METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING THE RESOURCES OF AN APPLICATION PROGRAM
A software resource manager is stored on a client computer and maintains a map of unique identifiers to resources, so as to determine those resources that are stored locally on the client computer and those resources that must be retrieved from a server system. The resource manager is further programmed to either pass the resources to one or more software applications or respond to a function call from the software application indicating that resources are needed. In this way, one or more software applications can be internationalized or customized without the need to distribute all of the resources for the application and without the need to restart the application.
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This application is a continuation of prior U.S. application Ser. No. 09/587,075, filed Jun. 2, 2000, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/429,585, filed Oct. 28, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,548, all of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is directed to the field of software systems and applications, and, more particularly, to a method and system for dynamically managing the resources of at least one application stored on a computer and for permitting the customization of the operation and interface of at least one application in response to a change in user preference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONGenerally speaking, software applications consist of many files, all of which interoperate to provide the overall functionality of, and the user interface to, the application. Applications can be executables, scripts, and/or libraries such as dynamic link libraries (DLLs), or any combination thereof, which may be provided with resources that support the application's functionality and interface features. At present, DLLs, which are libraries of executable code and/or data, are commonly used by programmers to provide one or more of the functions of an application. The application dynamically links to the DLLs, which are often distributed with the application. In some instances, DLLs may be shared among applications or made available by an operating system. Therefore, both the DLLs and the application code which is programmed to link to the DLLs must be present on the computer at runtime for the application to function properly.
As used herein, the term “resource” or “resources” is used in accordance with its ordinary meaning and generally refers to a library containing text strings and/or image data processed by an application, such as for example those needed to generate a portion of the user interface. The resources of an application may, for example, be encompassed in one or more DLLs, text files, executables, or data files of any type.
Increasingly, however, due to the emergence of global communication networks, such as the Internet and/or the World Wide Web (the “Web”), the global distribution of computer applications has increased markedly. Through electronic file transfer protocols, web-based application providers can distribute applications to users in many different countries. Undoubtedly, these applications will require updates and patches, which may require additional resources. Moreover, it is likely that users will have different preferences related to the operation of the application.
Currently, applications, such as executables, Active X Controls, and the like, are downloaded to a client computer where the application is processed. In many instances, however, the application accesses the Internet or other communication network to retrieve information or content, such as stock quotes, news, electronic mail, and the like. Such “web-based” applications have become popular for a variety of functions because they have the ability to extract and display information in real-time or near real-time from remote databases.
Users desiring such web-based applications commonly register with an on-line application/content provider and download the application to the user's computer, typically referred to as the client computer. During the registration process, the user may be asked to enter personal information or preferences so that the operation and interface of the application can be customized. For instance, users from different countries may have a preference for which language (i.e., English, German, French, etc.) the application utilizes to generate the graphical user interface (GUI) and to communicate with the user. Indeed, in many instances, a user may download a series of applications which may each have certain similar customizable aspects. Furthermore, these applications may utilize the same resources and may be amenable to similar updates.
The presently known methods and systems for managing such resources and for permitting the customization of the operation and interface of applications have shortcomings. For example, known programming methods cannot effectively update or patch existing resources or integrate new resources not initially incorporated into an application without having to restart the application. Therefore, these methods and systems fail to satisfactorily permit the customization of an application to different user preferences. In addition, known methods and systems do not efficiently permit an application/content provider to distribute a single international application.
One known method and system requires that the resources for customizing the application be built (or hard-coded) into the application itself and distributed with each copy. This method, however, undesirably increases the size of the application and is unable to process resources that were not incorporated into the application at the time of download and installation. Because these web-based applications are generally downloaded from remote servers using file transfer protocols (FTP), increased file size adversely affects the file transfer performance, and this increased time factor may be a deterrent to a user downloading it, in addition to increasing necessary network overhead.
Another known method requires the development of separate versions of the application with support for each particular preference. For instance, in the case of language preferences, a developer could provide a separate version for every region to which the application would be distributed. Maintaining numerous versions, however, is time consuming and can result in increased costs to the developer and users.
