Method and system for extracting contents of web pages

A method and system for automatically parsing codes of Web pages and extracting contents of the Web pages. A computer program is utilized to decompose Web pages into a plurality of content blocks for users to flexibly select some desired content blocks according to their preferences and needs. Save a selection setting of the selected content blocks of Web pages and transmit the setting and the selected contents of Web pages to portable data processing gismos. Users thus could use portable data processing gismos to browse the information over the Internet and even use the selection setting to update the instant information of Web pages.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The present invention discloses a method and system for extracting the contents of Web pages by means of decomposing the contents into several content blocks. The user could parse the codes, programmed by specific program languages, of Web pages and then decompose the contents thereof into several content blocks and extract the blocks flexibly according to his needs and preferences. Moreover, the user could set up individually the architecture of retrieving the information of any Web page on the cyberspace to avoid stuffing lots of redundant messages with memories of user's receiving means as well as transmission channels over the cyberspace. The present invention is specifically applicable to portable data processing gismos, such as desktops, laptops, palm tops, personal digital assistants (PDA), pocket PCs or mobile phones and the like to construct the architecture of retrieving net information. The present invention solves disadvantages of the prior art that Web pages providers should require lots of labors and resources to redesign the Web pages, originally applicable to person computers, to meet the specifications for portable data processing gismos. The main spirits of the present invention will be illustrated as below. Subsequently, an example will be introduced to show a practical implementation of the invention on a PDA. Referring to FIG. 1 , the present Web page extracting system includes a Web page content provider 20 , an application server 40 , a portable data processing device 60 over a network 10 , a first connection means 30 and a second connection means 50 . Each application server 40 represents a node on the Internet, which could be embodied as an Internet accessible apparatus, such as a computer workstation, personal computer. The Web page content provider 20 denotes one of media companies unilaterally broadcasting Web pages, generally applicable to the application server 40 , over the network 10 . The contents of these Web pages often include different kinds of articles, graphics, advertisements and surveys, etc., to fulfill requirements of online clients. The application server 40 of the present invention could flexibly extract the contents of Web pages provided by the Web page content provider 20 on the Internet. The first connection means 30 and the second connection means 50 are coupled with the Internet, by wire or wireless. The method of the invention is illustrated as below with referring to FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 . A Web page extracting device 100 , as shown in FIG. 2 , is installed in the application server 40 . The Web page extracting device 100 includes a display element 110 , a program parsing element 120 and a Web-site database 130 . Referring to the step 200 of FIG. 3 , utilize the application server 40 to choose and log on a Web site by inputting its IP address or domain name first. Then, access a Web page provided by the Web page content provider 20 , as shown in the step 210 , via the first connection means 30 coupled with the Internet, by wire or wireless, and show the Web page on the display element 110 , such as a display window, of the Web page extracting device 100 . The Web page extracting device 100 utilizes the program parsing element 120 to parse the architecture of the program code of the Web page and automatically to decompose the Web page into several content blocks, as shown in the step 220 . Subsequently, the user would select some desired content blocks from all of them according to the user's preferences and needs, as shown in the step 230 . If the content blocks of the Web page further include a sub-layer data structure and the user is interested in parts of the content blocks, then the user would select one of the blocks, he desires, and click to enter next Web page of the sub-layer data structure and looking for the more details. Meanwhile, the program parsing element 120 would similarly keep decomposing the sub-layer Web page into the other plural content blocks for the user to select some, as shown in the step 240 . Once the preserving content blocks of a Web page have been selected, save the selections of the Web page, as shown in the step 250 . After the contents of all Web pages of the web sites have been selected, save the selection setting of Web pages in the Web-site database 130 , as shown in the step 260 . Users could repeat to utilize the method of the invention as mentioned above, on any Web site of the network 10 and according to users' needs and preferences to extract the contents of Web pages of one Web site. More specifically, the program parsing element 120 is use to parse the architecture of codes, programmed by specific program languages, of Web pages. Generally, the program languages are in forms of CGI programs, Active Server Pages, JAVA programs, HTML programs, XML programs and the like. For HTML programs as an example, the program parsing element 120 parses the architecture of a code of a Web page, programmed by HTML programs, and decomposes the main body of the HTML code, i.e., between <Body> and </Body>, the tables of the HTML code, i.e., between <Table> and </Table>, as well as the other parts between the main body and the tables of the HTML code into a plurality of program blocks. Specially, each of the program blocks of a code is correlative to each of the content blocks of a Web page. Moreover, assign one corresponding index to each program block of the program code to facilitate the updating of the contents of Web pages. The Web-site database 130 of the invention further includes a renewing element 140 for users to update their Web site contents. That is to utilize the renewing element 140 accompanying with the saved selections of the preserving