented within the predetermined area to select or specify a desired capture area. In one example, selecting the capture area includes using a user input device to identify a contiguous boundary of pixels. In this case, the web content to be captured corresponds to web content associated with pixels rendered within the contiguous boundary. The capture tool also may indicate whether the content to be captured is live content or cached content. Once the desired area of the web content is indicated by the user, the client side capture logic gathers and prepares data that is descriptive of the desired capture area for submission to the server-side capture service.

In one example, using the Google Chrome browser, a chrome extension module utilizes the Google Chrome application program interface (API) to create an interface that allows the user to select a rectangular area of a web page, collect descriptive data about the selected area, and transmit this metadata to a server side capture process. For this extension, a browser action initiates the capture operation. For example, a browser action typically utilizes a popup interface accessed via an icon on the chrome browser toolbar. The popup user interface provides options to the user, such as (e.g., select live content, select cached content, options (such as using a tab or popup widget to present captured content) or to cancel the capture operation.

In this example, while the popup UI is the "window" for the extension, the actual functionality of the extension resides in a structure called a background page. The background page is an html page that is not rendered; rather it provides a mechanism by which the extension can temporarily inject functionality into a page being rendered by the browser. The background page also is the route by which the extension injects custom JavaScript into the currently rendered page. The embedded button functionality is essentially the same as the functionality of the Chrome extension; however, the JavaScript code that implements the capture UI is not dynamically injected into the target page; but, rather a standard reference to the script is added (e.g., via a <script> tag) to the web page by the content provider system. Access to the script, as well as HTML snippets containing a custom button to initiate a capture operation also are provided by the content provider system.

As mentioned above, the functionality is essentially the same for the button as for the extension. According to button configuration, the button uses standard JavaScript by which the capture request is submitted while the extension uses Chrome Extension API calls to perform an Ajax post of the capture request. In addition, specific JavaScript code is added to handle cross- browser differences, since the button code is accessible by all browsers (i.e., the button is browser agnostic).

The capture logic may be implemented using a scripting language, such as JavaScript that is included in the webpage provided by the content provider (e.g., an embedded button) or that is injected into the webpage by the client device. However, any computer language, code, or instructions that allow the processing device to determine or create the appropriate metadata for describing the capture area of a document or a webpage rendered by a browser may be used. In one example, the capture service loads a data structure that represents the current rendered page and loads fields for the data stream with items of descriptive metadata describing the location of the web content within the rendered webpage for capture. The capture tool provides a mechanism to submit the capture request with metadata of a capture operation that describes the source page and web content of the captured area within the source page to the capture service. The capture logic is configured to visually identify the desired area of the webpage for capture. In one example, the capture logic provides a capture interface that creates and formats overlaying <div> elements that allow the user to visually identify, indicate, and/or isolate the area of the webpage for capture.

For example, to create a capture user interface, the capture logic performs the following steps. First, a floating layer (e.g., a <div> element with a higher HTML z-index style attribute value than the base page) is created that has the same dimensions as the visible area of a browser viewport of a user device presenting the webpage. The floating layer essentially masks the viewport of the browser and creates a work area of the user interface to provide a mechanism that allows the capture logic to identify the area specified by user input for capture. Additionally, several other floating elements (e.g., <div> elements) are used to identify the capture area and optionally create a semi-transparent mask over the remainder of the view area of the webpage to identify, indicate, and/or isolate the desired capture area. The capture logic provides the following functionality to perform the capture operation: a process to submit or cancel the capture operation; several processes to move or adjust the size of the capture area and scroll the capture area (i.e., the floating layer scrolls with the base page); and a process to gather and format the capture metadata for submission to the service provider system. The client capture logic submits the captured metadata describing the capture area to the application server of the service provider system 411. The capture metadata is received by the server capture service 420. The capture service is configured to process the request to persistently store the capture metadata 425 in a relational database 430. The metadata is assigned a unique ID. In addition, the capture logic determines if the captured content is live or cached. If the content is cached, the caching proxy logic causes the caching server to retrieve the source webpage for storage by the caching server. The capture service returns a response with ID to the capture logic of the browser of the client user device 432. The client side capture logic is configured to receive the response with ID 435 and to open a window (e.g., a pop-up, a viewport, a restricted window, a widget) of the browser and calls the display service passing the ID associated with the metadata stored in the relational database to the application server to request the data to present the captured content 440.

In one example, the server-side component of the capture service uses a subclass of Java Servlet to process an incoming capture request and prepare metadata to be sent to the relational database of the application. The capture service includes: determining the type of capture being requested; preparing capture data transfer objects used by the relational database; performing appropriate delegate calls to relational database; receiving and forwarding the capture operation identifier to the caller; and performing a GET request via a Proxy Service to cache the source page if source page allows for caching of content.

The display service 445 retrieves the metadata associated with the ID 450 from the database 430. The display service also initializes the metadata storing the metadata in a data structure 455. The display service formats the metadata to translate the metadata into data configured to present the captured web content in an interface window of the client deice, such as, markup tags or well formed HTML configured to present the portion of the webpage described by the metadata 466.

The display logic also may be activated from a widget interface, or a bookmark that calls the server display logic with the request for captured data by providing the ID associated with the captured content.

