Patent Publication Number: US-10789413-B2

Title: Web page designing with timelines

Description:
COPYRIGHT NOTICE/PERMISSION 
     Portions of the disclosure of this patent document may contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The copyright notice applies to all data as described below, and in the accompanying drawings hereto, as well as to any software described below: Copyright © 2019, salesforce.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     One or more implementations relate to the field of world wide web (WWW) pages, and more specifically, to web page creation and previewing. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Online merchants can assemble content that is going to be rendered as part of a web page visible to a customer on a web site (e.g., a business to consumer (B2C) storefront online shopping page). This assembly process typically consists of combining multiple web page components in order to present a frequently changing visual experience to shopper. For example, the merchant may have a new advertising campaign to be scheduled for the upcoming holiday season and wants to build a landing page for this purpose. This landing page will likely contain may web page components, for example, multiple product tiles to promote products, a carousel of top selling products, a blog article describing product features and capabilities, and perhaps even content directed to certain demographic groups, and so on. Further, some components may be added and some components may be deleted from the web page based on time and/or customer segments. One challenge is how to design and preview these web pages prior to publication given the complexity of the changes. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The following figures use like reference numbers to refer to like elements. Although the following figures depict various exemplary implementations, alternative implementations are within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. In the drawings: 
         FIG. 1  is a diagram of an example arrangement of web page processing according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 2  illustrates an example of a user interface (UI) of a web page designer application according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 3  illustrates an example of a user interface for selecting customer segments according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 4  illustrates an example of a user interface for selecting a date and time for web page components according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 5  illustrates an example of a user interface including a timeline of visible web page components according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 6  illustrates an example of a user interface including problematic situations of visible web page components according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 7  illustrates an example of a user interface including a timeline of visible web page components and user controls according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 8  illustrates an example of a user interface including a schedule bar and schedule chart according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 9  is a flow diagram of web page processing by the web page designer application according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 10  illustrate flow diagrams of web page display processing by the web page designer application according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 11  is a flow diagram of web page display processing by the web page designer application according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 12  illustrate flow diagrams of web page display processing by the web page designer application according to an embodiment. 
         FIG. 13  illustrates an electronic device according to some implementations. 
         FIG. 14  shows a block diagram of an example of a computing environment in which the web page designer application including a timeline may be used in accordance with some implementations. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The following description describes a method and apparatus for designing web pages in an efficient and scalable manner. In embodiments, a web page designer application is provided that includes a timeline feature to allow the web page designer to select customer segments and/or a date and time parameters to preview how the web page will look in the future given the selected parameters. This feature is advantageous for situations where the web page changes frequently depending on the customer segment, dates and times, or other parameters. 
     Proprietors of e-commerce web sites assemble web page content that is going to be rendered as part of a web page visible to customers. This assembly process typically consists of creating and/or selecting multiple components (e.g., text, images, videos, logos, product information, advertisements, reviews, etc.) in order to present a visual experience to the online shopper. In many cases, the web pages are changed frequently in order to keep the content fresh and engaging for the customer. In other situations, the web pages are updated to reflect changing business conditions, advertising campaigns, promotions, and seasons. For example, the merchant may have a set of web pages for the upcoming holiday season. Each web page contains multiple components. One challenge is that some of those components of the web page may be controlled by one or more rules that control their visibility. For example, one rule may specify that one of the product tiles on the web page should be visible on a specific day during an advertising campaign time frame (e.g., Black Friday, Cyber Monday) and for another rule a certain product tile should only be visible to customers that belong to a selected customer segment (e.g., big spender customers, only men, only students from Texas, customers who have previously purchased certain products, etc.). 
     In one embodiment, a web page designer application helps merchants with the process of designing web pages and provides the capability to define such visibility rules for the whole web page or even separately for any of the components on the page. The web page designer application provides visual support to the designer during the content authoring process to understand scheduling of components on the web page. For a web page with many components and with one or more of the components having their own scheduling for visibility (e.g., use), the design process can become very complex and hard to understand across all the components on the page changing at different times and for different customer segments. In some cases, the schedules of components may overlap and/or contradict each other, resulting in visual displays to the customer that are not intended. Embodiments overcome such difficulties by providing web page design features to visually represent the components in such as way as to assist the designer in identifying potential problems and correcting the problems before moving the web page to a production web site visible to customers. 
     In an embodiment, an entire web page and all included components, as placed and configured by the merchant, can automatically be inspected by the web page designer application. The web page designer application then derives scheduling information from metadata associated with the components and generates a timeline that has multiple points in time, each point in time indicating changes to the rendering result of the page at the given points in time, and which of the page&#39;s components is causing the change. Furthermore, the timeline can be represented to the web page designer with a time slider control, which enables the web page designer to fast forward or rewind to those point in time indicators. The user interface control (e.g., the time slider) to change the display of the web page based on the time causes the page to be rendered for that point in time. In an embodiment, the timeline, with such clear indicators, illustrates to the web page designer which of the components that are predicted to change at selected points in time and gives visual feedback as to which of the related components on the page is causing the change. In an embodiment, the web page designer shows an extended view of the web page over time similar to a Gantt chart, so that overlapping or contradicting schedules of the various components can easily be identified. 
