Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Justin McRoberts

Dale Rogerson

Andrew Douglas Reddish

Sridhar Chandrashekar

Timothy R Sullivan

Alex Aben-Athar Kipman

Craig Andrew Critchley

Mark Robert Thill

Victor A Stone

Peter E Loforte

Praful Chavda

Derek Edward Hoiem

Wenlong Dong

Daniel Micol-Ponce

David Prody

Scott R Swanson

Justin Farley

Juan Carlos Lopez Sanchez

Bradley Louis James Rosenfeld

Jonathan Cannon Gordon

Madhavi Lakamsani

Paul Glenn McKee

Saurabh Jain

Octavia Petrovici

Features are disclosed for providing items from an item store to an item store consumer. An item store organizer can request an item store from an item redemption system based on item store parameters. The item store organizer can receive a single use token from the item redemption system to provide initial access to the item store. The item redemption system can validate the item store consumer based on the single use token. The item redemption system can further validate redemption requests from the item store consumer based on the item store parameters. The item redemption system can fulfill the redemption request based on payment information of the item store organizer and shipping information of the item store consumer. The item redemption system can transmit redemption information to the item store organizer based on fulfilling the redemption request.

Redeeming items from an item store using information from multiple accounts

A system for presentation of help files on a computer with an operating system and a display is provided. Presentation-independent information associated with an application is stored on the computer. A help application is adapted to access the presentation-independent information based on user interactions and automatically to select between available rendering applications at runtime for displaying the presentation-independent information on the display.

Mechanism to dynamically host multiple renderers based on system capabilities

Flexible information appearance and behavior can be achieved with an extensible multi-phase transform engine. The transform engine can apply a series of transforms to markup language content. In a help service embodiment, application creators can specify a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) for help content, and a collection of transforms and/or executable code for formatting and presenting the help content. The transforms may be custom transforms registered with the help service, or may be selected from a set of stock pre-registered transforms. The transforms can be applied by the engine to the help content. Custom transforms and transform selection may be used to control content appearance and engine output format. Transform operation may also trigger custom executable code to accomplish desired help behaviors.

Systems and methods for supporting flexible information appearance and behavior with extensible multi-phase transform engine

An active content trust model provides security in a help system. The security is provided in response to a call from a calling application to access active content. When the call is received, a determination is made, based on predetermined criteria, which execution mode to use to access the active content. The active content is then accessed in the determined execution mode, thus providing the security.

Active content trust model

The aforementioned need is satisfied by the present invention in which a help architecture supports an application and a help engine operating on a computer, where the help engine is for locating help topics relevant to the application. In the help architecture, at least one help library stores a plurality of help topics therein, where the help topics are accessible to a user from the help library by way of the computer, and a central store stores topic metadata corresponding to help topics available from each help library. The central store in response to a search request from the help engine locates topic metadata relevant to the search request and returns information from the located topic metadata.

Context-based help engine, dynamic help, and help architecture

An application and a context-based help system operate on a computer. The application includes a plurality of components that effectuate application functions, where each component of the application is constructed to describe a current context of the component representative of a current state of the component. At least some of the components are active at any one time. The help system includes a help engine that receives the current context from each active component, dynamically builds a current overall context of the application based on each received current context, locates help topics based on the current overall context, and filters and prioritizes the located help topics.

Context-based help engine and dynamic help

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Justin McRoberts