FR2760110A1 - METHOD FOR DYNAMICALLY DISPLAYING DATA ON AN INTERNET TERMINAL SCREEN - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for the dynamic display of data on an Internet terminal screen, characterised in that it consists of the following steps: defining on a screen page a plurality of windows for the display of a respective information content; defining for each window a particular time interval for regenerating the data displayed therein; at each regenerating time interval, establishing a connection to an updating Internet server and remote loading from this server the information content of the corresponding window; and updating the page of the displayed data.

Description

 The invention relates to a method for dynamic display of a data page on an Internet terminal screen.

 We know how to display data of various kinds on a data page presented on an Internet terminal screen (computer data screen or television connected to an Internet decoder connected to the telephone network).

 This various information is in the form of a "mosaic" of windows grouped together on the same page of data, each window presenting its own informative content.

 Given the limited size of each window, it generally does not present all of the corresponding informative content, but only a part of it, the user being able to selectively control the display of such or such information by commands appropriate, for example by scrolling, navigating in a tree structure, querying a data directory, etc.

 Until now, when it came to updating information, all of the information content was reloaded globally by calling an update server and downloading this information.

 This operation, practiced for example daily, can prove to be cumbersome to implement in the case of large volumes of data.

 The invention provides a method for optimizing the updating of this information by reducing the downloading of data to the strict minimum, and thus allowing the dynamic display of updated information as often as necessary.

 To this end, the method of the invention comprises the steps consisting in: defining in a screen page a plurality of windows for the display of respective informative content; define for each window its own refresh period for the information displayed there; at each refresh period, establish a connection to an Internet update server and download from this server the informative content of the corresponding window; and update the displayed data page.

 In a first exemplary embodiment, the data page is a general information page intended for the general public comprising, for example, weather information, television programs, etc.

 Each type of information is associated with a refresh frequency, for example the daily weather at 6.30 a.m., television programs daily at 6.30 p.m., etc.

 The Internet terminal then monitors these refresh periods relative to its internal clock and, upon the expiration of each of them, automatically establishes a connection to an update server via the Internet to download the corresponding informative content, and he alone; the connection to the server is therefore very brief, since it is limited to only data that really needs to be updated.

 In another example, a professional display terminal for a store can be provided, presenting on the screen a plurality of windows with the prices (updated once a month), the availability of items (update two times a day), a catalog or technical descriptions (updated four times a year), etc.

 We can thus view on the same screen various information which we are sure have all been updated at the right time, and without the need to reload large volumes of information (including the full catalog of items) at each update - that is to say twice a day in the aforementioned example, since one of the items of information must be updated twice a day.

Claims (1)

 CLAIM  A process for dynamic display of data on a screen of an Internet terminal, characterized by the steps consisting in: - defining in a screen page a plurality of windows for the display  chage of a respective informative content, - define for each window a specific refresh period  information displayed there, - at each refresh period, establish a connection to a  update Internet server and download from this server the  informative content of the corresponding window, and - update the displayed data page.