       FIG. 1  is a diagram of an example arrangement  100  of web page processing according to an embodiment. Application server  104  is a computer server that resides in a data center, either one managed by the merchant or by a cloud service provider (CSP). In an embodiment, application server  104  executes code to create hyper-text markup language (HTML) output. In an embodiment, application server  104  is not directly accessible by customers over a network such as the Internet. There may be multiple application servers managed by a CSP. An application server  104  includes a web page designer application  102 . Web page designer application  102  is an application program used by the merchant (or by a web site developer contracted to design the web site for the merchant) to design web pages  110  for an on-line storefront (e.g., a merchant web site for selling goods (e.g., products) to customers). The merchant assembles one or more web pages  110  during the design process from multiple web page components  108  using web page designer  102 . Web pages  110  include code and/or data that define the web site&#39;s format, function and visual appearance. A web page is an assembly of components that can be rendered on the web site. Web pages may be of different page types. A page type includes a definition of a layout and code to produce HTML descriptions of the layout. 
     In an embodiment, the merchant&#39;s web site is run on a cloud computing platform provided by the CSP. Application server  104  includes a web page database  106 , which may be integral with the application server or accessible by application server  104  within a cloud computing platform. Web page database  106  includes web pages  110  and web page components  108 . Web page components  108  include content items that can be created, selected, and/or configured by the merchant, such as text, images, videos, logos, product codes, product images, banners, advertisements, and so on. Components may include other components in a nested manner. A component may be categorized according to a component type. A component type is a definition of configuration options, and code that produces a markup of a component. The component type may define sub-layouts for nested components. 
     Web page database  106  includes one or more visibility rules  114 . In an embodiment, visibility rules  114  include visibility conditions for one or more components in web page components  108  and web pages  110 . Visibility rules  114  are used by web page designer  102  to determine when and under what conditions web page components  108  are to be included and/or visible in web pages  110  to a specific customer at a specific time. Conditions can be based on one or more of any characteristics, customer attributes, demographic information, time, geographic location, Internet Protocol (IP) address, interests, or any other data. In an embodiment, visibility is based on a schedule (e.g., only visible during the holiday season). In an embodiment, visibility is based on defined customer segments (e.g., only visible for male customers from Wyoming). In an embodiment, the customer segments are defined statically by the merchant, dynamically based on changing conditions, or based on rules themselves. For example, rules for customer segments can define customers from certain countries based on geolocation or an address, customers of a certain gender, customers who spent a certain amount of money with the merchant (which could be limited by time), customers who normally order a certain amount of products at one time, customers who visited the web site a certain number of times in a selected time period, customers who clicked on a particular advertisement, customers whose birthday is today, this week, or this month, customers who put a certain number of products in their online shopping basket but never bought them, or customers who make many product returns, and so on. Any rules defining customer segments or otherwise describing customers may be used. 
     Application server  104  communicates with web server  116 . Web server  116  is a computer server that performs caching of web pages, delivery of web pages, load balancing, and secure socket layer (SSL) termination operations. In some embodiments, a plurality of application servers  104  can be coupled with web server  116 , and a plurality of web servers  116  can be coupled with an application server. In an embodiment, web server  116  is operated by a CSP. Web server  116  is coupled to network  122  (such as the Internet, for example) for sending web pages to a customer&#39;s consumer device  126  as is well known in the art. Consumer device  126  is a computing device such as a personal computer (PC), smart phone, tablet computer, laptop computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), electronic book reader, smart television display, shopping kiosk, or other computing device for running web browser  124  to display web pages  110 . 
     Web server  116  is coupled with web page cache  118 . In an embodiment, web page cache  118  is a database in a cloud computing platform provided by the CSP or by the merchant. Web page cache  118  stores web pages for efficient delivery to consumer devices  126 . In an embodiment, application server  104  may be combined with web server  116 , and web page database  106  and web page cache  118  may be combined into one database. 
     In an embodiment, web page designer application  102  includes at least two operating modes. A first mode is called an edit mode, wherein a designer selects components to be a part of the web page and web page designer application  102  renders the edited page augmented with visual controls for editing the page (e.g., user interface (UI) controls for changing component properties, for moving components around on the page, etc.). A second mode is called a preview mode, wherein web page designer application renders the edited page with augmentation so the visual result of the changes is as close as possible (in the design and/or test environment) to what the customer will experience when viewing the page in the production environment (e.g., a live online storefront accessible to the public). 
     When a designer wants to preview the rendering of previously created page, the designer uses web page designer application  102  to configure the preview context. In an embodiment, the preview context includes a selected point in time (including date) and one or more customer segments. Web page designer application  102  applies the preview context, thus causing the visual display of the online storefront represented by the page  110  to refresh its rendering based on the current preview context, effectively simulating as if it were the selected point in time and as if the currently browsing customer is a member of the selected customer segments. (e.g., a previewing a female customer with gold shopping status on Black Friday, for example). This results in the applicable visibility rules  114  being applied as specified. In an embodiment, the preview context and associated visibility rules are applied for both edit mode and preview mode of operation resulting in a consistent prediction of what the page  110  will look like (e.g., visually representing which components  108  are shown or hidden given the preview context). 
     A page (acting as a root element of a tree) is comprised on multiple components (acting as nodes within the tree). The hierarchical structure results from merchant interaction with web page designer  102 . A sample page with header, footer, an article and a promotional product carousel could look as follows from a structural point of view. 
     Advertising campaign landing page
         Header component   Article component   Product carousel component
           Product tile component   Product tile component   Product tile component   
           Footer component       

