Patent ID: 8539345

Claim:
Method for updating portlets comprising: identifying, for each of a plurality of portlets displayed at a client, an interface control within the portlet that is bound, via a network, to a data source; establishing, for each of the plurality of portlets, two versions of the interface control, one being a foreground version that is displayed on a client, the other being a background version that is hidden; displaying the foreground version of the interface control; maintaining at the client a table having the foreground version, the background version, and refresh times for each of the plurality of portlets, wherein the refresh times indicate how often and when next the associated portlet is to be refreshed, and wherein the refresh times vary among the plurality of portlets; fetching data update by the client for each of the plurality of portlets at times dictated by their respective refresh times from the data source to which each respective portlet is bound; updating the background version at the client for each of the plurality of portlets in accordance with the data update for each respective portlet upon fetching the data update for each respective portlet; switching the background version and the foreground version in the table at the client of each respective portlet upon the updating of the background version of each respective portlet, wherein the switching causes the background version to become a new foreground version to be displayed and the foreground version to become a new background version to be updated; and after the switching, displaying the new foreground version of the interface control of each respective portlet at the client, wherein after the switching the new foreground version includes the data update.