In one example, the server side display process uses two subclasses of JavaxServlet, specifically DisplayServlet class and the BounceServlet class, to accept incoming requests to display captured data. The DisplayServlet is a common service call used whenever a capture display request is made to the service provider system and is used in several contexts, including display after initial capture and separate requests to view captured data after the fact. The BounceServlet class is used to prepare an intermediate step prior to calling the DisplayServlet as described above for the bounce.jsp. The CaptureDisplayServlet class is configured to: receive a client request containing the capture operation identifier; perform a delegate call to retrieve capture metadata; process/modify the capture metadata for redisplay of content including calculating values used for styling and offset for the client side capture process; populate an instance of the DisplayBean with appropriate values and add to request scope; forward the request to the display .jsp for display.

The BounceServlet class is configured to: receive client request containing the capture operation identifier, determine the width and height of a new display window; pad the width and height values to accommodate browser differences; populate an instance of the DisplayBean with appropriate values and add to request scope; and forward the request to the bounce.jsp.

The client user device renders an interface window 470 by presenting a new browser window displaying the captured area via a custom widget 477. The retrieved capture metadata is used to determine the captured area relative to the source page (either live or cached) and to display the captured web content corresponding to the area within a window or viewport of the user interface (e.g. widget or a tab in a browser window). The browser uses a source URL provided from the display service to retrieve a source page from the cache or web. If the captured content is live, the display service retrieves the source page associated with the source URL provided with the data or markup tags received from the content provider system 460. If the captured content is cached, the display service retrieves the cached source page associated with the source URL provided with the data or markup tags received from the caching server 462.

In one example, to display the captured area, the position of anchor coordinates (e.g., a pixel of the top-left corner of the capture area) relative to the start of the webpage (e.g., the top left corner of the source page) is determined. The position is used to dynamically style an iframe to place the desired content associated with the capture area into the viewport defined by the wrapper div element of the custom widget. In addition, the window or viewport may be sized to have the same or substantially the same dimensions as the dimensions of the capture area which also is determined from the metadata. The HTML required to accomplish this is created by server-side components, for example, Java Standard Tag Library (JSTL) custom tags and Java Server Pages (JSP). Components such as these tags, when used in the context of an HTML template such as a JSP, provide a mechanism to access values contained in data structures. This data is then used to dynamically set HTML element attribute values or content in the template, which is then translated into well-formed HTML by a templating engine (a Servlet container in the case of JSPs) that is provided to and then rendered by the browser.

The display service for the application uses a JSP, display .jsp that is responsible for managing the display of captured content. The display .jsp uses a request-scoped Java Bean populated with capture metadata by the display service. The Bean data is then accessed by JSTL tags in the display .jsp and used to populate attributes of the HTML in the page, dynamically styling the page to display the captured content. When this step is complete, the JSP is translated into HTML by the Servlet container and sent to browser.

The dynamic styling mechanism for the page that isolates the captured content uses a set of nested <div> elements wrapping a styled <iframe>. The metadata from the capture operation is used to display the captured content. The following elements are listed from the innermost elements to the outermost elements. The <iframe> source attribute is set to the URL for the original or cached source page. The <iframe> width and height style settings are dynamically set to the respective width and height of the original document, padded by an amount to ensure the <iframe> does not display scroll bars. The <iframe> is wrapped in a <div> element (e.g., a "wrapper" div) that is dynamically styled to "shift" the top and left coordinates to isolate the area of the page that was captured. The amount of the shift is called the offset for each axis. The X axis offset is relative to the horizontal coordinate and left-hand scroll position of the browser at the time of the original capture operation. The Y axis offset is relative to the vertical coordinate and top scroll position at the time of the original capture operation. These offsets are negative values and are used to shift the window or viewport to a position that starts at the top left of the original, selected capture area. The formula used to calculate the offset for an axis is: Offset = 0 - (coordinate + scroll position). For example, if the original capture top-left coordinates is 100 pixels from the top of the browser viewport and 100 pixels to the right of the left side of the browser viewport, and the scroll position is top = 100 pixels, left = 0 pixels, then the X axis offset is -100 pixels (0 - (100 + 0 = -100) and the Y axis offset is -200 pixels (0 - (100 + 100) = - 200).

The wrapper <div> element is dynamically styled to the dimensions (e.g., the width and height) of the original, selected capture area to hide any overflow and restrict the viewport to present only the capture area. In the example given above, the wrapper div would be styled to be 100 pixels wide by 100 pixels high. The wrapper <div> itself may be wrapped in another <div> element (a "container" div) which also uses the capture height and width to provide padding and alignment. The container <div> may be wrapped in another <div> element that contains both the container and a <div> containing application buttons.

As a result, the webpage is displayed in its own browser window with most of the browser chrome stripped away. The window is just large enough to display the captured content and the application input buttons without the need to render any scroll bars. A beveled border around the captured area is styling on the wrapper div. The captured web content rendered within the browser window includes the functionality associated with the web content. Alternatively all the chrome may be stripped away and the captured content may appear in a floating or borderless window with user input appended thereto or associated therewith, such as a favicon, toolbar, or drop down menu (e.g., as shown in Figs. 31-38).

A bounce.jsp provides an intermediate step to open a display UI when accessed from a URL (e.g., when a bookmarked URL is access or from a URL embedded in a message or electronic communication). The server side code prepares a request scope bean containing an identifier for a capture operation (i.e., the capture ID) as well as a dimension for the pop-up window to be opened when the page loads. The target URL of the pop-up window displays a populated display .jsp as described above.

