Patent ID: 7500181

Claim:
A method in a client data processing system for updating a document, the method comprising: detecting a user refresh input to a portlet window, the portlet window being one of a plurality of portlet windows on a portal page, the portlet window being generated by a portlet on a portal server; examining a property of the portlet window, the examined property comprising a hypertext markup language (HTML) flag, wherein the HTML flag indicates a refresh property of a portlet window, wherein the examining comprises: activating a javascript listener; and interrogating a Document Object Model (DOM) of the portlet with the javascript listener, the document object model including information about a refresh property of the portlet window; determining, based on the examined property of the selected portlet window, whether to refresh at least one of the plurality of portlet windows; responsive to determining to perform a refresh, requesting a portlet content from the portlet on the portal server; and refreshing a different portlet window in the plurality of portlet windows with the requested portlet content, the refreshing occurring without interrupting other portlet windows of the plurality of portlet windows.