       FIG. 2  illustrates an example of user interface (UI)  200  of a web page designer application  102  rendered on a display  202  of a computing device according to an embodiment. During edit mode (e.g., page design time), UI  202  includes page header  204 , which includes page selector button  206  for selecting a page to edit, back button  208  to exit from the web page designer application and help button  210  to select the display of documentation. UI  202  includes toolbar  212  for user controls. Toolbar  212  includes locale selector  214  for selecting the locale (e.g., language, country) for editing, device selector  216  for selecting a predefined device (e.g., desktop, mobile, tablet, etc.), preview settings  218  for configuring a preview context including customer segments and preview dates, edit/preview toggle  220  for toggling between edit mode and preview mode, and publish/unpublish toggle  222  for enabling/disabling the page for rendering in the live online storefront. When edit mode is selected, web page designer  102  augments the page rendering with UI controls to allow operations on the components that are part of the page. When in edit mode, web page designer does not allow the designer to browse/click within the page, but only allows the designer to use the UI controls described above. When in preview mode, web page designer renders the page without augmentation, and allows the designer to browse/click within the page to check behavioral effects within the page of selections. 
     When in edit mode, canvas  224  renders the page with components. The various settings that affect page/component rendering (e.g., locale, preview device, preview context) are applied. Visibility rules  114  as configured for the page and its components are also applied. Canvas  224  allows components of the page to be configured using component editor  226 . Page navigator  228  visualizes the hierarchy of components that reside in the page in the shape of a tree view. Page settings  230  allows for changing various properties of the pages (e.g., page visibility rules). Media manager  232  allows for managing static assets (e.g., image upload). 
       FIG. 3  illustrates an example of a user interface (UI)  302  for selecting customer segments on display  202  according to an embodiment. Web page designer application  302  provides UI  302  displayed to the designer so the designer can select which customer segments (also known as customer groups) are to be included in a requested web page display. For example, a drop down box  304  maybe included to show to the designer a list of the various possible selections for customer segments. The list of customer segment selections is shown as visual elements for which each of them can be unchecked to reverse the selection. Other UI techniques can also be used to get the customer segment inputs (e.g., free form text entry, selection via buttons, etc.). In this example, the designer has selected the “everyone” customer segment  306  and the “registered” customer segment  308 . These parameters will then be applied by web page designer application  102  to the web page components and visibility rules  114  to determine which components are to be included in the visual page representation. In another embodiment, the customer segments may be selected in other parts of the web page designer application or input by a script, for example. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates an example of a user interface  400  for selecting a date and time on a display for web page components according to an embodiment. Web page designer application  102  includes a capability  402  for the designer to select a point in time by typing in the date and time, or by selecting a data and time via a calendar picker  404  (e.g., the designer can select a year by a drop down menu, select a month, day, hour, minute, and toggle am and pm). Alternatively, the designer could select “today” resulting in no simulation of a different point in time but use of the current system time and date. 
     However, a calendar date picker cannot provide a visual indication of when changes are going to occur in the web page. Different page rendering results are shown over time because of different visibility rules being applied. In order to overcome the lack of visual indication for guided decision making by the page designer, in embodiments a new visual control for picking a point is used. Processing underlying this visual control includes inspecting the data structures (e.g., the web page component hierarchy) to determine all the time frames that result in a change in page rendering. Processing also includes the ability to identify problematic time frames, thereby allowing the web page designer application to guide editing decisions, not only page previews. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates an example of a user interface  500  including a timeline of visible web page components according to an embodiment. A combined control  502  is displayed by web page designer application  102  on display  202  to the designer allowing the designer to select one or more customer groups via a drop down menu  504  and a date and time via a date selector  506 . Combined control  502  include a button  509  to indicate acceptance of the selections. The input parameters of the customer segment and the data and time make up the preview context. Web page designer application  102  uses the preview context, web page  110 , visibility rules  114 , and web page components  108  to prepare and display a window  508  showing a time line  510 . The designer can use a time slider  512  to set and/or adjust the current date and/or time for which a visual representation (e.g., a schedule chart  514 ) of the web page components is displayed below the time line. The time slider can be moved forward in time or backward in time. Change event indicators  511  (e.g., the arrows pointing down from a date) show when a web page component&#39;s visible display begins and ends. 