From the interface, the user may access a user input to create a message or other electronic communication to share the captured content with other users via their client user devices. In one example, a button of the interface is configured to display a popup form 478. The form includes one or more fields. In particular, a field is configured to receive one or more email addresses. The client side display logic submits the completed form to the server side email service 484. The email service extracts an ID associated with the form 486, retrieves metadata associated with the ID from the database 488, generates an email message including a link to the captured area or a custom widget viewport presenting the content 490 and sends an email message to any user specified by the received form 492 via a mail server 494. A user receiving the message may select or otherwise activate the link to have a user interface of an associated client device render the captured content in an interface window using the above- described processes. In another example, an image, such as a thumbnail of the capture area may be included with the email and access to the captured area may be provided by a call to the service provider system with ID to activate the display service and thus present the captured content. In yet another example, if the email supports HTML, the interface window may be rendered directly in the email (as shown in Fig. 19B). If the email does not support HTML, a link activating a browser may be alternatively supplied to access the captured content.

In one example, a client-side interface for the email service consists of a modal dialog implemented in JavaScript. This dialog wraps an HTML form and provides the following input fields: recipient email address; sender email address; message subject; message text. The form provides validation to ensure the email addresses are submitted and in the proper format. The subject and message fields are optional and are populated with default values when these fields are null. The Email service consists of the EmailServlet class. This class is responsible for: handling and formatting input from the email form and populating data transfer objects that are used to access the relational database; handling any errors encountered during the email operation and providing meaningful feedback to users. Fig. 5A is an illustration of one example 500 of generation of metadata from a capture area relative to the source page. The capture data includes metadata that embodies the webpage, the capture area and associated web content within the webpage, and the browser rendering the webpage. As shown in Fig. 5 A, a webpage includes a document height 501 and a document width 505. If the height and width of a webpage is greater than the resolution of the browser only a portion of the webpage 510 may be presented or rendered in the browser window or viewport leaving a portion of the webpage not viewable without scrolling 511. In addition, the browser area that is rendered has a visible height 515 and a visible width 517. The position of the browser window within a page may be determined from a scroll top position 520 and a scroll left position 522. As described above, the user input device of a user device is used to form an indication, such as a contiguous boundary 523 around the capture area. In one example, this contiguous boundary may be a string of pixels bounding the capture area. The capture area 525 within the presented portion of the webpage 510 has a capture height 530 and a capture width 540. In the example shown in Fig. 5A, the capture logic of the client side capture logic gathers the following metadata: the URL of webpage, X coordinate 550 of upper left corner of the capture area, the Y coordinate 555 of upper left corner of capture area, the width of capture area, the height of capture area, the width of the browser viewport, height of the browser viewport, the total width of the document, the total height of the document, the current scroll position of top of the browser viewport, the current scroll position of left edge of the browser viewport, and the page title. The capture metadata is processed to form a URL_CAPTURE record that is stored in the relational database. The heights, widths, and positions may be measured in units of pixels.

As described above, the metadata may be used to position an interface window to present the captured web content. The metadata may be used to "shift" the top and left coordinates of the window to position the window relative to the webpage to isolate the area of the webpage that was captured. The amount of the shift is called the offset for each axis. The X axis offset is relative to a horizontal X coordinate and the left-hand scroll position of the browser at the time of the original capture operation. The Y axis offset is relative to a vertical Y coordinate and the top scroll position at the time of the original capture operation. These offsets are negative values in pixels that are used to shift the window or viewport to a position that starts at the top left of the original capture area. In this example, the formula used to calculate the offset for an axis is: Offset = 0 - (coordinate + scroll position). For example, if the original capture top-left coordinates is 100 pixels from the top of the browser viewport and 100 pixels to the right of the left side of the browser viewport, and the scroll position is top = 100 pixels, left = Opx, then the X axis offset is -100 pixels (0 - (100 + 0 = -100) and the Y axis offset is -200 pixels (0 - (100 + 100) = -200). Of course, the capture metadata shown in Fig. 5A is only one example of the metadata that may be captured. For example, different coordinates and dimensions representing the capture window may be taken, such as a different corner or different positions used in conjunction with the dimensions of other shaped viewports (e.g., a geometric shape) or a drawn capture area (e.g., a freeform shape).

Fig. 5B shows an illustration of the capture operation in three dimensions according to an X, Y, and Z axes. As shown in Fig. 5B, three layers (Z = 0, 1, and 2, respectively) are provided in the X-Y planes that when viewed from above along the Z axis provide metadata of Fig. 5 and the rendered view of Fig. 12. The coordinates of the X axis and Y axis may be measured in units of pixels. The Z axis represents the layer's position based on the standard HTML z-index style attribute.

A first layer (z-index=0) represents a web page 560. A portion 561 of the webpage is presented in an interface window. In this example, the resolution of the interface window is too small to display the entire web page. As a result, the interface window has a top scroll position 520 and a left scroll position 522. The top scroll position is the distance from the top of the webpage in pixels to the top of the interface window. The left scroll position is the distance in pixels from the left edge of the web page to the left side of the interface window. The portion of the webpage includes an area of interest to a viewer of the web page or target area 566 for capture.

A second layer (z-index=l) represents a layer masking the interface window that tracks events indicating user interaction between a user and the webpage. The second layer may be implemented using a <div> element 568 sized to mask the interface window that presents the portion 561 of the webpage. A <div> element is a container for other tags. Div elements are block elements and work behind the scenes grouping other markup tags together. In this example, the <div> element is used to track events that represent a user input, interaction with, or manipulation of the webpage associated with a user input device and the presentation of the webpage.

