Abstract:
Applets can obtain parameters from the HTML of the pages in which they are embedded. These parameters are created dynamically in dependence on the capabilities of, and/or other constraints relating to, the user agent ( 1, 2 ) requesting an applet-containing page. In this way, suitably written applets can adapt themselves to their environment.

Description:
DESCRIPTION  
         [0001]    The present invention relates to providing an executable software element to a user agent.  
           [0002]    Mobile Station Application Execution Environment (MExE) is a wireless protocol that is designed to be incorporated into user agents such as smart mobile phones. MEXE&#39;s aim is to provide a comprehensive and standardised environment on mobile phones for executing operator or service provider specific applications.  
           [0003]    MExE classmarks  2  an  3  are designed as complete application execution environments, using a Java Virtual Machine in the user agent.  
           [0004]    The MExE standards define a framework for client/server applications, and define the protocols and language used in client/server negotiation. Each MExE terminal is defined by a set of parameters (e.g screen size, whether applets are supported or not). These parameters can be organised in different sets (e.g. hardware and software) and are described using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) standard developed by W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium). RDF is based on XML and is used as metadata (i.e. data about data). RDF defines the framework to describe the information, and the syntax is specified by the WAP User Agent Profile (a set of parameters initially designed for WAP terminals).  
           [0005]    The RDF files must be provided by the manufacturer, OS/browser vendor, and be stored on the network side. For example, for each release of a new SomeElectronics Co. terminal, the company creates a new hardware RDF file that conveys the information about the new product and is then stored on the network (e.g on a server operated by the company).  
           [0006]    The user can also customise the user agent, simply by using a GUI which can be controlled by the user. The user&#39;s preferences can then stored either on the terminal itself or on the network side.  
           [0007]    In order for the information provided by the RDF files to be used, a negotiation protocol needs to be used. The MExE specification recommends the CC/PP (Composite Capabilities/Preference Profile) protocol as the negotiation protocol. CC/PP is an exchange protocol using the HTTP extension framework (RFC2774), and therefore is directly included in the HTIP requests/responses.  
           [0008]    Basically, this protocol defines where to find the RDF files using a reference mechanism but may directly include some RDF files in its own fields. A CC/PP enabled server retrieves the RDF files from the network side (by issuing requests to the CC/PP repositories), and is then able to process all the information.  
           [0009]    However, the standards do not outline any specific implementation strategy. It is therefore an aim of the present invention to provide such a strategy.  
           [0010]    According to the present invention, there is provided a method of providing an executable software element to a user agent, the method comprising:  
           [0011]    receiving a request for a resource from a user agent, the request including a first identifier related to the request source and a second identifier identifying a document including an executable software element;  
           [0012]    responding to said request by determining an appropriate control value for controlling said executable software element in dependence on said first identifier and sending said document to the request source, wherein the document as sent includes said control value in a manner for automatically controlling said executable software element.  
           [0013]    The executable software element may comprise an applet, for example a Java applet. However, the invention can be employed with other technologies such as ActiveX.  
           [0014]    The control value may comprise an attribute of an HTML applet or object tag. A further control value for controlling said executable software element in dependence on said first identifier may be determined and includes in an HTML applet parameter tag.  
           [0015]    The control value may comprise an attribute of an HTML applet parameter tag.  
           [0016]    The first identifier comprises a set of one or more resource locators, e.g. URIs. Preferably, a user agent profile is requested and received in dependence on a user agent profile resource locator comprised in said identifier. Preferably, a user preference definition is requested and received in dependence on a user preferences resource locator comprised in said first identifier. More preferably, the profiles and/or preferences are combined to produce a combined profile. The form of the combined profile is not important as long data required for such a profile is available. Still more preferably, a method according to the present invention includes determining whether a plurality of profiles and/or preferences have values for the same parameter and, if so, including only the least resource intensive in the combined profile. Yet more preferably, a method according to the present invention comprises comparing the combined profile with a resource requirement profile for said executable software element and said document is sent on condition that the combined profile does not conflict with the resource requirement profile.  
           [0017]    According to the present invention, there is also provided a server configured to perform a method according to the present invention. 
       
    
    
       [0018]    An embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 1 illustrates the application of the present invention in a wireless network;  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 2 is a dataflow diagram for a server implementing an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 3 is a signalling diagram illustrating an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the generation of a document in an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 5 illustrates a resource; and  
         [0024]    [0024]FIG. 6 illustrates a document produced from the resource of FIG. 5 using the method illustrated in FIG. 4.  
     