Yet another known solution would be to build client-side scripts or server-side software applications, which run within the user's Internet browser. In use, only the version of the scripted application that corresponds to the user's particular preference would be downloaded. A change of preference would prompt the download of a separate version of the scripted application. Such scripted applications, however, such as, for example, JavaScript™, are limited by the functionality and extensibility of the scripting language, which often does not have the same speed of operation and access to system functions as full application languages. The availability of bandwidth to users can also adversely affect the performance of scripted or server-side applications, because the scripted application must be downloaded to the client computer each time a preference change is requested. Lastly, server-side applications have limited scalability due to the limits on physical server space and memory and processing power.
There is thus a desire and unmet need to provide a method and system for more efficiently managing the resources of one or more applications. A further desirable and unmet need is to permit the customization of application resources that operates at runtime and that can be efficiently maintained. Furthermore, it is a desirable and unmet need to provide a system and method for permitting updates, patches and further customizable options to be integrated into the application resources, while keeping the application streamlined and preserving its efficiency.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is directed to a system and method which overcomes shortcomings in the prior art. In particular, a system and method is provided for dynamically managing the resources of an application and for customizing the operation and interface of a web-based application in response to a change in user preference.
According to the present invention, a resource manager is programmed to identify resources by unique resource identifiers, and in response to a request for such resources, to retrieve those resources from a server if the resources are not stored locally on the client computer. Once retrieved, the resource manager passes the resources to the application. In one preferred embodiment, referred to generally as the “pull” embodiment, the application recognizes the need to process a resource and request that resource or group of resources from the resource manager, which in turn determines the availability of the resource and retrieves it from the server system if it is locally unavailable. In another preferred embodiment, referred to generally as the “push” embodiment, the server system receives a preference change request and the resource manager, with the next communication with the server system, receives the preference parameters associated with the preference change. The resource manager then looks in its map of resource identifiers to determine whether the corresponding resources are locally stored. If one or more resources are not locally stored, the resource manager retrieves, from the server system, either the entire group of resources corresponding to the preference parameters or that particular missing resource. In the meantime, the resource manager passes the locally stored resources to the application. The resource manager then passes any resources retrieved from the server system to the application, as necessary.
As used herein, the term “application” generally refers to a software program which is substantially executed by a computer located on the client side of the client-server architecture. The term “web-based application” refers generally to applications that at least partially derive the data for operation from a remote server and/or are capable of receiving data from a remote server or other computing or storage device remote from the client, either at the server location or at one or more locations in the network to which the client is connected. Such applications, for the purposes of the present invention, may be coded in any programming language known in the art. In addition, the applications may be delivered to the client side in any manner known in the art, such as via file download, electronic mail, or any other file transfer protocols that use networks of interconnected devices to transfer data. Furthermore, such applications may be distributed on any art-recognized machine readable storage medium, such as a compact disc, floppy disc, tape, or the like.
The present invention utilizes a resource manager stored on a client computer to determine whether the resources necessary to process a particular aspect of an application are present on the client computer at the time of execution of the application. In use, when the subject application is first downloaded to the client computer, the resource manager is also downloaded and stored on the client computer. The resource manager may be an integral part of the application or may stand alone as its own library, such as an “in-process” component object model (“COM”) server (DLL) or an “out of process” COM server (.exe). In each case, however, the downloaded application is programmed to interoperate with the resource manager to determine whether the necessary resources for its operation have also been downloaded or otherwise made present on the client computer.
In general, according to the present invention, the resource manager contains a library of ID maps associating a resource to a unique resource identifier. The resource identifier may be, for example, an alphanumeric code containing a resource group ID, resource ID, date ID, version ID, and the like, or any combination thereof.
In one preferred embodiment, a server system receives a request to change a preference from a client computer through a network. Based upon the request, the server system determines the resources necessary to accommodate the request. Next, the server system communicates the preference parameters to the resource manager through the network. Alternatively, the resource manager with the next communication with the server system pulls the preference parameters associated with the preference change from the server system. The resource manager uses the preference parameters to determine whether the resources associated with the group identifier are stored on the client computer. If each resource of the group of resources are found on the client computer, the resource manager loads the resources into the processing memory of the client computer and passes the resources to the application. If one or more resource is not found on the client system, the resource manager retrieves either the entire group of resources or that particular resource from the server system using the resource's unique identifier.
Alternatively, the application can be programmed to recognize the need for a resource or group of resources and notify the resource manager to retrieve the resources. In this embodiment, the application can identify the unique group IDs associated with a particular language, region, or preference (e.g., language, region, etc.), or the unique resource ID, if only one of the group is needed.
