Abstract:
A system and method for previewing hyperlinks with textual abstracts. The system provides users with previews of previously visited hyperlinks through textual abstracts of the web destination pages. The textual abstracts provide visual cues to remind the user of a page&#39;s content. Further, the system presents previews of the destination of the hyperlinks to the user in a dynamic browsing environment which is independent of any WWW browser and operating system. Such a system is implemented through a proxy-server or client-side program. Finally, the system is configurable to allow for the customization of how and which textual abstract to display.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of Invention 
     This invention relates to the world wide web, and more particularly, to a system and method for previewing hyperlinks with textual abstracts. 
     2. Discussion of Prior Art 
     With the world wide web steadily becoming a major communication and research medium, advertisers and others have searched for effective means for conveying information, including advertisements, to web users. Users may request and receive web pages/documents through their web browsers at their respective remote terminals. Web browsers have become fundamental to everyday computer usage. Navigating web documents over hyperlinks (which may contain textual addresses of a web page&#39;s location, access protocol, data type and name of the web documents) has become a routine part of web browsing. Users of web browsers often encounter hyperlinks with identical destinations while browsing clusters of web documents. Further, in the browsing process, users often backtrack to revisit previously viewed documents. Visiting a huge array of web documents through hyperlinks, users often do not remember which hyperlink lead to a particular web document that may have been of interest. Hence, users repeatedly traverse previously visited hyperlinks to remind themselves of the content of their destinations. This browsing strategy forces the user to plough through a multitude of irrelevant web pages to rediscover the ones that are of interest. This therefore, results in an ineffective way of browsing and may ultimately cause users to get lost in cyberspace. What is needed is a method to assist in the reviewing of hyperlinks during the browsing process. 
     The prior art in this area is characterized by a conventional browser such as Microsoft Windows Explorer® which provides for a view called “Thumbnail View” that shows a miniature representation of graphic files such as GIFs (Graphic Interchange Format), JPEGs (Joint Photographic Experts Group), and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) pages that reside on a local system in an Explorer Window. This view allows users to preview multiple web sites and multiple graphic formats, simultaneously without visiting the sites, or opening the files. However, the Microsoft® system fails to provide on-line previewing of the hyperlinks in the WWW pages, but rather only of web documents on the file system. Further the Microsoft® system is embedded into Windows Explorer® as compared to the present invention that is independent of any particular web browser and operating system. 
     The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art by providing a system and method which presents to the user, previews of previously visited hyperlinks through miniature graphical representations, thumbnail views of the destination pages or thumbnail views of all hyperlinks within a web page. The previews of the destinations of hyperlinks are given in a dynamic browsing environment. The layout, colors, and images of these previews provide visual cues to remind the user of the page&#39;s content. Hence, the system enables the user to view the contents of the page without actually having to visit the page. This system is independent of any web browser and operating system and is implemented through a proxy-server or client-side program. Finally, the system is configured to allow for the customization of content and selection of thumbnail views to display. These and other improvements are achieved by the detailed description that follows. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     A system and method is described for previewing hyperlinks via textual abstracts. Generally, the system provides users with previews of previously visited hyperlinks through textual abstracts of the destination web pages. The abstracts provide visual cues to remind the user of a web page&#39;s content. Further, the system presents the abstracts of the destinations of the hyperlinks to the user in a dynamic browsing environment which is independent of any WWW browser or operating system. Such a system is implemented through a proxy-server or client-side program. Finally, the system is configured to allow for the customization of content and selection of textual abstracts to display. 
     The present invention&#39;s method for previewing and storing textual abstracts of requested web pages and their associated out-links comprises the following steps: (a) receiving a request for a web page from a web site; (b) downloading the web page from said web site via a browser; (c) determining if the web page has been previously visited, and if so,
         determining if one or more hyperlinks are present in the downloaded web page;   determining for each hyperlink whether a textual abstract is stored within the database;   for each hyperlink having a stored textual abstract, modifying said downloaded web page to include a reference to said stored textual abstract, and   displaying said modified downloaded web page wherein said stored textual abstracts are rendered upon selecting associated hyperlinks in said downloaded web page at said remote terminal,       

     else
         capturing a textual abstract of said downloaded page; and   storing said captured textual abstract and associated hyperlink, wherein said stored textual abstracts are rendered upon selecting such associated hyperlinks in requested web pages.       

     These and other improvements are achieved by the detailed description that follows. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1   a  illustrates the architecture of a preferred embodiment of the present invention hyperlink preview system. 
         FIG. 1   b  illustrates the architecture of a secondary embodiment of the present invention hyperlink preview system. 