In order to capture the area of interest, the user defines, specifies, or selects the capture area by using a user input device. In one example, the <div> element 568 tracks three events used to help determine the capture area. For example, a first event (e.g., a mouse down input) indicates the coordinates of an initial position 570 of an indication rendered on the webpage as the starting point to define the capture area. A second event (e.g., a cursor or mouse move input with mouse down) indicates movement 572 of the user input relative to the presented webpage. As the second event occurs the <div> element is used to continually calculate a boundary 573 determined by the anchor point and a current position associated with the move. A third event (e.g., a mouse up input after mouse down move) indicates a second coordinate 574 used in conjunction with the coordinates to define a final boundary of the rectangle the selected capture area.

A third layer (z-index=2) represents a layer also masking the interface window that shows a representation of the capture area and the boundary of the capture area. The third layer may be implemented using five <div> elements. A capture <div> element 576 represents the targeted capture area and the capture area. Four remaining <div> elements 577, 578, 579, 580 are laid out clockwise around the capture <div> element. The <div> elements are dynamically sized according to the events of the second layer. The capture <div> element may be styled to show an indication of the capture area, such as a border 581 of the area of the capture <div> element. During the second event the border may be styled to indicate the current position of the border of the capture area (e.g., marching ants as shown in Fig. 11). Once the third event occurs the border may be styled to indicate the border of the capture area (e.g., a solid color line). In addition, once the third event occurs, the other <div> elements 577, 578, 579, 580 may be assigned an attribute or style to visually contrast the remainder of the webpage from the capture area (e.g., transparent shading as shown in Fig. 12). The capture area may be determined using the dimensions of the capture area <div> element in addition to the top scroll and left scroll dimensions in conjunction with the anchor point coordinates. The dimensions of the capture <div> element are used to size a viewport or interface window that presents the captured web content. The top scroll and left scroll dimensions in conjunction with the anchor point coordinates determine an offset (e.g., and x pixel offset and a y pixel offset) to establish an anchor coordinate to shift the viewport or interface window relative to the webpage and position the viewport or interface window to present the capture area.

Fig. 5 C is an example of a method of capturing web content of a webpage provided by a web content provider system and rendered by a user device. First, a webpage is rendered in an interface window of the user device (583). An indication of an area of the rendered webpage specified by a user input device for capture is rendered in the interface window (584). For example, a rectangle may be drawn or otherwise positioned on the rendered webpage to indicated and select the desired portion of the webpage for capture. The dimensions of the rendered indication of the capture area are determined by a processing device (585). These dimensions may be measured in pixels and determined as explained above. Coordinates associated with the rendered indication of the capture area also are determined by the processing device (586). For example, the coordinates of a pixel may be determined corresponding to the upper left hand corner of the rectangle. Offsets associated with the coordinates relative to the position of the rendered indication within the webpage are determined by the processing device (587). For example, X and Y offsets may be determined as described above. The web content rendered within the indication of the capture area may be captured by persistently storing an identifier of webpage, the determined dimensions, and the determined offsets in a storage device in addition to other data (588).

Fig. 5D is an example of a method of presenting captured web content rendered by a user device described above. First, a capture id is received as a request to display the captured content (590). Metadata corresponding to capture id is retrieved from a database of the service provider system (592). For example, the metadata such as that described above with regard to Figs. 5A and 5B. A data structure is created (593). In one example, the data structure may be a Java Bean. The data structure is used to store any required metadata for display of the captured content. The service provider system performs all calculations for sizing and offset and stores the results and any required metadata in the data structure. Dynamic styling of display widget set up in jsp template using the data stored in the data structure and jstl (594). A servlet engine translates jsp template into well formed html including markup tags to display the capture area in an interface window of a client device (595). The html including markup tags are forwarded to a browser for display of captured content in an interface window (596).

Although the preceding examples have, for the most part, been described in terms of forming markup tags on the server side that are transmitted to the browser of the client device, alternatively the metadata or a processed version of the metadata may be provided to the browser and the code, tags, or HTML used to render the window presenting the captured web content based on the location of the selected capture area may be created by the client side processing device.

Fig. 6 is an exemplary database structure 600 for an implementation of the database management service and relational database of the service provider system. The relational database provides a hierarchical structure to store descriptive metadata regarding the capture operation. The descriptive metadata is used to determine or specify the capture area in relation to an associated source page (either live or cached). In one example, the data structure includes at least three entities or records: DOMAIN 601 ; DOMAIN_URL 603; and URL_CAPTURE 605. Each record includes a primary key (PK) and a foreign key (FK) keys that enforce referential integrity in the database. At the top of the hierarchy is the DOMAIN entity representing a source domain of the captured content. The DOMAIN entity is related to the DOMAIN_URL entity in a one-to-many relationship. The DOMAIN entity includes a DOMAIN_ID and DOMAIN_NAME cached. The DOMAIN_URL entity identifies the source URL of capture content. It is a child entity of the DOMAIN table and has the DOMAIN_ID as a foreign key. The DOMAIN_URL entity includes a URL_ID and the DOMAIN_ID URL. The URL_CAPTURE entity includes all metadata describing a capture operation. For example, the URL_CAPTURE entity includes the URL_CAPTURE_ID, the associated URL_ID, CAPTURE WIDTH, CAPTURE HEIGHT, VISIBLE WIDTH VISIBLE HEIGHT , START_POS_TOP, START_POS_LEFT, SCROLL_TOP, SCROLL_LEFT, DOC_WIDTH, DOC_HEIGHT, LIVE_SOURCE, TITLE, IP, DATE_CAPTURED. The URL_CAPTURE entity is a child entity of the DOMAESLURL and is related by URL_ID. The CAPTURE_. AC CESS entity 610 describes an operation that accesses data. The ACCESS_TYPE field defines whether the access was for a view operation or an email operation. The EMAIL_OPERATION entity 615 stores data associated with emailing captured content and includes elements, such as EMAIL_OPERATION_ID, CAPTURE_ID, TO_ADRESS, FROM_ ADRES S , SUBJECT_FLD, MESSAGE_CONTENT, and DATE_SENT. The CAPTURE_ID field on each of these tables is a foreign key referencing the URL CAPTURE table. SYSTEM_PROPS entity 620 includes key- value pairs describing properties used by the application. This is a stand-alone entity and may include elements, such as SYSTEM_PROP_ID, SYSTEM_PROP_NAME, and SYSTEM_PROP_VALUE. USER entity 625 includes user data for secure access to the application and includes elements, such as USER_ID PASSWORD, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EM AIL_ ADDRES S , and TIMESTAMP. Of course, the data structures described above with regard to Fig. 6 are only example, and other forms and data may be store, such as different dimensions, descriptors, links, images, context, keywords, to name a few.

