Method and device for selecting and displaying a region of interest in an electronic document

1. A method for selecting and displaying a region of interest in an electronic document on the display of a device, comprising:

loading said document onto said device;

generating a tree structure of nested layout boxes based on corresponding markup language elements in said document;

calculating dimensions and positions of the respective layout boxes;

displaying at least a part of the document on said display;

receiving user input which in combination with the position of a pointing device identifies a point within the document;

selecting from among the nested layout boxes the innermost selectable layout box containing the identified point;

comparing at least one of the size and the proportions of the selected layout box with the size of the display or the viewport;

selecting the region of interest based on the comparing as a region within the document which includes the identified point and the entire selected layout box along at least one dimension, and which has the same proportions as the display or the viewport; and

aligning said selected region of interest with the display or the viewport and displaying said region of interest, wherein aligning and displaying said region of interest comprises at least one of changing the resolution or shifting the displayed document to cause the region of interest to fill the display or the viewport along the at least one dimension.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said identified point includes at least first coordinates.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said document is a markup language document, and said selected layout box includes at least one DOM element.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said document is a markup language document, and said selected layout box is at least one CSS containing block.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said one dimension is the width of the selected layout box, and said region is selected to have the same width as said selected layout box.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein aligning and displaying said region of interest comprises:

determining a first resolution with which a currently displayed region of said document is displayed;

calculating a desired second resolution for displaying said region of interest; and

performing a stepwise change from said first resolution to said second resolution.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein aligning and displaying said region of interest comprises:

determining a first position in said document representative of a currently displayed region of said document;

determining a second position in said document representative of said region of interest; and

sequentially displaying a number of regions of said document along a path from said first position to said second position.

8. A computing device configured to display electronic documents for selecting and displaying a region of interest in an electronic document on the display of a device, comprising:

a display;

a user input interface;

a communications interface capable of receiving electronic documents;

memory into which a received document can be loaded;

a module configured to:

load said document on said device;

generate a tree structure of nested layout boxes based on corresponding markup language elements in said document;

calculate dimensions and positions of the respective layout boxes;

display at least a part of the document on said display;

receive user input which in combination with the position of a pointing device identifies a point within the document;

select from among the nested layout boxes the innermost selectable layout box containing the identified point;

compare at least one of the size and the proportions of the selected layout box with the size of the display or the viewport;

select the region of interest based on the comparing as a region within the document which includes the identified point and the entire selected layout box along at least one dimension, and which has the same proportions as the display or the viewport; and

align said identified region of interest with a window of said display and display said region of interest, wherein aligning and displaying said region of interest comprises at least one of changing the resolution or shifting the displayed document to cause the region of interest to fill the display or the viewport along the at least one dimension.

9. The device according to claim 8 , wherein said identified point includes at least first coordinates.

10. The device according to claim 8 , wherein said document is a markup language document, and said selected layout box includes at least one DOM element.

11. The device according to claim 8 , wherein said document is a markup language document, and said selected layout box is at least one CSS containing block.

12. The device according to claim 8 , wherein said one dimension is the width of the selected layout box, and said region is selected to have the same width as said selected layout box.

13. The device according to claim 8 , wherein said module is further configured to align and display said region of interest by:

determining a first resolution with which a currently displayed region of said document is displayed;

calculating a desired second resolution for displaying said region of interest; and

performing a stepwise change from said first resolution to said second resolution.

14. The device according to claim 8 , wherein said module is further configured to align and display said region of interest by:

determining a first position in said document representative of a currently displayed region of said document;

determining a second position in said document representative of said region of interest; and

sequentially displaying a number of regions of said document along a path from said first position to said second position.

15. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when loaded and executed on a computing device, are capable of performing the method of one of the claims 1 , 2 , and 3 to 7 .