An advantage of the present invention is that as new versions of the resources are created or new regions are supported, the application provider can distribute these additional resources to the resource manager as needed. For example, an application provider providing additional resources for a web-based application may make the additional resources available for download to the client computer. Once received by the resource manager, the resources are preferably stored either in the memory space of the manager or the memory space of the application on the client computer. However, the resources can be stored on the server system and loaded temporarily into the memory of the client computer as needed.
The present invention provides advantages to both the application user and the application provider. For the application provider, new resources or versions of the resources can be incorporated into an existing application without the need to release an entirely new version of the application. In addition, in the case of web-based applications, the manager can be alerted by a server system that new resources are available, thereby causing the new resources to be downloaded to the client computer without interrupting the user's experience. Because the application is either notified of additional resources or knows to ask the manager when additional resources are needed, the application can be customized seamlessly at runtime without re-execution of the application.
Since the resources for an application are essentially libraries of data, the resources are often associated with a customizable feature of the application. The manager advantageously permits an application provider to store a set of resources pertaining to particular customizable options on a remote server. Using the manager, the application provider can permit a user to select certain customizable preference settings.
In operation, a user may request to change a particular preference setting, such as, for example, the language used to generate the user interface. In response to the request, the application will determine whether or not the resource that is needed to generate the user interface in the new language has been downloaded to the client computer, as described above. If it has not, depending upon the embodiment utilized, the application will either notify the resource manager that additional resources are needed (i.e., call an exposed function of the resource manager) or await notification from the resource manager. The resource manager in turn, in a web-enabled application example, retrieves the necessary resources from a remote server.
In addition, the manager permits additional users of the same client computer to customize the application and the user interface to their particular preferences as will be further illustrated in the detailed description in connection with the drawing figures. Furthermore, because the application is streamlined, due to the lack of a need to hard-code all of the resources necessary to provide customization capabilities, the user saves download time and disk space and avoids the need to re-start the application.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the resource manager manages the resources for a plurality of applications stored on the client computer. In accordance with this embodiment, a method of managing the resources for a plurality of applications generally comprises mapping an identifier to a resource, receiving into a server system a request to customize an application, communicating the identifier to a resource manager stored on a client computer, determining whether the resource associated to the identifier is stored on the client computer, and retrieving the resource if the resource is not stored on the client computer. Next, each application that shares the resource is notified of the resource's availability, i.e., its accessibility to be linked to by a particular application.
In addition, a client-server system for managing the resources of one or more applications generally comprises a server system having a storage device, the storage device having stored thereon a plurality of resources for use with one or more applications, and a client computer having stored thereon the one or more applications and a manager. The client computer is inter-operative with the manager so as to register the application modules with the manager when the application module is downloaded to the client computer.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawing figures. It is to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed solely for the purpose of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSIn the drawing figures, which are merely illustrative, and wherein like reference characters denote similar elements throughout the several views:
According to the present invention a system and method for managing the resources for one or more applications is provided. In operation, the present invention permits the resources of one or more applications to be updated, supplemented, or patched. Furthermore, the present invention advantageously permits additional resources to be downloaded and accessed by one or more applications, thereby permitting the internationalization of a suite of applications.
With reference generally to
Referring now to
The server system 10 includes one or more storage devices 15, 20 for storing the content and data that is distributed through the network to the client computers 50. The server system 10 also includes a processor, such as the Intel Pentium III Xeon processor, memory (RAM, ROM), clocks, and other components commonly included with server systems known in the art (not shown). The storage device 15, 20 is any machine-readable storage medium now known or that will be known in the art, such as by way of non-limiting example, a hard disk, optical drive, or tape drive. The particular architecture of server system 10 is not critical to the invention and, therefore, server system 10 is not depicted in detail. The network 100 is preferably the Internet; although one skilled in the art will recognize that the network may be any communications network now known or that will be known that is capable of transmitting data, such as, for example, an intranet, local area network, wide area network, or other network using point-to-point protocols (PPP), wireless application protocols (WAP), and the like.