    
       [0025]    Referring to FIG. 1; a plurality of user agents  1 ,  2  may connect wirelessly to the Internet  3  via respective mobile phone networks  4 ,  5 . The user agents  1 ,  2 , may be, for example, smartphones or personal digital assistants used in combination with a mobile phone and conform to MExE classmark  2  or higher. The mobile phone networks  4 ,  5  are connected to the Internet  3  by respective gateways  6 ,  7 .  
         [0026]    An application server  8 , first and second user agent profile servers  9 ,  10 , and first and second user preference servers  11 ,  12  are also connected to the Internet  3 .  
         [0027]    The first user agent profile server  9  is operated by the manufacturer of the first user agent  1  and uses a web server program to provide user agent software and hardware profiles as RDF files in response to requests therefor. The second user agent profile server  10  is similarly arranged and can provide user agent software and hardware profile RDF files for the second user agent  2  in response to a request therefor.  
         [0028]    The first user preferences server  11  is operated by the service provider of the user of the first user agent  1  and stores RDF files defining user preferences for display parameters, e.g. colour or monochrome, large fonts. The first user preferences server  11  uses a web server program to provide user preference RDF files to allowed hosts, e.g. servers run by trusted application service providers. The second user preferences server  12  is similarly configured but provides user preference data for users, including the user of the second user agent  2 , registered with another service provider.  
         [0029]    Referring to FIG. 2, the application server  8  is implemented using a Jigsaw web server  21 . The Jigsaw web server is available from W3C. The Jigsaw web server uses indexer objects  22  to direct HTTP requests to objects of the appropriate frame class  23 ,  24  which process the HTTP requests to produce HTTP responses. Each frame class has associated with it a respective set of resources  25 ,  26 ,  27 ,  28 .  
         [0030]    In the present example, a user will request a page containing a Java applet. This involves a user agent first requesting the page and then requesting the Java applet in response to the contents of a an applet tag in the HTML of the page. Objects  23  of a page frame class handle requests for a category of pages  25 ,  26  that include configurable applets. The page frame class objects  23  are substantially generic with the logic peculiar to particular applications, e.g. a particular game, being provided by helper components  29 ,  30 . The helper components  29 ,  30  present the same interface and can be add without the need to modify the first frame class. A second frame class  24  handles requests for applet code.  
         [0031]    Referring now to FIG. 3, the user of the first user agent  1  decides to play an applet-implemented game. The user therefore activates a browser on the first user agent  1  and enters the URI of the game&#39;s page. This causes the first user agent  1  to send a request for the game&#39;s page to the application server  8 . This request comprises requested document&#39;s URI, the URI of a CC/PP exchange mandatory extension declaration and the URIs of the user agent and user preferences RDF files. The inclusion of the URI of a CC/PP exchange mandatory extension declaration and the URIs of the user agent and user preferences RDF files is an extension of conventional browser behaviour and requires the browser to obtain the URIs from a memory within the user agent and insert them into HTTP requests. This request is received by the application server  8  and is passed to a page frame object  23 . The page frame object  23  parses the request and extracts the user agent profile URIs and the user preferences URI. The page frame object  23  then sends requests for the user agent software and hardware profiles to the server specified in the URIs therefor. In this case, the specified server is the first user agent profile server  9 . The page frame object  23  also sends a request for the user&#39;s preferences to the server specified in the user preferences URI in the request. When the user agent and personal preferences RDF files have been received, the page frame object  23  opens a local RDF file  29  which defines the game&#39;s user agent minimum resource requirements. The RDF file data is stored in hash table format.  
         [0032]    In the present example, each of the user agent profiles and the game resource requirements are expressed using the same xml namespace, e.g. http://www.wapforums.org/UAPROF/ccppschema-19991014. A common xml namespace for user preferences also is desirable.  
         [0033]    Referring to FIG. 4, having obtained the profile and preferences data, the game frame object  23  combines them by selecting the value for each element represented which is least demanding from the perspective of the user agent (step s 1 ). For example, if the user agent hardware profile specifies that the device is colour capable but the user&#39;s preferences specify not colour capable, the combined profile specifies “not colour capable”. Of course, if a parameter is represented in only once, the single instance will be selected.  
         [0034]    The combined profile is then compared with the minimum resource requirements of the game (step s 2 ). If the minimum resource requirements of the game are exceeded by the combined profile in any respect, it is determined that the game cannot run on the user agent  1  and the page frame object  23  sends a page to the user agent which informs the user that the game cannot be played on the first user agent  1  (step s 3 ). Otherwise the page frame object  23  instantiates an instance  29  of the appropriate helper component, passing the combined profile to the helper component&#39;s constructor. The helper component instance  29  then processed the combined profile to generate applet tags from the game document to be sent to the first user agent  1  (step s 4 ).  
         [0035]    Referring to FIG. 5, the resource  25  for the game includes placeholders similar to those used for server side includes (SSI).  
         [0036]    Applets cannot be sized using values in parameter tags, instead the size of an applet when displayed is set using height and width attributes of the applet tag itself. Consequently, the helper component instance  29  constructs an applet tag with height and width attribute values set in dependence on the ScreenSize element of the combined profile. For instance, the applet may need to be displayed square. In this case, the width and height attribute values may be set at the lesser of the width and height values of the ScreenSize element.  
         [0037]    Additional control parameters, e.g. a user name provided from the user preferences, the colour capability of the user agent and the screen size in characters, are built into a series of HTML applet parameter tags. The values of the parameters in these tags can be accessed by the applet which will have been programmed to respond to them to adjust its user interface and/or other aspects of its operation according to its environment.  
         [0038]    As the resource  25  is dispatched to the first user agent  1 , the helper component instance  29  replaces the placeholders with the newly generated applet and parameter tags so that the data transmitted to the user agent is as illustrated in FIG. 6.  
         [0039]    When the first user agent  1  receives the dispatched resource  25 , it responds to the applet tag by sending a request to the application server  8  for the applet&#39;s code. An indexer object  22  passes the request to an applet frame object  24  which then dispatches the relevant jar file  27  to the first user agent  1 .  
         [0040]    A request from the second user agent  2  for the game document is similarly handled except that the hardware and software profile requests are sent to the second user agent profile server  10  and the personal preferences request is sent to the second personal preferences server  12  respectively.  
         [0041]    In the above-described system, a new applet implemented application is created by  
         [0042]    creating a jar file containing the applet code;  
         [0043]    creating HTML resources for the pages to be sent when the applet can run and when it cannot run;  
         [0044]    creating a class file containing the code for the helper component for the new applet; and  
         [0045]    install these files in appropriate placed on the application server  8 .  
         [0046]    It will be understood that the present invention is not restricted to the above-described scenario and that additional sources of information, useful for customising applet behaviour, e.g. parental content control rules, subscription level access control rules and user agent geographical location related rules, may be employed to provide additional RDF data for building the combined profile.