     In this example, on the selected date of May 18, 2019, the web page is planned to show a “summer style” component, a “men&#39;s suits” component, a “shop the style”, and other components. Each component has a date range in which the component is to be displayed on the page. For example, the “men&#39;s suits” component is to be displayed from April 1 through May 31. On the selected date of May 18, 2019, the “men&#39;s suits” component, the “shop the style” component, and other components are to be displayed, but the “summer style” component is not to be displayed until Jul. 1, 2019. When seeing window  508 , the designer can easily determine when selected components are to be displayed (or not) on the web page for the selected customer segments. If the designer has knowledge of the placement on the page of the various components, the designer can easily detect visual conflicts between the components. 
     When the designer moves the time slider  512 , the web page designer application  102  regenerates the contents of canvas window  224  based at least in part on the new time selection, the customer segments, web page components  108 , visibility rules  114 , and web page  110 . 
     Features of the new visual control in embodiments include providing a mechanism for the designer to seamlessly select a point in time and provide a visual indication of the rendering of the page for that point in time (including a point in time marker  511 , a time slider  512 , and chart components  514 ), indicate which components apply for the selected point in time, and detect problematic situations that require the designer&#39;s attention. 
       FIG. 6  illustrates an example of a user interface  600  including a problematic situations of visible web page components according to an embodiment. Analysis of time frames, customer segments, and web page components can uncover potential problematic situations with the page design. In one situation, time slice gaps  602  are periods of time for which no content is provided for a location on the web page. For example, the designer might identify that some of the page&#39;s visible components are no longer valid during a one-hour time period right after a major holiday because the designer did not properly check that components are still visible despite various promotions and advertising campaigns having ended. In another situation, time slice contradictions  604  include periods of time where components conflict, collide, or overwrite each other. For example, assume a carousel component on a web page includes three sub-components (e.g., product tiles promoting certain products). One of the sub-components might be scheduled in such a way that its own visibility lasts longer than the visibility of the carousel component. In another situation, time slice contradictions  604  include periods of time for which a component is never going to be visible. For example, assume the designer places two sub-components within a carousel component (e.g., wherein the sub-components are category tiles promoting respective new categories of products). One of the sub-components might be scheduled in such a way that its own visibility is entirely outside of the carousel component. 
       FIG. 7  illustrates an example of a user interface  708  including a timeline  710  of visible web page components and user controls according to an embodiment. A bar  710  represents a time frame  702 , from an earliest schedule “from” date across the page and all of the page&#39;s components to a latest schedule “to” date across the page and all of the page&#39;s components. A change event indicator  711  per point in time indicates when the page or any of the page&#39;s components schedule starts or ends. In an embodiment, a change event indicator is visually highlighted on top of the time line  710  (e.g., as an arrow pointing to the corresponding point on the time line). A date and/or time may be shown above the event change indicator. When the designer selects the event change indicator, the preview displayed to the designer is changed. Time frame  702  can be subdivided into a plurality of sub time frames  704  as sliced by change event indicators  711 . Sub time frames show starting and ending dates and/or times of sections of a time frame. In an embodiment, problematic sub time frames have their appearance changed to indicate a problem. In an embodiment, the change in appearance is a change in a selected color (e.g., red or yellow) to indicate a potential problem to the designer. In another embodiment, a tooltip (e.g., a question mark icon hovering over the sub time frame) can be used to indicate the potential problem. Time slider  712  allows the designer to slide to any point in time within the visualized overall time frame. Schedule chart toggle  712  allows the designer to hide or show the schedule chart. 
       FIG. 8  illustrates an example of a user interface  800  including a schedule bar  804  and schedule chart  802  according to an embodiment. Schedule chart  802  shows all components of the page. Each component is visualized as a named schedule bar  804 . A schedule bar aligns horizontally with a respective start and end change event, and aligns vertically with the parent component the component resides in. In an embodiment, each component is distinguished by different colors indicating if the component is affected by a user input (e.g., whether the component is impacted by a change in the line indicator of the time slider). In an embodiment, a question mark icon is displayed over a problematic sub-frame. When selected, visual highlighting of corresponding schedule bars is performed. 