With further reference to
Client computer 50 includes an internal bus 64 that facilitates communication of data between and among the various components of the client computer 50 and that also facilitates communication between the client computer 50 and external devices and systems via the network interface 68. A processor 66 is coupled to the bus 64 to process data, including application programs, within the client computer 50. The client computer 50 also includes a main memory 60, such as, for example RAM or other equivalent dynamic memory storage, coupled to bus 64 for receiving and storing instructions communicated by the processor 66. Read-only memory (ROM) is also provided and coupled to the bus 64 to store static data and instructions for use by the processor.
Various input and output devices 54, 56, 58 are provided with the client computer 50, including, by way of non-limiting example, a display 54 (e.g., cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), etc.), and an input device 56 (e.g., a keyboard, mouse, touch pad, or light pen). A second storage device 58 such as, for example, a magnetic disk drive and magnetic disk, a CD-ROM drive and CD-ROM, DVD, or other equivalent device, is coupled to the bus 68 for communication with the processor 66, main memory 60 and network interface 68. The specific hardware combination/configuration is not crucial to the instant invention, and may vary as a matter of design choice within the functional parameters taught herein.
Referring again to
Content and information is downloaded to the client computer 50 through network 100 using, for example, the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) in various known formats, such as, for example, HTML, DHTML, XML, scripting languages, and the like. A browser application is stored on the client computer 50 and is programmed to interpret the code downloaded from the server system 10, thereby producing a GUI with which the user can interact. By way of non-limiting example, applications 70 and related resources 72 are preferably downloaded using known hyper-text transfer protocols (HTTP). Once downloaded, the application 70 may be launched by the user or it may be self-extracting and self-executing. Resources 72 are stored on the client computer 50 as described below so as to be available to the application 70 when needed.
With reference now to
As described above, in a preferred embodiment, at step 306, the resource manager 75 maintains a map of unique identifiers for each resource 72 that is downloaded with the application 70. In this way, the resource manager 75 can identify all of the resources 72 available to the application 70 at any given time. Upon being prompted, as will be further described, in a step 308, the resource manager 75, at step 310, retrieves the resources 72 and send a notification message to application 70, which includes a pointer to the resources 72, so as to enable application 70 to link to resources 72 as needed.
The unique identifier can be formatted as a unique series of characters, numbers or other data readable by the manager 75, such as, for example a software identifier and unique number combination. By way of non-limiting example, the unique identifiers may include varying levels of identifiers such as regional identifiers, group identifiers, and individual resource identifiers. Furthermore, the unique identifiers can include date and/or version identifiers such that the resource manager 75 can identify updated versions of resources 72. Alternatively, a single unique identifier can be assigned to each resource 72, which includes the codes necessary to identify the resource 72 with a particular region, language or group.
As used herein, the term “request” refers to a message or data transmitted between the client computer 50 through network 100 to server system 10, so as to enable the communication of resource identifiers and other types of communication.
The process of dynamically linking to the resources will now be described. In one preferred embodiment, upon retrieving the resources 72 as previously described, resources manager 75 calls a function exposed by application 70 and passes the resources 72 to application 70 as an argument. One skilled in the art will recognize that the linking procedure may be performed in many ways, including without limitation, the use of pointers, addresses, and the like.
As such, the application 70 is programmed to receive the notification from the resource manager 75 that additional resources 72 are available. If the conditions are such that the additional resource 72 is needed (i.e., the resource is needed to generate a user interface associated with a particular preference setting), the application 70 will link, as describe above, to the resource 72 so that the text-strings and image data contained within the resource 72 can be accessed and used by the application 70. Since the download and notification procedure is generally relatively short, the resource 72 will be available for access substantially immediately after it is downloaded. In this way, the present invention permits the application 70 to be updated or customized substantially in real time. Furthermore, because the application 70 is programmed to receive the notification from the resource manager 75 (or check with the manager for new resources 72 when the application 70 is prompted for that resource 72), there is no need to re-execute the application 70 upon the availability of new resources 72. The resources 72 therefore can become available to the application 70 during its execution.
Referring now to
Because querying the resource manager 75 each time a resource 72 is needed can slow the procedure, it is preferable to pass newly available resources 72 to the application 70 and to store a copy of the resource 72 in the memory space of the application 70. In this way, the application 70 can process instructions to link to available resources 72 without waiting for a response from the resource manager 75.
