Patent ID: 8185604

Claim:
A method for retrieving information using a server system coupled to a centralized database and at least one client system, said method comprising: storing user preference information in the database including a list of functions defined by a user of the at least one client system for inclusion within a function menu, wherein each function is associated by the user with at least one universal resource locator (URL) and a computer-implemented command for performing the associated function, wherein the computer-implemented command is configured by the user to perform the associated function at least one remote vendor web server corresponding to the at least one associated URL; and wherein the command comprises at least two separate processing requirements to perform the associated function; causing the function menu to be displayed on the client system to prompt the user to select a desired function from the list of user-defined functions included within the function menu to apply the selected function to a selected object, wherein the selected object is an object included within an electronic document displayed on the at least one client system and selected by the user; receiving, at the server system, the selected object and the selected function from the at least one client system; processing the selected object by sequentially applying the at least two separate processing requirements to apply the selected function to the selected object at the server system to generate a processed object, the processing comprising: retrieving from the database the at least one URL and the computer-implemented command associated with the selected function; executing a first one of the processing requirements of the retrieved computer-implemented command using the selected object to generate a first processed object; transmitting the first processed object from the server system to at least one remote vendor web server corresponding to the at least one retrieved URL; executing a second one of the processing requirements of the retrieved computer-implemented command based on the selected object to generate a second processed object; transmitting the second processed object from the server system to the least one remote vendor web server corresponding to the at least one retrieved URL; receiving a processing result from the at least one remote vendor web server at the server system, the processing result generated by the at least one remote vendor web server based on the combination of the first and second processed objects and including at least a resulting web page; determining whether further processing of each processing result is necessary to complete the selected function; transmitting at least one of each processing result and other output to the client system; causing the client system to process the at least one resulting web page and the other output; and prompting the user to select a command to perform using the at least one resulting web page.