Fig. 7 is an example 700 of a process for implementation of a computer capture tool and capture process. The user initiates content capture process using the browser of the user device (701). The capture process determines whether the capture is made using the browser or a browser extension/plugin or if the capture logic is embedded within the webpage (703). If the capture process is made by the browser or browser extension/Plug-in, the browser opens a popup user interface that allows the user to select whether the content to be captured is live or cached (705). The user makes a selection of whether the user wants to select live or cached content (707). If user selects cached content, the browser submits a call to the caching logic of the capture service (709). The caching logic determines whether content is cacheable (711). If content is cacheable, the source web page is cached (713) and the browser of the user device is redirected to the cached page (715). If the page is not cacheable, the cache option is removed (717) and user is informed page is not cacheable (719) and only live content may be captured.

If the page has embedded logic, the page is not cacheable, or browser is redirected to a cached page, the capture logic creates a capture interface via the browser of the user device (721). The user indicates an area of the webpage to be captured using the capture interface (723). After the area to be capture is indicated, the user selects whether to capture the area or cancel the operation (725). If the capture operation is cancelled, the logic removes the indication from the browser and awaits the initiation of a new capture operation. If the user indicates to capture the selected area, the metadata associated with the captured area is determined by the capture logic (727). The capture logic then submits a request with the captured metadata to the service provider system (729).

The service provider system receives the request and the capture service preps the metadata for persistence (731). For example, the system service provider preps the metadata by converting the values submitted from character strings to numbers, extracting the domain from the URL, and setting appropriate flags to indicate live versus cached data. The system creates a capture record for the metadata (733). The system determines whether there is an existing record for the domain name associated with the capture request in the relational database (735). If the domain name does not exist, a DOMAIN record for the metadata is created for the relational database for the domain name of the source page associated with the capture request (737). Once the DOMAIN record is created or if the DOMAIN record already exists, a corresponding DOMAIN_URL is created (739). Next, the URL_CAPTURE record is created and populated with the metadata sent with the capture request identifying the capture area (741). Once the capture record is created, an identifier is returned to the display logic (743).

The display logic receives the identifier (745) and determines whether any error has occurred (747), such as an improper character in the URL or some unexpected encoding in the title that can occur with data transmission, or some other occurrence due to the asynchronous interactions between capture and display. If an error occurs, a popup window is opened with an error page as the source (749); otherwise, a popup window is opened and a request for the capture data as the source page is generated passing the display service URL containing the capture ID, for example, http://savnor.com/savnorWeb/display ?captureld=100&access=true, to the service provider system (751). The request is received by the service provider system, and the corresponding Capture ID (created during capture operation) is determined (753). The capture metadata corresponding to the capture ID is retrieved from the relational database (755). The metadata is prepared for display (757), which is the reverse of the capture prepping, such as the numbers are converted back to strings, padding values may be set, and the window size is calculated. For example, all value calculations are performed including horizontal and vertical offset/scrolling values used to isolate the captured content and all styling attributes requiring padding. In addition, the popup window size values are calculated based on widget size values calculated in the above step. All numeric values are converted back into strings because most of the dynamic styling attributes on the client side use string arguments with a unit designation (e.g., pixels). All values are set in a user interface specific value object for use by the client-side display logic. In one example, the prepared metadata is forwarded to the user interface to format and provide the display. The popup is displayed with the capture widget rendered by the client user device (761).

As described above, the overall architecture of the application can be divided into three distinct functional areas: processes for capturing content, processes for displaying captured content, and processes for processing metadata in support of the applications. In one implementation, the capture and display processes are decoupled; that is, the processes operate independently of each other and in most cases communicate asynchronously with the system service provider.

Fig. 8 is an example 800 of a flow chart for capture logic (801) and display logic (802).

Invoking the capture logic initiates the capture interface (803). Next, a JavaScript page prototype is created (804) and a floating <div> is presented over the webpage for the capture process (805). A crosshair cursor is initiated and presented within the capture interface (807). The capture logic of the capture interface executed by the client user device awaits detection of a user input, such as a mousedown event and mouserelease event indicating that the user has selected an area to capture (809). In response, the capture interface creates a selection area <div> (811) and also creates masking Divs around the selection area (813). The capture interface processes any user movement of selection area, for example, adjusting the position and/or size of the capture area (815). Once the user selects an area to capture (817), the capture logic of the client user device processes the selection area to determined metadata associated with the page prototype (819). The page prototype is a data structure (e.g., an object) used to collect the metadata in one place and to facilitate formatting of the capture message for an Ajax post. Once the metadata is determined, the client user device submits the metadata to a server of the service provider system via an Ajax post (821).