       FIG. 9  is a flow diagram  900  of web page processing by the web page designer application according to an embodiment. During operation of web page designer  102 , the designer (e.g., the user of the design tool) enters user input selections using known methods (mouse clicks, touch screen data entry, touch pad entry, voice input, etc.). In response, web page designer  102  displays and/or re-displays a graphical user interface (GUI) to the designer (as shown above in  FIGS. 2-8 . The GUI shows a representation of the web page being designed and/or previewed. This allows the designer to observe the GUI and make further changes as necessary. 
     At block  902 , web page designer  102  accepts first user input data to select a customer segment and a first point in time. Selection of the customer segment and date/time are described above with reference to  FIG. 3  and  FIG. 4 . At block  904 , web page designer  102  displays a representation of components of the web page that are visible over a time frame  702  according to the visibility rules  114 , customer segment, and the first point in time, as shown in  FIG. 5 . At block  906 , web page designer  102  accepts second user input to select a second point in time. In an embodiment, the selection is made by dragging time slider  512 . In another embodiment, the selection is made by selecting a change event indicator  711  (change event indicator being associated with at least one point in time). In another embodiment, the selection is made by selecting a schedule bar  804  (schedule bar being associated with at least component and one point in time). Regardless of how the second point in time is selected, at block  908  web page designer  102  updates the display with the new selection by displaying the representation of components of the web page visible over the time frame according to visibility rules  114 , customer segment, and the second point in time. Thus, the display of the web page is updated according to designer input. 
       FIG. 10  illustrate flow diagrams of web page display processing by the page designer according to an embodiment. At block  1002 , web page designer  102  processes a call to open content time travel (e.g., changing the display of the representation of web page components based on user input for one or more points in time). At block  1004 , web page designer draws the initial content time travel display. At block  1008 , web page designer gets the date/time from a preview context  1006 . At block  1008 , web page designer applies the gate/time input to the time slider  712  handle. Processing continues with block  1102  of  FIG. 11 . 
       FIG. 11  is a flow diagram  1100  of web page display processing by the page designer according to an embodiment. At block  1102 , web page designer drags the time slider handle horizontally based at least in part on the date/time. At block  1104 , web page designer places the time slider on the display based at least in part on the given date/time. At block  1106 , web page designer checks if schedule chart  802  is visible. If so, at block  1108  web page designer checks if the start date of time frame  702  is less than or equal to the time slider date (e.g., whether the time slider date is in the current time frame). If so, at block  1110  web page designer checks if the end date of time frame  702  is greater than the time slider date (e.g., whether the time slider date is in the current time frame). If so, web page designer highlights schedule bar  804  at block  1112 . Processing continues with block  1114 , where web page designer determines if more schedule bars need to be processed. If so, processing returns to block  1108 . If not, processing is done at block  1116 . At either block  1108  or  1110 , if the time slider data is not in the current time frame, then processing passes to block  1114 . At block  1106 , if the schedule chart is not visible, then processing is done at block  1116 . 
     Returning back to  FIG. 10 , at block  1012 , web page designer  102  processes a call to close content time travel. At block  1014 , web page designer assigns a corresponding date/time to the preview context. At block  1016 , close content time travel is done. At block  1018 , web page designer processes a call to apply the preview context. At block  1020 , web page designer renders the web page. At block  1022 , web page designer renders the canvas  224 . Processing is complete at block  1024 . 
       FIG. 12  illustrate flow diagrams of web page display processing by the page designer according to an embodiment. At block  1202 , web page designer processes a call to select a change event indicator  711 . At block  1204 , web page designer determines a horizontal position of change event indicator  711  with respect to the time slider  712  axis. At block  1206 , web page designer applies the position of change event indicator to the time slider  712  handle. Processing then passes to block  1102  of  FIG. 11 . At block  1208 , web page designer processes a call to select a schedule bar  804 . At block  1210 , web page designer determines a date/time of a click position with respect to the time slider  712  axis. At block  1212 , web page designer applies the position of the schedule bar to the time slider  712  handle. Processing then passes to block  1102  of  FIG. 11 . At block  1214 , web page designer processes a call to toggle schedule chart  802 . At block  1216 , web page designer determines if schedule chart  82  is visible. If so, web page designer  102  collapses the schedule chart at block  1812 . If not, the schedule chart is expanded at block  1220 . In either case, processing ends at block  1222 . 
     An example implementation of draw content time travel of block  1004  is shown below in pseudocode. 
     
