US 7,610,290 B2
Searching with adaptively configurable user interface and extensible query language
Steven J. Kruy, Carnation, Wash. (US); Christopher G. Kaler, Redmond, Wash. (US); Kenneth D. Hardy, Redmond, Wash. (US); and Jomo Ahab Fisher, Redmond, Wash. (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash. (US)
Filed on Aug. 01, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/194,803.
Application 11/194803 is a division of application No. 09/717588, filed on Nov. 21, 2000, granted, now 7,370,040.
Prior Publication US 2007/0027851 A1, Feb. 01, 2007
Int. Cl. G06F 17/30 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 707—10  [707/4; 707/102] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for receiving and processing a search query with respect to a plurality of search providers the method comprising:
receiving a registration request from each search provider, wherein the registration request invokes at least one registration function via an API (“Application Programming Interface”), wherein a respective registration request includes a plurality of query properties of an associated search provider, the plurality of query properties including a list of at least one data property name, query comparison operators, a number of operands for each of the query comparison operators, syntactic data value types for each operand and localization information about display strings;
receiving an initial request to perform a search from a user;
configuring a user interface based on the query properties of each respective search provider;
displaying the user interface for the search providers to the user based upon the query properties of each respective search provider;
receiving a query from the user;
forming a parse tree representation of the query;
marshaling the parse tree representation to a selected number of search providers using a call by value protocol, wherein each search provider is associated with a specific type of content and respective search functionality for that content, the associated content for each of the search providers being mutually exclusive.