Methods and apparatus for a web application processing system

Abstract

A software system is provided to allow a computer to install and process web applications according to the invention. Such web applications are written as web pages that have access to the full range of operating system resources, including those not accessible through a web browser. Preferably, a web application is built using three types of languages used for constructing web pages, namely: (a) a visual presentation language; (2) a data modeling language; and (3) a scripting language for embedding logic. The software system preferably comprises a web application manager, an operating system interface module, a scripting language interpreter, and optionally a web browser and/or a data modeling language processor. Various other features such as data caching and security filtering are provided in accordance with such a system.

1 . A method of installing web-based applications in a computer system, the method comprising the steps of: 
 obtaining a web-based application and an install document associated with the application, the install document including one or more installation settings and associated values specific to the application and the install document written in a particular data modeling language;    decoding the one or more installation settings and associated values of the install document;    establishing an operating system environment using the one or more decoded installation settings and associated values in which the application can be properly executed in accordance with the computer system; and    installing the application in the computer system.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the install document includes at least one of general information, component information, dependency information, registry information, short cut information, storage quota information, security information, a pre-installation script and a post-installation script.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the particular data modeling language in which the install document is modeled in is XML.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the obtaining step comprises downloading the install document from a network.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the obtaining step comprises retrieving the install document from the Internet.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the obtaining step comprises obtaining the install document from a portable storage medium.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of the settings in the install document relates to dependency information indicating whether the application being installed depends on one or more other applications.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising the step of configuring the dependency setting in the install document by: (i) determining whether the one or more other applications upon which the application depends have been previously installed; (ii) when the one or more other applications upon which the application depends have not been previously installed, installing the one or more applications before installing the application.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the dependency setting configuration step further includes prompting a user to confirm or decline installation of the one or more other applications upon which the application depends, prior to installing the one or more other applications.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the step of permitting modification of the install document.  
   
   
       11 . Apparatus for installing web-based applications in a computer system, the apparatus comprising: 
 at least one processor operative to: (i) obtain a web-based application and an install document associated with the application, the install document including one or more installation settings and associated values specific to the application and the install document written in a particular data modeling language; (ii) decode the one or more installation settings and associated values of the install document; (iii) establish an operating system environment using the one or more decoded installation settings and associated values in which the application can be properly executed in accordance with the computer system; and (iv) install the application in the computer system.    
   
   
       12 . A software system for installing web-based applications in a computer system, the software system comprising: 
 an application installation manager operative to: (i) obtain a web-based application and an install document associated with the application, the install document including one or more installation settings and associated values specific to the application and the install document written in a particular data modeling language; (ii) decode the one or more installation settings and associated values of the install document; (iii) establish an operating system environment using the one or more decoded installation settings and associated values in which the application can be properly executed in accordance with the computer system; and (iv) install the application in the computer system.    
   
   
       13 . Apparatus for providing security management with respect to web-based applications running on a computer system, the apparatus comprising: 
 at least one processor operative to: (i) obtain a set of security settings for each web-based application to be accessed on the computer system; and (ii) monitor whether the execution of each web-based application violates the security settings associated therewith.    
   
   
       14 . The apparatus of  claim 13 , wherein each set of security settings is unique.  
   
   
       15 . The apparatus of  claim 13 , wherein at least one of the web-based applications is composed of one or more web pages and has access to one or more non-web browser-based operating system resources associated with the computer system.  
   
   
       16 . A software system for providing security management with respect to web-based applications running on a computer system, the software system comprising: 
 a set of security settings for each web-based application installed on the computer system; and    an application manager to: (i) obtain the set of security settings for each web-based application; and (ii) monitor whether the execution of each web-based application violates the security settings of the application.    
   
   
       17 . The software system of  claim 16 , wherein each set of security settings is unique.  
   
   
       18 . The software system of  claim 16 , wherein at least one of the web-based applications is composed of one or more web pages and has access to one or more non-web browser-based operating system resources associated with the computer system.  
   
   
       19 . The software system of  claim 16 , wherein the security settings of an application may relate to one or more of: (i) a disk quota for the application; (ii) an ability to spawn processes; (iii) an ability to access certain external hosts; (iv) an ability to access certain operating system resources; (v) an ability to call dynamic link library calls; and (vi) an ability to create short-cuts.  
   
   
       20 . The software system of  claim 16 , wherein the monitoring operation performed by the application manager comprises: (i) retrieving the security settings for the application to be processed; (ii) calling a script interpreter to parse each call in the application; (iii) for each call, checking the security settings of the application to determine whether a violation occurs; (iv) if a violation occurs, executing an exception handling process; (v) if no violation occurs, executing the call by one of calling the script interpreter or by calling one or more operating system application programming interfaces associated with the computer system.  
   
   
       21 . The software system of  claim 20 , wherein a script associated with the application is JavaScript and the script interpreter is a JavaScript interpreter.  
   
   
       22 . The software system of  claim 16 , further comprising a data modeling language parser such that the security settings can be encoded using a corresponding data modeling language.  
   
   
       23 . The software system of  claim 22 , wherein the data modeling language is XML.  
   
   
       24 . The software system of  claim 16 , wherein the application manager is further operative to permit modification of the sets of security settings.  
   
   
       25 . Apparatus for providing cache management with respect to web-based applications running on a computer system, the apparatus comprising: 
 at least one processor operative to: (i) retrieve a web-based object from one of a network and a cache in response to a request from a web-based application running on the computer system; and (ii) provide a cache management application programming interface for managing a cache of non-web-based objects in response to a request from a web-based application running on the computer system.    
   
   
       26 . The apparatus of  claim 25 , wherein the at least one processor is further operative to utilize a web browser to retrieve the requested web-based object from one of the network and the cache.  
   
   
       27 . The apparatus of  claim 25 , wherein, in accordance with the at least one processor, the web-based application has a cache portion for maintaining web-based objects and a cache portion for maintaining non-web-based objects associated therewith.  
   
   
       28 . The apparatus of  claim 25 , wherein the cache management application programming interface is implemented in accordance with a scripting language associated with a web-based application.  
   
   
       29 . The apparatus of  claim 28 , wherein the scripting language is JavaScript.  
   
   
       30 . A software system for providing cache management with respect to web-based applications running on a computer system, the software system comprising: 
 an application manager operative to: (i) retrieve a web-based object from one of a network and a cache in response to a request from a web-based application running on the computer system; and (ii) provide a cache management application programming interface for managing a cache of non-web-based objects in response to a request from a web-based application running on the computer system.    
   
   
       31 . The software system of  claim 30 , wherein the application manager is further operative to utilize a web browser to retrieve the requested web-based object from one of the network and the cache.  
   
   
       32 . The software system of  claim 30 , wherein, in accordance with the application manager, the web-based application has a cache portion for maintaining web-based objects and a cache portion for maintaining non-web-based objects associated therewith.  
   
   
       33 . The software system of  claim 30 , wherein the cache management application programming interface is implemented in accordance with a scripting language associated with a web-based application.  
   
   
       34 . The software system of  claim 33 , wherein the scripting language is JavaScript.