       
         
           
               
             
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                  © 2019 saleforce.com, Inc. 
               
               
                 Draw Content Time Travel 
               
               
                 Create time frame including time slider based on page schedule  
               
               
                 start and end dates 
               
               
                 Collect set of data from all component start and end dates 
               
               
                 For each date loop 
               
               
                  For each sub time frame loop 
               
               
                   Intersect with all component schedules 
               
               
                   If intersection is empty then 
               
               
                    Mark sub time frame as problematic 
               
               
                    Add scenario information to sub time frame time slice gap 
               
               
                   Else 
               
               
                    For each intersection component loop 
               
               
                     Traverse hierarchy upwards and collect all parents 
               
               
                     For each parent loop 
               
               
                      If parent schedule intersects with component schedule then 
               
               
                       If component schedule not fully inside parent 
               
               
                       schedule then 
               
               
                        Add scenario information to sub time frame 
               
               
                        time slice contradiction conflict 
               
               
                       End If 
               
               
                      Else 
               
               
                       Add scenario information to sub time frame time 
               
               
                       slice contradiction invisible 
               
               
                      End If 
               
               
                      Mark sub time frame as problematic 
               
               
                     End Loop /* each parent */ 
               
               
                    End Loop /* each intersection component */ 
               
               
                   End If 
               
               
                  End Loop /* each sub time frame */ 
               
               
                  For each component loop 
               
               
                   Create schedule bar based on component schedule start and end date 
               
               
                   Horizontally align and size with respect to time slide axis 
               
               
                   Vertically align with respect to region placement 
               
               
                   Vertically size with respect to nesting level 
               
               
                  End loop /* each component */ 
               
               
                 End Loop /* each date */ 
               
               
                 Create change event indicator on time frame 
               
               
                 Create sub time frame on time frame and size with respect to  
               
               
                 time slider axis 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     By using a data model of components with possibly nested components, web page designer application  102  can automatically derive time slices that result in a different look of the page to the customer based on a schedule. This allows the designer to preview the web page at selected points in time to optimize the customer experience and result in better marketing effectiveness. In order to show the state transitioning of the web page over time, embodiments not only identify the points in time but also provide the ability to seamlessly and easily fast-forward or rewind the transitions. 
     In another embodiment, besides presenting schedule related information, customer segment related information can be factored into the analysis. For example, incorrect page displays due to contradicting customer segments may be detected. In a further embodiment, schedule bars may be stretched, contracted, and/or moved in the schedule chart to effect changes in the page. Components may also be added or removed from the page via the schedule bars. In one instance, these changes can be performed as a result of manual interaction by the designer with web page designer application  102 . In another instance, these changes can be performed automatically or programmatically based on a set of rules. In another embodiment, the time line and schedule chart can be zoomed in or zoomed out, to change the scale of the time line or schedule chart. This allows the designer to inspect details of the timeline and/or schedule chart. 
     One or more parts of the above implementations may include software and/or a combination of software and hardware. An electronic device stores and transmits (internally and/or with other electronic devices over a network) code (which is composed of software instructions and which is sometimes referred to as computer program code or a computer program) and/or data using machine-readable media (also called computer-readable media), such as machine-readable storage media (e.g., magnetic disks, optical disks, read only memory (ROM), Flash memory, phase change memory, solid state drives (SSDs)) and machine-readable transmission media (also called a carrier) (e.g., electrical, optical, radio, acoustical or other form of propagated signals—such as carrier waves, infrared signals). Thus, an electronic device (e.g., a computer) includes hardware and software, such as a set of one or more processors coupled to one or more machine-readable storage media to store code for execution on the set of processors and/or to store data. For instance, an electronic device may include non-volatile memory (with slower read/write times, e.g., magnetic disks, optical disks, read only memory (ROM), Flash memory, phase change memory, SSDs) and volatile memory (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM)), where the non-volatile memory persists the code/data even when the electronic device is turned off (when power is removed), and the electronic device copies that part of the code that is to be executed by the processor(s) of that electronic device from the non-volatile memory into the volatile memory of that electronic device during operation because volatile memory typically has faster read/write times. As another example, an electronic device may include a non-volatile memory (e.g., phase change memory) to store the code/data when the electronic device is turned off, and that same non-volatile memory has sufficiently fast read/write times such that, rather than copying the part of the code to be executed into volatile memory, the code/data may be provided directly to the processor(s) (e.g., loaded into a cache of the processor(s)); in other words, this non-volatile memory operates as both long term storage and main memory, and thus the electronic device may have no or only a small amount of DRAM for main memory. Typical electronic devices also include a set of one or more physical network interface(s) to establish network connections (to transmit and/or receive code and/or data using propagating signals) with other electronic devices. 
