Patent ID: 6948117

Claim:
In a system including a data server and a client computer that is associated with a web browser, wherein the client computer accesses data stored on the data server and displays such data using the web browser, a method for transforming the accessed data into a format for viewing using the web browser, the method comprising: an act of the client computer accessing a view descriptor, the view descriptor identifying (i) data stored at a data server in any of a plurality of formats, including one or more proprietary formats that are not natively displayable using the web browser, and (ii) one or more data transforms to be performed on the stored data for viewing with the web browser; an act of the client computer processing the view descriptor using a generic style sheet, that contains generic information on how to display the stored data and that is applicable to a wide variety of different display layouts, to generate a specific style sheet tailored specifically to the stored data; an act of the client computer accessing the stored data that was identified by the view descriptor; and an act of the client computer transforming the accessed data using the specific style sheet generated from the view descriptor and generic style sheet for viewing with the web browser.