The capture service preps the metadata for persistence to save the metadata in the relational database (823). The capture service makes a request to the database management service to persist the metadata (825). The database management service determines whether a DOMAIN record for the request exists and if not creates one (827). The database management service then creates a DOMAIN_URL record for the request (829). The database management service creates a URL_CAPTURE record for the metadata (831). The database management service returns a capture ID to the capture service for the metadata (833). The server of the service system provider returns the capture ID to the user interface of the client user device (835).

The user interface of the client user device creates a source URL for a popup window (837). A window open () command JavaScript call initiates the popup window (839). The client user device sends a displayO request to the service provider system for the source URL corresponding to the capture metadata using the returned capture ID (841). The service provider system display process makes a retrieve() request for the capture metadata associated with the capture ID from database management service (843). The display logic formats the metadata for use for display (845). The service provider display process forwards the request to display Java Server Pages (JSP) (847). JSP is responsible for managing the display of captured content. A widget container <div> is dynamically sized to fit in the popup window (849). A capture container <div> is dynamically sized for proper placement and padding of a wrapper <div> (851). The wrapper <div> is dynamically sized and styled to show the captured area of source page (853). A source iframe is created with URL of captured page and dynamically sized (855). A button bar <div> is then created and placed at the bottom of the widget (857). In one example, an advertisement also may be provided by creating an advertisement <div> to present the advertisement outside of and/or in relation to the viewport and the widget is displayed in the popup (859).

Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 shows examples of screen shots illustrating web content and the use of a browser with capture tool and the capture process. Fig. 9 illustrates a screen shot 900 of the Chrome browser with capture tool extension open to a sports webpage. The Chrome Extension module utilizes the Google Chrome API to create an interface that allows the user to select rectangular areas of a web page, collect descriptive data about the selected area, and transmit this metadata to a server side process of the service provider system. The browser renders a user interface with several tool bars 901 and tabs 903. The browser renders a portion of the sports webpage in a window 910 including a scroll bar 915 configured to allow the use to access portions of the web page that are not rendered in the window. A button 920 with a capture icon is provided on one of the tools bars which may be selected by the user to begin the capture process.

Fig. 10 illustrates a screen shot 1000 after a user has selected the capture icon to begin the capture process. Using the extension, a browser action is used to initiate the capture operation. A browser action typically utilizes a popup interface accessed via an icon on the Chrome browser toolbar. An example of the pop interface 1005 is shown in Fig. 10. The popup interface provides the options to the user to select "Select Live data," 1010 "Select Archived Data," (i.e., cached page) 1011 or to "cancel" 1013 the capture operation. Of course other ways of providing these options to the user may be used, such as providing a drop-down menu, presenting the options themselves in the tool as individual buttons or icons.

While the popup interface is the "window" for the extension, the actual functionality of the extension resides in a structure called a background page. A background page is an html page that is not rendered; rather it provides a mechanism by which the extension temporarily injects functionality into a web page being rendered by the browser. The background page is the "server" to the popup interfaces "client." The background page is also the route by which the extension injects custom JavaScript into the currently rendered web page.

Fig. 11 illustrates a screen shot 1100 after the user has made a selection from the popup interface. Once the user selects the live content option or cached content option a "crosshairs" pointer 1101 is rendered on the display of the web page. Although crosshairs are shown, other types of pointers may be used. The user manipulates the pointer with a user input device of the user device to select a desired capture area as part of the capture process. In this example, a user places the crosshairs at a point and performs a select drag operation. The select drag operation "anchors" an initial point 1105 or pixel of webpage as a corner of the outer boundary of the capture area to the location of the crosshairs at the moment the select drag operation begins. As the user moves the pointer from the anchor point, the outline of a box or rectangle 1110, such as with marching ants, is rendered on the display of webpage with a corner of the box anchored to the initial pixel. The dimensions of the box may be manipulated by movement of the cursor on the display of the webpage. As mentioned, one corner of the box is anchored to the initial point (or pixel) where the select drag operation began. The diagonally opposite corner of the box may be manipulated by movement of the cursor using the user input device to change the dimensions of the box. When the user releases the drag, the outer dimensions of the box outline the selected capture area and the upper left corner is identified as the anchor coordinates. Of course other ways may be used to select the capture area. For example, the user may draw a line to enclose the selected area or predetermined shapes may be rendered and then manipulated by the user, as explained above.

Fig. 12 illustrates an example of a screen shot 1200 of the capture area after completion of the select drag operation. The capture area 1201 is outlined with a line 1205. In addition, other visual indications of the selected capture area may be provided to aid the user. For example, the area 1210 outside the selected capture area may be shadowed to highlight the selected capture area. Little boxes in the center of each line or corners of the box 1215 may be selected by the user using a cursor to further manipulate the outer boundary and adjust the selected capture area. For example, selecting a box with the cursor allows the user to move the box using a select drag operation to move the box and relocated one or more of the lines forming outer boundary of the selected area. In addition, the selection of any other portion of the outline may be selected to move the box around the webpage without changing the dimensions of the selected box. As an alternative to the select drag operation, selection from the pop interface may cause a predetermined shape to appear, such as the box shown in Fig. 12, which may be manipulated by the user input device as described above in this paragraph to select the capture area. Use of a predetermined shape may be useful, for example, in mobile environments where user input devices are limited in functionality or difficult to easily control or manipulate. In addition, a user input (e.g., holding down the Ctrl key on a keyboard) allows the user to select multiple areas. In another example, a user input may be made on a touch screen of the user device by tapping on or more fingers on a desired point and dragging a single finger or two fingers in unison to indicate the capture area or resizing a predetermined shape.