       FIG. 13  illustrates an electronic device  1304  according to some implementations.  FIG. 13  includes hardware  1340  comprising a set of one or more processor(s)  1342 , a set or one or more network interfaces  1344  (wireless and/or wired), and non-transitory machine-readable storage media  148  having stored therein software  1350 . Each of the previously described application server  104 , web server  116 , web page designer application  102 , and/or consumer device  126  may be implemented in one or more electronic devices  1304 . In one implementation, each of consumer devices is implemented in a separate one of the electronic devices  1304  (e.g., in an end user electronic device operated by an end user; in which case, the software  1350  in each such end user electronic device includes the software to implement one of the end user clients, including software to interface with a cloud computing service (e.g., an application programming interface (API), a web browser, a native client, a portal, a command-line interface, etc.)) and each of application server  104 , web page designer  102 , and web server  116  is implemented in a separate set of one or more of the electronic devices  1304  (in which case, the software  1350  is the software to implement web page design and delivery of application server  104  (including web page designer  102 ) and web server  116 ; in operation, the end user electronic devices and the electronic device(s) implementing the cloud computing system containing application server  104  and web server  116  would be commutatively coupled (e.g., by a network) and would establish between them connections for requesting and providing cloud computing services. In an embodiment, application server  104  and web server  116  may be implemented in the same electronic device. Other configurations of electronic devices may be used in other implementations. 
     In electronic devices that use compute virtualization, the processor(s)  1342  typically execute software to instantiate a virtualization layer  1354  and software container(s)  1362 A-R (e.g., with operating system-level virtualization, the virtualization layer  1354  represents the kernel of an operating system (or a shim executing on a base operating system) that allows for the creation of multiple software containers  1362 A-R (representing separate user space instances and also called virtualization engines, virtual private servers, or jails) that may each be used to execute a set of one or more applications; with full virtualization, the virtualization layer  1354  represents a hypervisor (sometimes referred to as a virtual machine monitor (VMM)) or a hypervisor executing on top of a host operating system (OS), and the software containers  1362 A-R each represent a tightly isolated form of software container called a virtual machine that is run by the hypervisor and may include a guest operating system; with para-virtualization, an operating system or application running with a virtual machine may be aware of the presence of virtualization for optimization purposes). Again, in electronic devices where compute virtualization is used, during operation an instance of the software  1350  (illustrated as instance  1376 A) is executed within the software container  1362 A on the virtualization layer  1354 . In electronic devices where compute virtualization is not used, the instance  1376 A on top of a host operating system is executed on the “bare metal” electronic device  1304 . The instantiation of the instance  1376 A, as well as the virtualization layer  1354  and software containers  1362 A-R if implemented, are collectively referred to as software instance(s)  1352 . 
     Alternative implementations of an electronic device may have numerous variations from that described above. For example, customized hardware and/or accelerators might also be used in an electronic device. 
       FIG. 14  shows a block diagram of an example of an environment  10  in which the present web page design and delivery operations may be used in accordance with some implementations. Computing environment  10  may include one or more user systems  12 , network  14 , and system  16 , where system  16  includes application platform  18 , network interface  20 , tenant data storage  22 , system data storage  24 , and program code  26 . In other implementations, environment  10  may not have all of these components and/or may have other components instead of, or in addition to, those listed above. 
     The system  16  includes hardware and software to implement application server  104 , web page designer  102 , and/or web server  116  and/or web page cache  118 . User systems  12  are electronic devices used by one or more users (such as consumer devices  126 ) that subscribe to services (e.g., web page delivery) provided by the cloud computing services implemented by the system  16 . User systems  12  might interact via a network  14  with the system  16 . Further, in one implementation, the system  16  is a multi-tenant cloud computing architecture supporting multiple services, such as software as a service (SaaS) (e.g., customer relationship management (CRM) service provided by Salesforce.com, Inc.), platform as a service (PaaS) (e.g., execution runtime, database, application development tools; such as Force.com®, Heroku™, and Database.com™ by Salesforce.com, Inc.), and/or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) (virtual machines, servers, storage). In some implementations, such a platform as a service allows for the creation, management and execution of one or more applications developed by the provider of the service, vendors accessing the service via user systems  12 , or third-party application developers accessing the system  12 . The system  16  may utilize methods for providing web page design and delivery, as described above. This allows for the system  16  to provide web page delivery in an efficient and scalable manner. 
     Network  14  is any network or combination of networks of devices that communicate with one another. For example, network  14  can be any one or any combination of a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration. Network  14  can include a Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred to as the “Internet” with a capital “I.” The Internet will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks that the present implementations might use are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol. 
     Each user system  12  is an end user electronic device, such as a desktop personal computer, workstation, laptop, personal digital assistant (PDA), tablet computer, cell phone, etc. Each user system  12  typically includes one or more user interface devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) provided on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, liquid crystal display (LCD), etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by system  16  or other systems or servers. For example, the user interface device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system  16 , and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. User systems  12  might communicate with system  16  using TCP/IP and, at a higher network level, use other common Internet protocols to communicate, such as hyper-text transport protocol (HTTP), file transfer protocol (FTP), Andrew file system (AFS), wireless application protocol (WAP), etc. In an example where HTTP is used, user system  12  might include an HTTP client commonly referred to as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP signals to and from a server at system  16  allowing a user of user system  12  to access, process and view information, pages and applications available to it from system  16  over network  14 . Such a server might be implemented as the sole network interface  20  between system  16  and network  14 , but other techniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations, the network interface  20  between system  16  and network  14  includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality of servers. However, other alternative configurations may be used instead. 
