Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Rylan Michael Hawkins

Erik Fortune

Peter Geoffrey Constable

Sunggook Chue

Dennis Chi

Larry Jin

Susan Chory

Kerry Woolsey

Pat Halvorsen

Ashish Gupta

Andrew Stuart Glass

Eric Scott Albright

Jayashree Sadagopan

Wade H Curtiss

Laura Gonzalez Gomez

Tim Wegner

Alex Chapman

Samuel Aaron Beard

Microsoft Technology Licensing

Nick Beal

A device may be configured to enable a user to select a language, and may fulfill resource requests from applications by selecting, from among resources respectively associated with a language, a resource associated with the selected language of the user. However, this resource selection process may be inadequate if the user selects multiple languages; if a resource associated with the selected language of the user is unavailable, but resources associated with related languages are available; or if the user and/or the application specifies an ordering for the selection among the languages. Presented herein are techniques for performing the resource selection by, for respective languages selected by the user, calculating a weight representing a suitability of the language for the resource request; generating a selection order of the selected languages according to the weights; and selecting a resource based on the position of the associated language in the selection order.

Language lists for resource selection based on language text direction

Architecture that facilitates the package partitioning of application resources based on conditions, and the package applicability based on the conditions. An index is created for a unified lookup of the available resources. At build time of an application, the resources are indexed and determined to be applicable based on the conditions. The condition under which the resource is applicable is then used to automatically partition the resource into an appropriate package. Each resource package then becomes applicable under the conditions in which the resources within it are applicable, and is deployed to the user if the user merits the conditions (e.g., an English user will receive an English package of English strings, but not a French package). Before the application is run, the references to the resources are merged and can be used to do appropriate lookup of what resources are available.

Resource deployment based on conditions

A digital assistant operating on a device is configured to be engaged as an active participant in communications between local and remote parties by listening to voice and video calls and participating in messaging sessions. The digital assistant typically can be initiated by voice using a key word or phrase and then be requested to perform tasks, provide information and services, etc. using voice or gestures. The digital assistant can respond to the request and take appropriate actions. In voice and video calls, the interactions with the digital assistant (i.e., the request, response, and actions) can be heard by both parties to the call as if the digital assistant was a third party on the call. In a messaging session, messages are generated and displayed to each participant so that they can see the interactions with the digital assistant as if it was a participant.

Use of a digital assistant in communications

Architecture that provides a unified interface to access resources in different formats and in disparate resource locations for a process (e.g., consuming application). The unified interface is extensible such that users can add additional components to the unified interface to provide access to new resources and new resource references. The interface provides the capability to create a single comprehensive index of all available resources regardless of the resource format. Format-specific indexers are provided for the resources to find, enumerate, and process the resources into a structure suitable for processing by an indexing component into the index. A user can introduce new format-specific indexers for new resources and new resource references for processing by the indexing component into the index. The unified interface now provides access to the new resources and new resources references as well.

Unified access to resources

A resource index on a computing device identifies multiple resource instances (e.g., multiple user interface (UI) resource instances) of multiple resource items (e.g., of multiple UI resource items), each resource instance having one or more resource instance conditions. In response to a request for a resource item received from an application, a determination is made based on the resource index of one of the multiple resource instances that satisfy conditions associated with the request, and the one of the multiple resource instances is returned to the application. Additionally, the resource index can be used to identify potential errors in running an application in various potential contexts.

Resource index identifying multiple resource instances and selecting most appropriate UI resource instance based on weighted resource request conditions

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Rylan Michael Hawkins