Abstract: Table elements, such as HTML elements, are automatically formatted relative to a change in visual appearance of a displayed decorative panel. The decorative panel comprises a plurality of separate but visually related regions defined by the table elements, and organized in predefined logical relationships to each other. A visual change causes an automatic revision to one or more attributes of the table elements that define the regions affected by the visual change. The visual change and automatic formatting are preferably accomplished with a Web page design tool, which identifies the decorative panel from comments associated with the table elements but do not affect rendering by a conventional browser. Visual properties of the decorative panel are mapped to the attributes, so that when the visual appearance is changed, a corresponding attribute is automatically revised. The resulting revised table elements are validated against predetermined inference rules that define valid patterns of regions.

Abstract: A system and method for small computing devices that present a thumbnail image of content such as a web page, allows a viewer to select a region, and zooms in on the selected region in a way that reduces scrolling and helps users to understand the content they are reading. The page is scaled such that a user need only scroll in one dimension to see the content, and is divided into regions. Regions may be arranged as cells of a grid, or arranged by logically-related content. A user navigates among the regions as desired, selects a region from the thumbnail view, and obtains an expanded version of that region. In the expanded view, the region is ordinarily scaled so that the user scrolls in only one dimension to view the content of the region. Browser “Back” commands are supported, as are frames.