Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention provide a document reader that generates a display of several document summaries. In some embodiments, the reader receives definitions of several documents, and generates document summaries for these documents. The reader then identifies an arrangement of the document summaries on a scrollable page so that a first subset of the document summaries produces a snake pattern across the page while a second subset of the document summaries falls outside of the snake pattern. The snake pattern includes several successive vertical and horizontal snake portions. In some embodiments, the snake pattern traverses along a scrolling direction on the page (e.g., down the page in the direction of the page's scrolling). Also, in some embodiments, the widths of the vertical snake portions and the heights of the horizontal snake portions are within a certain threshold range.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure involve a mobile or computer reader application that obtains articles or other computer files from a central database and displays the articles to a user of the device. The reader application may be customizable around one or more characteristics of the user of the device. In one embodiment, the type and number of articles provided to the device and displayed in the reader application may be based on the determination of a category or type of usage of the application is performed by the user. Further, the determination of the use of the reader application on the device is performed by and contained within the device such that usage information is not shared with overall article providing system. In another embodiment, the article providing system and/or device may determine recommendations to provide to a user of the reading application. These recommendations may be based on one or more selected interests or topics of the user of the reading application.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a document viewing application with first and second document channel browsing modes. The first mode displays selectable items corresponding to document channels. Selection of an item causes the application to add the corresponding document channel to a set of selected document channels from which to retrieve documents for presentation within the application and dynamically add items corresponding to document channels related to the selected document channel to the selectable items for display in the first mode. The second mode displays a first set of selectable items corresponding to sources of documents and a second set of selectable items corresponding to document topics. Selection of an item in the second browsing mode causes the application to add the corresponding document channel to the set of selected document channels and modify the selectable items presented in the second mode a next time the second mode is entered.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for a document viewing application. While displaying a sequence of selectable items that each correspond to a different document in a sequence of documents, the method receives selection of an item corresponding to a particular document in the sequence. The method retrieves a first set of content for displaying at least a portion of the particular document. After the first set of content is retrieved and displayed, the method retrieves content for displaying documents surrounding the particular document in the sequence of documents such that the content is available if input is received to display one of the documents surrounding the particular document in the sequence.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a document viewing application with first and second document-browsing modes. The first document-browsing mode, accessed through a first UI item of several top-level UI items, displays several selectable document channel items corresponding to previously-selected document channels. Selection of one of the selectable document channel items causes the document viewing application to present a set of documents related to the document channel corresponding to the particular selectable item. The second document-browsing mode, accessed through a second UI item of the several top-level UI items, displays several selectable document panes corresponding to documents related to several of the previously-selected channels.