Cross-browser toolbar and method thereof for facilitating cross-browser interoperability

1. A computer implemented method for rendering and displaying a cross-browser toolbar, comprising:

providing a toolbar document object (TDO), wherein the TDO includes elements enabling a cross-browser interoperability and is a memory structure hosted by a web browser control of a web browser instance;

translating, at runtime, the TDO to a specific-browser document object model (DOM) of a web browser type on which the cross-browser toolbar is being rendered;

wherein translating the TDO to the browser-specific DOM further comprising:

translating each element of the TDO to an equivalent browser-specific DOM element;

mapping each handler of each event defined in the TDO to an equivalent browser-specific DOM event handler; and

disconnecting circular dependencies and scripts closures on event handlers when TDO elements are discarded.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the type of the web browser is any of: a Microsoft Internet Explorer, a Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and an Opera.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein elements of the TDO are arrange in a tree structure.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the elements include at least special tags defining special functions of the cross-browser toolbar, and wherein each of special tags has a set of attributes for customizing a special function defined by the special tag.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the special tags include at least one of: a search-bar for providing a search-bar input field, a RSS-button for accessing RSS feeds, a web-inspector button for performing background anti-phishing checks, and a widget-menu-popup for providing a list of widgets.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein a widget is at least a software application or a control executed from the cross-browser toolbar.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein translating TDO elements further comprising: translating chrome:// protocol elements to an Internet Explorer DOM elements.

8. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable code when executed causing a processor to perform a process of rendering a cross-platform toolbar, the process comprising:

providing a toolbar document object (TDO), wherein the TDO includes elements enabling a cross-browser interoperability and is a memory structure hosted by a web browser control of a web browser instance;

translating, at runtime, the TDO to a specific-browser document object model (DOM) of a web browser type on which the cross-browser toolbar is being rendered;

wherein translating the TDO to the browser-specific DOM further comprising:

translating each element of the TDO to an equivalent browser-specific DOM element;

mapping each handler of each event defined in the TDO to an equivalent browser-specific DOM event handler; and

disconnecting circular dependencies and scripts closures on event handlers when TDO elements are discarded.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein translating the TDO to the browser-specific DOM further comprising:

translating each element of the TDO to an equivalent browser-specific DOM element; and

mapping each handler of each event defined in the TDO to an equivalent browser-specific DOM event handler.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 9 , further comprising:

disconnecting circular dependencies and scripts closures on event handlers when TDO elements are discarded.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 9 , wherein translating TDO elements further comprising: translating chrome:// protocol elements to an Internet Explorer DOM elements.

12. A method for generating a cross-browser toolbar, comprising:

generating a toolbar render object defining at least user interface elements of the cross-browser toolbar;

generating a script file defining at least event handlers associated with the user interface elements;

generating toolbar libraries including at least application programming interfaces (APIs) and script files supporting a specific web browser type;

assigning a unique dynamic-link library (DLL) file with the toolbar libraries and the script file; and

compiling the toolbar render object, the script file, the toolbar libraries, and the DLL file into an installer file adapted to enable the installation of the cross-browser toolbar in the specific web browser type, wherein the toolbar libraries comprise special tags defining special functions of the cross-browser toolbar, and wherein each of the special tags has a set of attributes for customizing a special function defined by the special tag.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the toolbar render object is configured to render at least a hyper text markup language (HTML) web page or an XML user interface language (XUL) web page.

14. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable code when executed causing a processor to perform a process of generating a cross-browser toolbar, comprising:

generating a toolbar render object defining at least user interface elements of the cross-browser toolbar;

generating a script file defining at least event handlers associated with the user interface elements;

generating toolbar libraries including at least application programming interfaces (APIs) and script files supporting a specific web browser type;

assigning a unique dynamic-link library (DLL) file with the toolbar libraries and the script file; and

compiling the toolbar render object, the script file, the toolbar libraries, and the DLL file into an installer file adapted to enable the installation of the cross-browser toolbar in the specific web browser type, wherein the toolbar libraries comprise special tags defining special functions of the cross-browser toolbar, and wherein each of the special tags has a set of attributes for customizing a special function defined by the special tag.

15. A cross-platform toolbar, comprising:

a toolbar render object defining at least user interface elements of the cross browser toolbar;

a script file defining at least event handlers associated with the user interface elements;

toolbar libraries including at least application programming interfaces (APIs) and script files supporting a specific web browser type; and

a unique dynamic-link library (DLL) file assigned with the toolbar libraries and the script file; and

the toolbar render object, the script file, the toolbar libraries, and the DLL file are compiled into an installer file on a computer readable medium adapted to enable the installation of the cross-browser toolbar in the specific web browser type, wherein the toolbar libraries comprise special tags defining special functions of the cross-browser toolbar, and wherein each of the special tags has a set of attributes for customizing a special function defined by the special tag.