However, one skilled in the art will recognize that the resources 72 may be stored on a server system 10 and downloaded to client computer 50 only as needed. As such, resources 72 would only be temporarily loaded into the processing memory space of client computer 50 when needed to generate a user interface.
As will be shown and described with reference to the various embodiments described herein, the method of
For instance, a preferred embodiment of the present invention may be adapted to a method of downloading an updated resource. By way of example, during operation, the resource manager 75 can be notified by the application provider of an updated resource 72, which requires additional resources 72. In the alternative, the user can request to download the updated resource 72 from the server system 10. The resource manager 75 determines which version of the resource 72 is stored locally on client computer 50 by comparing the unique identifiers of the resources 72, which may include a date or version ID. Once retrieved, the resource 72 will be linked to as described above.
Referring to
At step 508, the resource manager 75 determines the availability of the resource 72 required to display the application interface in accordance with the user's registered preferences. If the resource 72 is available, in a step 510, the resource manager passes the resources to application 70 as described above, to enable application 70 to generate the customized functionality. If, however, the resource 72 is not yet available, the resources manager 75 retrieves the needed resource 72 from the server system 10, in a step 512.
Such employment of the present invention enables several registered users having different preferences to use the same application 70 without having to re-customize the application's operation and interface. For example, a first user may have registered with an English language preference. Each time that user launches application 70, the user interface is generated using the resources corresponding to the English language parameters, as shown for example in
With reference to
Therefore, with further reference to
As described above, however, it may be desirable for another user of the same application 70 or users in different countries to change the language setting to their preferred language. With further reference to
Referring again to
With reference again to
Through the application provider's web site, illustrated for example in browser window 115, a user can select a preference setting. The preference setting, as one skilled in the art will recognize, may include many different types of customizable options, such as by way of non-limiting example language. With reference to
Upon receipt of the group identifier, resource manager 75 uses the group identifier to determine whether the group of resources associated with the group identifier is stored locally on the client computer. If, in the alternative embodiment, the resource manager 75 receives a preference parameter related to the region or language preference, the resource manager looks up the corresponding resource identifier in the resource manager's 75 map of identifiers to resources to determine whether the resources associated with the group identifier are stored locally on the client computer. Thus, if the group of resources 72 needed to generate the Spanish language toolbar 130 is not found on the client computer 50, the resource manager 75 retrieves them from the server system and passes the needed group of resources 72 to the browser application 70 so as to enable the application to access the group of resources 72, as described above. In this way, application 70 can link to the group of resources, load the text strings and image data into the memory of the client computer 50, and generate the toolbar 130 in the Spanish language.
Because the resources 72 for changing the preference setting are stored on the server system 10, a streamlined user application 70 can be delivered to the client computer 50 without having the entire library of resources 72 for each particular preference hard-coded into the application 70. Instead, the resources 72 are advantageously downloaded and dynamically integrated into the application 70 at runtime. In addition, because the resource manager 75 can manage resources 72 for more than one application 70, each application 70 can be customized in response to a change in the user preference. As such, applications can be internationalized, customized, updated, or patched in a seamless fashion without negatively impacting the user's experience. As such, there is no need to restart the application 70 upon the application 70 being internationalized, customized, updated, and/or patched.
Due to the increased convenience and functionality offered to a user, the present invention offers a means by which a web site can increase the frequency with which a user accesses the web site. According to this preferred embodiment, a user profile database 20 is maintained on the server system 10, which serves the web site to the browser application. The user profile database includes at least one customizable option. As used herein, the term “customizable option” or “preferences,” refers to those options which the user may choose from and which are stored in the user profile on the server system. The server system, as described above, permits the user to change the customizable option. In response to the change in the customizable option, the client computer generates a browser interface on the client computer in the manner previously described.
Thus, while there have been shown and described and pointed out fundamental novel features of the invention as applied to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood that various omissions and substitutions and changes in the form and details of the disclosed invention may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is the intention, therefore, to be limited only as indicated by the scope of the claims appended hereto.