content blocks of a Web page to update the contents of each preserving block of each Web page in the Web-site database 130 from each Web page content provider 20 via the first connection means 30 . Therefore, users could efficiently retrieve their necessary information to prevent wasting lots of time to retrieve redundant messages. Besides, users could also save their costs of retrieving net information and solve the problem of insufficiency of net bandwidth and the phenomenon of “netjams.” Similarly, The method and system of the present invention is applicable to portable data processing gismos 60 , such as desktops, laptops, palm tops, personal digital assistants (PDA), pocket PCs, mobile phones or the like for browsing Web pages, as shown in FIG. 1 . Generally, compared portable data processing gismos 60 with personal computers, the volume of memory resources of the portable data processing gismos 60 is smaller than that of the personal computers. Besides, screens of portable data processing gismos 60 are also smaller. Traditionally, it is hard to use portable data processing gismos 60 to browse Web pages on the Internet 10 . As shown in the step 270 of FIG. 3 , the present invention would solve the above-mention problem by means of transmitting the Web-site database 130 in sequence to the portable data processing gismos 60 via the second connection means 50 . The portable data processing gismos 60 therefore could browse the preserving content blocks of Web pages directly because the data are smaller after decomposing and extracting. If users wish to update the contents of the preserving content blocks of each Web page saved in the portable data processing gismos 60 , as shown in the step 280 , there would be two ways of updating. The first one utilizes the renewing element 140 of the Web page extracting device 100 in the application server 40 to update the contents of the preserving content blocks of each Web page, saved in the portable data processing gismos 60 , via the first connection means 30 coupled with the network 10 . The second method utilizes the renewing element 140 of the Web-site database 130 in the portable data processing gismos 60 , such as PDA, accompanying with the saved selections of the preserving content blocks of each Web page to update the contents thereof each Web page content provider 20 via the first connection means 30 . As a result, the traditional Web page content providers don't have to spend lots of resources to redesign the Web pages to meet the specification version for portable data processing gismos. The user of portable data processing gismos can also flexibly and instantly access information of the cyberspace. Referring to FIG. 4 , FIG. 5 , FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 , an embodiment of the present invention is illustrated. As shown in FIG. 4 , it illustrates an embodiment of the display window 110 of the Web page extracting device 100 . The user could input a Web-site address or its domain name, such as “http://www.cnn.com,” to download the Homepage of CNN Web site, wherein the display window 110 includes two main parts, the lower part and the upper one. The lower part is the original Web page window 150 showing the original CNN's Homepage of this embodiment. Meanwhile, the upper part is the content-block window 160 for displaying the contents of one content block of a Web page. As shown in FIG. 4 , the content-block window 160 displays a graphic of “CNN.com,” which is one content block of the original CNN's Homepage. Similarly, another content block of the original CNN's Homepage is illustrated in the content-block window 160 of FIG. 5 . Moreover, as shown in FIG. 6 , if the Web page contents in the original Web page window 150 further include more detailed contents existing in the sub-layer Web pages, the program parsing element 120 will decompose the next page into a plurality of content blocks, supposed the user further click and select one part of the content block in the content-block window 160 . Then, one of the content blocks will be displayed in the content-block window 160 . Repeat the process described above, users only need to select what he desires to preserve from all of the content blocks of Web pages and at last save in the selection setting 170 . Specially, assign a channel name according to the Web page and add the channel name into the Web-site database 130 . Repeat the setting processes, users could record all setting of Web pages, provided by the Web page content providers 20 on the network 10 , in their Web-site database 130 of the Web page content extracting device 100 according to their preferences and requirements. Moreover, transmit the Web-site database 130 , already set up, to portable data processing gismos 60 by wire or wireless. As shown in FIG. 7 , there is a plurality of channels, such as News Channels, Weather Channels, Stock Channels, etc., for choosing in the Web-site database 130 in portable data processing gismos 60 . Accordingly, the users of portable data processing gismos 60 could update their net information in the Web-site database 130 by the renewing element 140 , accompanying with the connection means coupled with the Internet, instantly and flexibly. More important, users could retrieve the information according to their preferences beyond the limitations of the screen's size and the volume of memories by extracting the desired information from the redundant messages. To summarize, the present Internet is superior to the conventional art in the aspects of automatic message update, flexible message access, tight connection between e-companies and customers for creating huge opportunity for profit, and enable for digital gismos to retrieve information from the Internet without any limitation. The information transmission efficiency over the cyberspace is also improved. Although the invention has been described in detail herein with reference to its preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that this description is by way of example only, and is not to be construed in a limiting sense. It is to be further understood that numerous changes in the details of the embodiments of the invention, and additional embodiments of the invention, will be apparent to, and may be made by, persons of ordinary skill in the art having reference to this description. It is contemplated that such changes and additional embodiments are within the spirit and true scope of the invention as claimed below.