In addition, one or more user input buttons may be rendered on the outline of the selected capture area. As shown in Fig. 12, two user input buttons, "cancel" 1220 and "capture" 1225 are provided. The user may select the cancel button to cancel the capture operation causing the rendered webpage to revert to the state shown in Fig. 9. The user may select the capture input button to capture the selected capture area causing the capture interface to be rendered.

Fig. 13 illustrates an example of a screen shot 1300 of a capture interface 1301. As shown in the example of Fig. 13, the capture interface may be a pop-up interface. The pop interface includes an interface window 1305 configured to present the captured content associated with the location of the capture area. The popup interface may include a title bar 1310, interface input buttons 1320, and capture interface buttons 1325. The title bar displays a favicon 1330 and descriptor 1335 associated with the webpage to which the captured area belongs. The interface input buttons include a minimize button 1340, a maximize button 1341, a close button 1344. Selection of the minimize button causes the popup interface to disappear and a corresponding tab to display on the taskbar of the desktop. Selection of the tab from the taskbar causes the interface window to be displayed. Selection of the close button causes the popup interface to close. The selected capture area may then be re-accessed by selection of a corresponding URL bookmarked from the browser menu, selection of a corresponding desktop shortcut corresponding to the URL of the capture area, or from selection of a widget or a favicon, icon, button or desktop shortcut. The capture interface buttons include a share button 1350, an expand button 1351, a view info 1353, and a refresh button 1355. Selection of the share button causes a share interface window to appear, as shown in Fig. 14. Selection of the expand button causes a full browser window to appear displaying the capture area and surrounding area shown in Fig. 16. Selection of the refresh button causes the captured area to be refreshed.

Fig. 14 illustrates an example of a screen shot 1400 of a share interface 1401. As shown in Fig. 14, the share interface is an email share interface. The email share interface includes a popup window including a title bar 1405, a window input button 1410, and one or more fields for entry of information from a user input device. The title bar includes a description 1411 of the interface. The window input button is a close button, selection of which causes the share interface to close. The one or more fields include a recipient field 1420, a your email field 1421, a subject field 1422, and a message field 1423. The recipient field is configured to receive one or more email addresses of a user with which the user wishes to share the captured area. The user may use a user input device to enter an email address in the field. In addition, the field may automatically populate with one or more email address from a user' s contact list or from emails previously entered into the field. A field is also configured to receive the user's email address that is sending the captured content. This field may be automatically populated with the user's email address or the user may select from one of several email addresses to enter. A subject field is configured to receive a user entry for a subject of the email corresponding to the email with the link to the captured area. The message field of the email interface is provided for the user to insert a message to accompany the link to the captured area. The message area may be populated with a link that to the captured area that is included in the email sent to the recipient. The share interface also includes a send button 1425. When a user selects the send button, the share server of the service provider system creates an electronic message and sends a message containing a link to the captured area and any accompanying message to the specified recipient. In this case, the service creates and sends an email with the link to the captured area.

Fig. 15 illustrates an example of a screen shot 1500 of a capture information interface 1501. The capture information is configured to provide information about the captured area. In the example shown in Fig. 15 the capture information includes a popup window including a title bar 1505 descriptor identifying the window type. The window includes a descriptor of the captured content 1510, such as the URL corresponding to the captured area, a date of capture 1511, and whether the content is live or cached 1512. In addition, a user input button is provided 1515. In this case, a close button is provided configured to close the confirmation interface. Alternatively, the capture information provided in the capture interface may be presented on the chrome of the capture interface, for example, adjacent to the input buttonsl351, 1353, and 1355.

Fig. 16 illustrates an example of a screen shot 1600 of the display window of a maximized capture interface. In maximized mode, the capture interface expands to show a full browser window 1601 that includes the capture area 1610 outlined by a boarder 1611. The remainder of the web page 1615 from which the captured content was selected is presented with an overlay configured to be visually distinct from the capture area. For example, the overlay may be configured to produce a shadowed area surrounding the captured content to draw attention to the captured area and provide a context by allowing the user to see the remainder of the webpage. In addition, three input buttons are provided in conjunction with the capture area. The buttons include a widgetize button 1651, a toggle mask button 1650, and an original source button 1655. Selection of the widgetize button causes a popup interface window to appear, as shown in Fig. 13. Selection of the toggle mask button causes shading or visual distinctiveness of the remainder 1615 to be turned on and off. Selection of the original source button causes a browser to present the original source page of the source URL presented by the IFRAME of Fig. 16. If the content presented in the IFRAME is live, the source URL is that of the original webpage from which the content was captured. If the content is cached, the source URL is that of the service provider system cached page of the original webpage.

Fig. 17 illustrates an example of a screen shot 1700 of the capture interface open in the tab 1701 of a browser window. The capture interface includes all of the elements described above in conjunction with Fig. 13. In addition, the interface is provided with a widgetize button 1720. Selection of the widgetize button causes the capture interface popup window shown in Fig. 13 to open and display in addition to the capture interface open in tab 7101 of the browser window. Using a tab of the browser, as shown in Fig. 17, may simplify processing in certain situations. For example, using a tab instead of a pop up window eliminates the use of a bounce page or requesting that a user to confirm the service provider as a trusted source in order to activate the popup window. This can be useful, for example, in providing a link to access the capture area in an email as to simply a transaction with a new user who may not be familiar with the service provider or have pre-established settings for the service provider.

