Selective content imaging for web pages

Abstract

Selective imaging of webpage content is disclosed. It is determined automatically whether an item of content or a portion thereof satisfies one or more of a set of one or more criteria to be included as an image in a webpage as published. An image of the item of content is generated and included in the webpage as published if it is determined that the item of content satisfies one or more of the set of one or more criteria.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a user interface for creating and/or editing a webpage.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process for enabling a user to create and/or edit a webpage.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process for providing a webpage creation/editing interface.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process for automatically selectively imaging webpage content.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process for identifying automatically webpage content required to be imaged.

Claims

1. A method for selective imaging webpage content, comprising: determining automatically whether an item of content or a portion thereof satisfies one or more of a set of one or more criteria to be included as an image in a webpage as published; andgenerating an image of the item of content and including the image in the webpage as published if it is determined that the item of content satisfies one or more of the set of one or more criteria.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the image of the item of content is generated and included in the webpage automatically if it is determined that the item of content satisfies one or more of the set of one or more criteria.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein including the image in the webpage as published includes automatically stitching the image together with content represented directly using one or more webpage publishing formats.

4. A method as recited in claim 3, wherein the one or more webpage publishing formats include one or more of the following: HTML, CSS, ECMAScript, GIF, JPEG, and PNG.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising establishing the set of one or more criteria.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein at least a subset of the set of one or more criteria comprise criteria based on at least one or more of the following: a limitation of CSS, HTML, ECMAScript, and/or some other Web format; a difference between a Web format and a webpage authoring application; a limitation of a browser; a difference between two or more browsers; a difference between two or more operating systems; a limitation of a hardware device; a difference between two or more hardware devices; an installation dependency; and/or a configuration dependency.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising storing content data associated with the webpage in a native file format associated with a webpage authoring application so that items of content determined to satisfy one or more criteria to be included as an image in the webpage as published can be modified in a native form, as opposed to by modifying a generated image of the item of content.

8. A method as recited in claim 7, further including receiving an indication that a previously-imaged item of content has been changed and re-imaging the item of content upon republishing the webpage.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the determination whether an item of content or a portion thereof satisfies one or more of a set of one or more criteria to be included as an image in a webpage as published is made when the item of content becomes associated with the webpage.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the determination whether an item of content or a portion thereof satisfies one or more of a set of one or more criteria to be included as an image in a webpage as published is made when the webpage is published.

11. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein if it is determined that the item of content satisfies one or more of the set of one or more criteria the image of the item of content is generated and included in the webpage when the webpage is published.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of one or more criteria includes one or more of the following criteria to determine when a whole shape is to be imaged: the shape is inserted inline (as opposed to floating or absolutely positioned); there is a hyperlink on the shape itself; the shape is not rectangular; the shape has geometry that is not supported in HTML or CSS, such as horizontal or vertical flipping, shear, and/or rotation; the shadow of the shape is visible; the shape has overall transparency; and/or the shape is less than 32700 pixels in width and height and its text content meets one or more criteria for imaging text.

13. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of one or more criteria includes one or more of the following criteria to determine when a graphical portion of a shape is to be imaged: the stroke of the shape is visible and/or the fill of the shape has one or more of the following properties: it uses a tiled image fill and the image has transparency, it uses a gradient fill, and/or it uses a color fill, and the color has an alpha transparency component.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of one or more criteria includes one or more of the following criteria to determine when a whole table is to be imaged: there is a hyperlink on the table itself; one of the cells in the table has one of the following properties: the cell has an image or gradient background, the cell contains text that should be imaged, and/or the table has an overall fill and the cell uses a vertical inset that works differently than an HTML vertical insets; there is geometry on the table that cannot be expressed in CSS, like rotation or shear; the table has a visible shadow; and/or the table has an overall transparency setting.

15. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of one or more criteria includes one or more of the following criteria to determine when text is to be imaged: it is vertically aligned “bottom” or “center”; it contains a character or paragraph style with one of the following properties: it specifies a font for which the alternate Windows-style font name or CSS generic font family is not known, it specifies double or triple underlining, it specifies an underline color that is different from the color of the text, it specifies double or triple strikethrough, it specifies a strikethrough color that is different from the color of the text, it specifies both underline and strikethrough, it specifies the use of font outlining, it specifies a text color that contains alpha transparency, it specifies a text shadow with an overall alpha transparency; the text contains a table that satisfies a criterion for imaging the table; its text content contains floating drawables that overlap; and/or the text box contains too much text to be displayed within the bounds of the box, causing an “overfull” indicator in the authoring application.

16. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising representing the item of content directly using one or more webpage publishing formats if it is determined that the item of content does not satisfy one or more of the set of one or more criteria.

17. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein generating an image of the item of content comprises generating a vector graphic image of the item of content.

18. A method of encoding webpage content, comprising: determining automatically that an item of content or a portion thereof is desired to have a visual effect as rendered that is to be achieved using a first encoding technique for viewing using a first set of one or more browsers and using a second encoding technique for viewing using a second set of one or more browsers; andgenerating a first direct representation of the item of content using the first encoding technique and a second direct representation of the item of content using the second encoding technique;and configuring a webpage comprising the item of content to provide for the item of content to a browser being used to view the webpage as published the first direct representation if the browser is included in the first set of one or more browsers and the second direct representation if the browser is included in the second set of one or more browsers.

19. A system for selectively imaging webpage content, comprising: a processor configured to determine automatically whether an item of content or a portion thereof satisfies one or more of a set of one or more criteria to be included as an image in a webpage as published; and generate an image of the item of content and include the image in the webpage as published if it is determined that the item of content satisfies one or more of the set of one or more criteria; anda memory coupled to the processor and configured to provide instructions to the processor.

20. A computer program product for selectively imaging webpage content, the computer program product being embodied in a computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for: determining automatically whether an item of content or a portion thereof satisfies one or more of a set of one or more criteria to be included as an image in a webpage as published; andgenerating an image of the item of content and including the image in the webpage as published if it is determined that the item of content satisfies one or more of the set of one or more criteria.

21. A computer program product as recited in claim 18, further comprising computer instructions for storing content data associated with the webpage in a native file format so that items of content determined to satisfy one or more criteria to be included as an image in the webpage as published can be modified in a native form, as opposed to by modifying a generated image of the item of content.

22. A computer program product as recited in claim 18, further comprising computer instructions for representing the item of content directly using one or more webpage publishing formats if it is determined that the item of content does not satisfy one or more of the set of one or more criteria.