     In one implementation, tenant data storage  22  is a multi-tenant database management system (DBMS). In a typical multi-tenant DBMS, a single instance of software may be used to store data from multiple vendors (also known as tenants) and each vendor is provided with a dedicated share of the software instance. The term “data record” generally refers to a data entity created by or on behalf of a vendor. A data record is comprised of a set of fields defined within a database. A database can be viewed as a collection of database objects, such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined categories. A “table” is one representation of a database object, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description of database objects. In the context of a relational database, each relational database table generally contains one or more data categories logically arranged as columns according to a schema, where the columns of the relational database table are different ones of the fields from the plurality of data records, and where each row of the relational database table are different ones of a plurality data records and contains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields. In some implementations of a cloud database (a database that runs on a cloud platform and access to which is provided as a database service), each database object contains a plurality of data records having fields, where identifiers are used instead of database keys, and wherein relationships are used instead of foreign keys. Regardless, by way of example, a data record can be for a business partner or potential business partner of a vendor, and can include information describing an entire company, subsidiaries, and/or contacts at the company. As another example, a data record can be for a project that a vendor is working on, such as an opportunity (e.g., a possible sale) with an existing partner, or a project that the vendor is trying to get. As another example, a customer-relationship management (CRM) database may include: 1) a database object that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc.; and 2) another database object might describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. 
     In some implementations, the tenant data storage  22  includes one or more databases storing the vendor/tenant data (such as information about the vendor&#39;s customers/users, information about the vendor&#39;s products/services, marketing materials. Thus, in operation, a vendor, through a user system  12 , causes the vendor/tenant data to be stored in the tenant data storage  22 . In some implementations, a vendor can access system  16  through user system  12  to access its data stored in tenant data storage  22 . 
     In some implementations, system data storage  24  stores system data  25  accessible to system  16  and possibly multiple tenants, while program code  26  (e.g., a runtime engine that materializes application data from metadata; that is, there is a clear separation of the compiled runtime engine (also known as the system kernel), tenant data, and the metadata that describes each application, which make it possible to independently update the system kernel and tenant-specific applications and schemas, with virtually no risk of one affecting the others) for implementing various functions of system  16 . In such implementations, the tenant data storage  22 , which is a multi-tenant database management system (DBMS), manages one or more databases storing the vendor/tenant data and vendor/tenant application metadata. The tenant data and the system data may be stored in various databases, such as one or more Oracle® databases. 
     In one implementation, application platform  18  includes an application setup mechanism that supports application developers&#39; creation and management of applications (such as web page designer  102 ), which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage by save routines. Invocations to such applications may be coded using procedural language for structured query language (PL/SQL) that provides a programming language style interface. Invocations to applications may be detected by one or more system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine. 
     In certain implementations, one or more servers of system  16  is configured to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is a tenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove servers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there is preferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to a specific server. In one implementation, therefore, an interface system implementing a load balancing function is communicably coupled between the servers of system  16  and the user systems  12  to distribute requests to the servers. In one implementation, the load balancer uses a least connections algorithm to route user requests to the servers. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, in certain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different servers, and three requests from different users could hit the same server. In this manner, by way of example, system  16  is multi-tenant, wherein system  16  handles storage of, and access to, different database objects, data and applications across disparate users and organizations. 
     In certain implementations, user systems  12  (which may be client systems) communicate with the servers of system  16  to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from system  16  that may involve sending one or more queries to tenant data storage  22  and/or system data storage  24 . In one implementation of system  16 , a server in system  16  automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or more SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. System data storage  24  may generate query plans to access the requested data from the database. 
     In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields. In certain implementations, for example, all data records of a custom data object are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logical database objects per organization. It is transparent to customers of the system  16  that their multiple database objects are in fact stored in one large table or that their data may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers. 
     In the above description, numerous specific details such as resource partitioning/sharing/duplication implementations, types and interrelationships of system components, and logic partitioning/integration choices are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding. It will be appreciated, however, by one skilled in the art, that the invention may be practiced without such specific details. In other instances, control structures, logic implementations, opcodes, means to specify operands, and full software instruction sequences have not been shown in detail since those of ordinary skill in the art, with the included descriptions, will be able to implement what is described without undue implementation. 
     References in the specification to “one implementation,” “an implementation,” “an example implementation,” “some implementations,” etc., indicate that the implementation described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every implementation may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same implementation. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an implementation, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other implementations whether or not explicitly described. 
     Bracketed text and blocks with dashed borders (e.g., large dashes, small dashes, dot-dash, and dots) may be used herein to illustrate optional operations and/or structures that add additional features to some implementations. However, such notation should not be taken to mean that these are the only options or optional operations, and/or that blocks with solid borders are not optional in certain implementations. 
     In the following description and claims, the term “coupled,” along with its derivatives, may be used. “Coupled” is used to indicate that two or more elements, which may or may not be in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, co-operate or interact with each other. 
     While the flow diagrams in the figures show a particular order of operations performed by certain implementations, it should be understood that such order is exemplary (e.g., alternative implementations may perform the operations in a different order, combine certain operations, overlap certain operations, etc.). 
     While the above description includes several exemplary implementations, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is not limited to the implementations described and can be practiced with modification and alteration within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. The description is thus illustrative instead of limiting.