System and method for reusing control tree

1. A system to provide control hierarchy compression, comprising:

one or more microprocessors;

a meta control hierarchy representing a plurality of controls on a portal, wherein each node in the meta control hierarchy holds information of at least one control of the plurality of controls, wherein the portal is adaptive to be customized by a user into a customized portal, and wherein the customized portal is associated with a customized meta control hierarchy that is created by at least one of adding and removing one or more controls from the plurality of controls represented in the meta control hierarchy; and

a portal managing component, running on the one or more microprocessors, operable to perform at least one of:

accepting a request from the user for rendering the portal or one of more of its plurality of controls;

creating a control hierarchy from the customized meta control hierarchy, wherein the control hierarchy is based on a portion of the customized meta control hierarchy;

running a plurality of stages of a control lifecycle on each node in the control hierarchy; and

rendering the portal or one of its plurality of control based on the control hierarchy.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the meta control hierarchy and the control hierarchy can be a meta control tree and a control tree, respectively.

3. The system according to claim 2 , wherein:

the portion of the meta control hierarchy can be one or more sub trees.

4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

each of the plurality of controls can be one of: a desktop, a main book, a book, a page, and a portlet.

5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the portal may have a single or a multi-level menu.

6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

each of the plurality of stages of the control lifecycle can be one of: init, load, loadstate, handlePostback, raiseChangeEvents, preRender, saveState, render and destroy.

7. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the user request can be submitted via a mouse click.

8. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the portal managing component is further operable to perform at least one of:

storing the portion of the meta control hierarchy created in a cache;

sharing the portion of the meta control hierarchy with another meta control hierarchy for another user's request or for the same user's request; and

removing the portion of the meta control hierarchy from the cache once a session for the user request is finished.

9. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the customized meta control hierarchy is compressed by sharing a sub hierarchy with the meta control hierarchy in memory.

10. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the portal managing component is further operable to perform at least one of the following when the portal is not customized:

retrieving a default meta control hierarchy from the cache if such hierarchy exists; and

creating the default meta control hierarchy and storing it in the cache if such hierarchy does not exist.

11. A method to provide control hierarchy compression, comprising:

representing, via a meta control hierarchy, a plurality of controls on a portal, wherein each node in the meta control hierarchy holds information of at least one control of the plurality of controls;

allowing a user to customize the portal into a customized portal, and wherein the customized portal is associated with a customized meta control hierarchy that is created by at least one of adding and removing one or more controls from the plurality of controls represented in the meta control hierarchy;

accepting a request from the user for rendering a portal or one or more of its plurality of controls;

creating a control hierarchy from the customized meta control hierarchy, wherein the control hierarchy is based on a portion of the customized meta control hierarchy;

running a plurality of stages of a control lifecycle on each node in the control hierarchy; and

rendering the portal or one of its plurality of control based on the control hierarchy.

12. The method according to claim 11 , further comprising:

allowing the meta control hierarchy and the control hierarchy to be a meta control tree and a control tree, respectively.

13. The system according to claim 12 , further comprising:

allowing the portion of the meta control hierarchy to be one or more sub trees.

14. The method according to claim 11 , further comprising:

submitting the user request via a mouse click.

15. The method according to claim 11 , further comprising:

running each node in the control hierarchy with at least one of following stages of the control lifecycle: init, load, loadstate, handlePostback, raiseChangeEvents, preRender, saveState, render and destroy.

16. The method according to claim 11 , further comprising at least one of:

storing the portion of the meta control hierarchy created in a cache;

sharing the portion of the meta control hierarchy with another meta control hierarchy for another user's request or for the same user's request; and

removing the portion of the meta control hierarchy from the cache once a session for the user request is finished.

17. The method according to claim 11 , further comprising:

performing at least one of the following when the portal is not customized:

retrieving a default meta control hierarchy from the cache if such hierarchy exists; and

creating the default meta control hierarchy and storing it in the cache if such hierarchy does not exist.

18. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed cause a system to:

representing, via a meta control hierarchy, a plurality of controls on a portal, wherein each node in the meta control hierarchy holds information of at least one control of the plurality of controls;

allow a user to customize the portal into a customized portal, and wherein the customized portal is associated with a customized meta control hierarchy that is created by at least one of adding and removing one or more controls from the plurality of controls represented in the meta control hierarchy;

accept a request from the user for rendering a portal or one or more of its plurality of controls;

create a control hierarchy from the customized meta control hierarchy, wherein the control hierarchy is based on a portion of the customized meta control hierarchy;

run a plurality of stages of a control lifecycle on each node in the control hierarchy; and

render the portal or one of its plurality of control based on the control hierarchy.