Claims
1. A method of managing resources of a downloadable toolbar application having a toolbar graphical interface and a language attribute, the method comprising:
- (a) sending a resource management program from a server;
- (b) receiving at the server a message to change the language attribute of the toolbar application;
- (c) sending from the server system a preference parameter associated with a group of resources needed to accommodate the message to change the language attribute of the toolbar application;
- (d) sending the needed group of resources from the server system if the needed group of resources is not stored locally on a client computer so as to modify the toolbar graphical interface using the needed group of resources to reflect the change to the language attribute of the toolbar application.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- recognizing a function exposed by the downloadable toolbar application; and
- passing the needed group of resources to the downloadable toolbar application as an argument.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the downloadable toolbar application links to the needed group of resources to load text strings and image data into a memory of the client computer to thereby produce a modified toolbar graphical interface reflecting the requested change to the language attribute of the downloadable toolbar application using the text strings and image data.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- (e) storing the needed group of resources in a memory space of the client computer; and
- (f) passing the needed group of resources to the downloadable toolbar application so as to enable the downloadable toolbar application to access the group of resources.
5. A method of internationalizing a downloadable toolbar application, comprising:
- (a) downloading from a server the downloadable toolbar application;
- (b) installing the downloadable toolbar application on a client computer, the toolbar having a language specific attribute;
- (c) sending to the server a message from the client computer that the downloadable toolbar application exhibits characteristics indicative of a desired language;
- (d) receiving from the server system into a resource manager on the client computer a preference parameter associated with a language-specific group of resources needed to accommodate the message;
- (e) determining whether the needed language-specific group of resources is stored locally on the client computer; and
- (f) retrieving the language-specific group of resources from the server if the needed language-specific group of resources is not stored locally on the client computer so as to provide the language-specific group of resources to the downloadable toolbar application to generate a graphical user interface reflecting the desired language.
6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:
- passing the needed language-specific group of resources to the downloadable toolbar application so as to enable the downloadable toolbar application to access the needed language-specific group of resources.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of passing the needed language-specific group of resources comprises:
- calling a function exposed by the downloadable toolbar application; and
- passing the needed language-specific group of resources to the downloadable toolbar application as an argument.
8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:
- linking to the needed language-specific group of resources;
- loading text strings and image data into memory of the client computer; and
- producing a graphical user interface using the text strings and image data.
9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:
- storing the needed language-specific group of resources in a memory space of the client computer; and
- passing the needed language-specific group of resources to the downloadable toolbar application so as to enable the downloadable toolbar application to access the needed language-specific group of resources.
10. A software implemented resource manager operative on a computer to:
- receive from a server system in response to an indication of a user preference a preference parameter associated with a needed group of resources for customizing a toolbar application according to the user preference;
- determine, upon receipt of the preference parameter, whether the needed group of resources associated with the preference parameter is stored on the computer; and
- retrieve the needed group of resources associated with the preference parameter if the needed group of resources is not stored on the computer so that the toolbar application is enabled to generate a toolbar interface using the needed group of resources according to the user preference.
11. The resource manager of claim 10, wherein the preference parameter is a regional setting.
12. The resource manager of claim 10, wherein the preference parameter is a language setting.
13. The resource manager of claim 10, wherein the generation of the toolbar interface further comprises calling a function exposed by the toolbar application and passing the needed group of resources to the toolbar application as an argument so as to enable the toolbar application to link to the needed group of resources, load text strings and image data into a memory of the computer, and generate the toolbar interface using the text strings and image data.
14. A system for modifying a toolbar interface of a toolbar application, the system comprising:
- one or more computers having stored thereon a plurality of groups of resources, each of the plurality of groups associated with a preference parameter, wherein the one or more computers maintain a user profile database for storing a language preference for each of a plurality of users; and
- one or more of the computers being connected to a plurality of user computers through a network, some or all of the plurality of user computers having operative thereon the toolbar application and a software implemented resource manager; and
- wherein, in response to (i) a change in a language preference of a first user at a first user computer of said plurality or (ii) in response to the logging in at the first user computer of a second user with a language preference different from the first user's language preference, one of the one or more computers communicates an appropriate preference parameter to enable the software implemented resource manager on the first user computer to determine whether the group of resources associated with the appropriate preference parameter is stored locally on the first user computer.
15. The system of claim 14, wherein the group of resources is retrieved from the server system if the group of resources is not stored locally on the first user computer.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 17, 2007
Publication Date: Jul 5, 2007
Applicant: Yahoo! Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA)
Inventor: Thomas Shafron (Miami Beach, FL)
Application Number: 11/624,134
International Classification: G06F 15/16 (20060101);