As indicated above, the captured content may be shared with other users by a number of different services. For example, a URL or Capture ID associated with the captured content may be sent by an electronic communications service, such as instant messaging, texting, email, other electronic communications service. Fig. 18 is an example 1800 of a flow chart for sharing captured content. The URL or capture ID for the capture content is shared with another user by use of an electronic communications system (e.g., by email, SMS, text, or other message service associated with a user address or ID) (1801). The URL or ID is received and selected by the receiving user using a communications interface of user device (1805). The display service of the service provider system receives a request for captured content from the user interface of the user device via the URL or capture ID (1810). The display service retrieves the capture metadata associated with the captured content from the database management service (1815). The display service formats metadata for display by the interface of the user device (1820). The display service forwards the request to display JSP (1825). The display service determines whether the request for captured content is being presented as a widget or a content sharing page, for example, with a highlighted area (1830).

If the captured content is displayed via a widget, during the page load of the user interface of the user device, a widget creation is initiated (1835). A widget capture container <div> is dynamically sized (1840). A wrapper <div> is dynamically sized and styled to show the captured area of the source page (1845). A source Iframe is created using the URL of the captured page and the Iframe is dynamically sized (1850). A button bar <div> is created and placed on the widget (1855). The display service determines whether the captured content is embedded in a page or a popup (1857). If a popup is used, the widget presenting the captured content is displayed in the popup window (1860) (e.g., as shown in Fig. 13). However, if the captured content is displayed in a page, a widgetize button is added to the page allowing the user to create a popup window or capture interface (1862). The widget and widgetize button embedded in the page is presented in a tab using an Iframe (1864) (e.g., as shown in Fig. 17).

If the captured content is displayed via a highlight in a page, on a page load the Iframe is created, sized, and scrolled (1868). A floating layer <div> is created (1870). In addition, a clear capture area <div> is created (1872). A number of semi opaque masking <divs> are created to highlight or emphasize the capture area by providing a contrast surrounding the captured area (1874). A button bar <div> is created and placed on the capture area <div> (1878). The page is then displayed with the capture area highlighted 1880) (e.g., as shown in Fig. 16).

A number of exemplary implementations have been described. Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made. For example, suitable results may be achieved if the steps of described techniques are performed in a different order and/or if components in a described components, architecture, or devices are combined in a different manner and/or replaced or supplemented by other components. Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A method for capturing web content of a webpage provided by a web content provider system rendered in an interface window of a user device, the method comprising:

rendering an indication of an area specified by a user input device for capture in the interface window;

determining the dimensions of the rendered indication of the capture area by a processing device;

determining coordinates associated with the rendered indication of the capture area by the processing device;

determining offsets associated with the coordinates relative to the position of the rendered indication within the webpage by the processing device; and

transmitting the determined dimensions and the determined offsets to a system service provider for capture of the web content rendered within the indication of the capture area.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the dimensions of the rendered indication of the capture area include determining the dimensions measured in pixels.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the coordinates associated with the rendered indication of the capture area includes determining a pixel corresponding to the coordinates.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein rendering an indication includes rendering a rectangle bounding the capture area according to input from the user input device.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein determining the dimensions of the rendered indication of the capture area include determining the dimensions of the rectangle and determining the coordinates includes determining the location of the upper left hand corner of the rectangle.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein determining offsets associated with the coordinates includes determining an x offset and a y offset specifying the location of the coordinates relative to the upper left hand corner of the webpage.

7. A method of presenting web content captured from a webpage of a web content provider system performed by one or more processing devices, the method comprising:

retrieving metadata corresponding to a capture operation from a database including the location of a user specified captured area within a webpage corresponding to the captured web content; determining the dimensions of an interface window to present the captured web content from the retrieved metadata;

determining an offset from the retrieved metadata to position the interface window relative to the webpage to present the captured web content within the interface window;

creating a data structure populated with at least some of the retrieved metadata and the determined size and the determined offset;

translating the data structure into markup tags configured to display the captured web content of the webpage in the interface window on a client device; and

transmitting the markup tags to a browser of the client device.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein determining the dimensions of the interface window include determining the dimensions in pixels.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein determining an offset includes determining an x offset and a y offset of anchor coordinates of the captured area within the webpage.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein determining the dimensions includes determining the dimensions of a rectangle bounding the capture area measured in pixels.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein determining an offset includes determining an x offset and a y offset specifying the location of the upper left hand corner of the rectangle relative to the upper left hand corner of the webpage.

12. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

determining a context of the captured web content using at least some of the metadata;

selecting an electronic advertisement corresponding to the determined context; and

serving the electronic advertisement for presentation by the client device.

13. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

creating an image of the captured web content;

analyzing the image to determine a context of the image;

serving the electronic advertisement for presentation by the client device.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising: receiving an indication from a user to share the captured web content with a social networking website or personal start- webpage;

translating the metadata into format compatible with an application programming interface (API) of the social networking website or personal start webpage; and

transmitting the translated metadata to the social networking website or personal start webpage to present the captured user specified web content.

15. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

receiving an indication from a user to share the captured web content with a social networking website or personal start- webpage;

16. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

receiving an indication from a user to share the captured web content;

sending an electronic communication with a unique identification corresponding to the captured web content; and

receiving the unique identification from a client device presenting the electronic communication,

wherein retrieving metadata corresponding to the capture operation including retrieving metadata corresponding to the unique identification; and transmitting the markup tags includes transmitting the markup tags to a browser of the client device presenting the electronic communication.