         FIG. 2  illustrates a flow diagram depicting the steps for storing and previewing visited hyperlinks. 
         FIG. 3  illustrates a web page with thumbnail preview. 
         FIG. 4  illustrates a java script for transformation of an anchor element to include a thumbnail image file attachment. 
         FIG. 5  illustrates a flowchart for a textual embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     While this invention is illustrated and described in a preferred embodiment, the system may be implemented in many different configurations, forms and materials. There is depicted in the drawings, and will herein be described in detail, a preferred embodiment of the invention, with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as a exemplification of the principles of the invention and the associated functional specifications of the materials for its construction and is not intended to limit the invention to the embodiment illustrated. Those skilled in the art will envision many other possible variations within the scope of the present invention. 
       FIG. 1   a  illustrates the architecture of the present invention hyperlink preview system  100 . The system is connected to the World Wide Web (WWW)  108  which comprises a group of networks that are interconnected so that they appear to be one continuous large network. User  102 , on user terminal  103 , requests a web page from any one of a plurality of web sites  112 - 114  through browser  104 . Proxy-server  106  interconnects browser  104 , WWW  108 , and database  110  via communication lines  116 ,  118  &amp;  120 , respectively. The functions of proxy server  106  may include for example, but are not limited to, providing an effective and secure barrier between a local/internal network (not shown) and WWW  108 . The proxy server blocks various protocols and IP addresses from entering the internal network and at the same time controls the protocols the used to access WWW  108 . Finally, in the present invention, proxy server  106  offers web caching capabilities for storing miniature images of previously visited web sites and their associated out-links and providing local access to users who re-visit the sites or associated out-links. Continuing in  FIG. 1   a , if the requested web page is not in database  110  (i.e., the requested page has never been visited), software residing within proxy server  106  creates a miniature image of the page and enters the image into database  110 . Software to create the miniature images is known in the art and can be located remotely from the proxy server without departing from the scope of the present invention. Furthermore, the system enhances the visited out-links (described below) of the web page with corresponding miniature images in database  110 . The browser displays retrieved web pages and corresponding miniature images to selected displayed hyperlinks as overlays to enhance browsing. 
       FIG. 1   b  illustrates a secondary embodiment system architecture. The invention is either performed through a proxy server  106 , as described above and shown in  FIG. 1   a , or directly through a user terminal (client/browser-side)  103  as shown in  FIG. 1   b . In both cases, the present invention parses the document and its links, accesses database  110 , and returns to browser  104  an edited document. The proxy server implementation relieves the user of storing large amounts of data associated with each of the previously traversed hyperlinks. The client-side ( FIG. 1   b ), however, relieves user  102  of relying on the existence of the proxy server  106  and from the performance bottle neck of the proxy server serving other users. 
       FIG. 2  illustrates a flow diagram  200  depicting the steps for storing and previewing visited web pages and associated hyperlinks. In step  202 , a user requests a web page P which is then downloaded to the proxy server  106 . The system in step  204  determines if downloaded web page P has been previously visited. If downloaded web page P has never being visited, then the system produces an miniature image-capture  206  of the web page P and proceeds to store the miniature image-captured with its respective URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in database  110  as illustrated in step  208 . One way that the system can produce an image capture of a web page is by opening it with a browser and using one of any of the commercially available capture programs (e.g., Paint Shop Pro®, Capture®, etc.) to produce an image of the displayed page. The database contains tables of previously visited URLs with their corresponding image-captures. The downloaded web pages may contain HTML anchor elements also referred to as hyperlinks/out-links. 
     Once the page is stored, or if it was determined in step  204  that the page was already visited  207 , the system proceeds to evaluate all out-links  210  contained within downloaded web page P by performing the steps  212 - 218  for each out-link discovered in step  210 . In step  212 , the system determines if the retrieved out-link appears in the database (i.e., has been previously visited). If the out-link is present within the database, then the system retrieves the image-capture from the database  214  and annotates the line reference (eg. HTML anchor element) with an event object  216 , such as an “On-Mouse-Over”. Further, in step  218  the system determines if more out-links are contained within web page P. If there are no more out-link(s) contained within web page P, the system invokes a script to display the image as a pop-up thumbnail view in step  220 . Referring back to step  212 , if out-link(s) are not present within the database the system proceeds to step  218 . In step  218 , if more out-links are present within the web page P, the system returns to step  210  and proceeds as discussed above. In a second embodiment, if an out-link does not have an associated image stored (i.e., the link has not been previously visited), then the link reference is maintained. In a third embodiment, if an out-link does not have an associated image stored, the system visits the web page, generates an image for it and stores such image in the database. 
       FIG. 3  illustrates web page  300  with thumbnail preview  302 . As a specific example, a hyperlink to URL http://w3.almaden.ibm.com/almorg.html found in a downloaded page is considered. If the user traverses this hyperlink, thereby downloading the page, the system captures a thumbnail view of the document as an image file (“almorg.bmp”) and stores it in database  110 . The system uses this image-file to provide an event-driven “flashback image” to the user each time the user encounters the same URL on subsequent pages. For example, when the user highlights the hyperlink with anchor-text “organization chart”  304 , the system presents thumbnail preview  302  of the destination in the bottom-right corner of the web page. This view provides the user with a visual summary of the web page associated with the highlighted hyperlink. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates a java script for transformation of the above anchor element to include a thumbnail image file attachment. The system transforms the anchor elements found in a future page which contains the almorg-URL as follows:
         &lt;a href=“http://w3.almaden.ibm.com/almorg.html”&gt;
           Plane reference   
           &lt;/a&gt;
 
This Javascript describes a plain reference linking to the organization charts page.
   &lt;a href=“http://w3.almaden.ibm.com/almorg.html”
           onfocus=“document.preview_img.src=‘almorg.bmp’”/&gt;   Plane reference   
           &lt;a/&gt;   &lt;img name=“preview_img” src=“preveiw_foo.bmp”/&gt;       

     After the transformation, the annotated reference links to the previously visited “organization chart” page. A JavaScript in this new reference performs the following actions. When the user selects the element as the page focus, a pop-up image of the organization charts page (in almorg.bmp) appears on the designated part of the page (for example the bottom-right corner in  FIG. 3 ). In this example, the designated part contains an image element named “preview-img.” on focus, the script sets the source of this image element to the thumbnail image. 
     The system edits all web documents in a similar manner before it allows browser  104  to display them. The system therefore presents to the user a thumbnail view of all previously visited hyperlink(s) destinations in one embodiment and all hyperlink destinations in another embodiment. In a third embodiment, thumbnail images for every out-link are generated on-the-fly each time a web page is downloaded. The implementation of the present invention requires the system to crawl each downloaded web page one level deep to generate an image for each URL without requiring the use of a database. In all embodiments, the system inevitably facilitates web navigation thereby increasing the efficiency of browsing. 
     This system allows a user to configure the appearance of the visual cues and the engagement and disengagement of the system. For instance, the system permits the user to choose whether to make a pop-up icon(s) appear beside each hyperlink on a mouse-over, to appear in a designated area of the page on focus or appear in an entirely separate window. These variations only require changes in parameters in the component that edits the hypertext references. Finally, the system filters and displays particular URLs based on the users predefined configuration. For example, the system allows the user to specify not to preview URLs that have host-name “w3.almaden.ibm.com” or to only preview URLs with extension “html”. 
     Referring to  FIG. 5 , the system is extensible to text based previews as shown in flowchart  500 . Web page “P” is downloaded  502  and it is determined if the page has been previously visited  504 . If the page is new  507 , the system produces a text-based abstract  508  from the downloaded document instead of an image-based abstract. The abstract consists of different elements of the downloaded page such as the title, keyword, and size of the downloaded page file. Moreover, the system allows the user to choose the content of the automatically generated abstract (e.g., “include title only” or “include both title and keywords”, etc.). The abstract is stored with URL in the database  510 , much the same as the images. Once this is completed, or if a page was previously visited, the system proceeds to get out-links from P  512 . If the out-link is in the database  514 / 516 , then its abstract is retrieved  520  with the user to able to edit the abstract  522  when it is generated. For example, after downloading a web page, the user views and edits the abstract or manually appends to the page predefined users configuration/parameters. For example, the abstract is played as an audio clip in the background or viewed as a pop-up text in a designated part of the web page. 
     If no out-links are in the database  518  or if more out-links exist for P  524 / 526 , the steps for getting an out-link are repeated  528 . When all out-links are processed  530 , the abstracts are displayed  532 , or in the alternative played as an audio clip as described above. 
     The above enhancements for previewing hyperlinks with flashback images and its described functional elements are implemented in any conventional Internet communication browser, software or operating systems. For example, the present invention may be implemented through a proxy server or client-side program that returns to the browser an edited document. 
     CONCLUSION 
     A system and method has been shown in the above embodiments for the effective implementation of previewing hyperlinks with flashback images for web navigating. While various preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that there is no intent to limit the invention by such disclosure, but rather, it is intended to cover all modifications and alternate constructions falling within the spirit and scope of the invention, as defined in the appended claims. For example, the present invention should not be limited by browser, software/program, computing environment, or specific computing hardware.