Method and apparatus for publishing hypermedia documents over
Contents
1. button or the like using a cursor control device as indicated by comments 168 on FIG 10a and 172 on FIG 105 akin to the create table button described above in connection with FIG 10a Entry and search forms are thus live meaning that com pleting a form and interactively signalling a hypermedia link included in the form will automatically send an appropriate message to the application server causing server software 50 to initiate appropriate database actions at step 150 The user need not invoke a separate interface copy any files or compose any database scripts Thus to enjoy interactive database services users can simply fill out forms using the same environment they use to access and edit documents Note that a WAN document referenced in a database may preferably be located anywhere in the WAN in accordance with the present invention and need not be local to the application server From the standpoint of server software 50 the database tables reference and index WAN compatible URL s i e WAN address pointers and so need not store documents locally Note also that multiple tables and hence multiple indexing views and forms covering the same docu ments are possible For example an administrator might systematically index all documents on a server while indi vidual users might create their own indexing schemes for documents and criteria of special interest For more details regarding various menu driven int2. New Page Horizontal Rule NaviLinks Open Forced Line Break Check Links Close Link Describe Page Save Anchor Search Server Save As Image Server Administration gt Print Setup Image Map Preferences gt Print Unlink Delete File Exit Backward Forward Stop Remove Format P Special Style gt Heading Paragraph Copy Reload Page Paste Lists Global History Clear Forms Hot List Select All Show Border Add To Hot List Style Sheet Copy UAL Paste UAL Find Repace Find Next Tile Cascade Arrange Icons 1 MiniWeb lt Location gt 2 MW lt 1 gt Page lt i gt Tutorial Tech Support About NaviPress U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 4 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 1004 Fie Edit View Tool Browse Window Help 102 spas Global History Hot List r Views Clean Up Zoom In Zoom Out Tee Tr o gt New MiniWeb New Page Open Close Save As cat Tools 344 106 Describe Page Search Server Server Adminstration gt Preferences gt Tile Cascade Arrange Icons 1 MiniWeb lt Location gt 2 MW lt 1 gt Page lt 1 gt Copy UAL Paste UAL Set Stationary CREATE NEW TABLE GENERATE CORRESPONDING TEMPLATE FORMS ACCESS THE FORM FILL IN THE FORM SUBMIT THE FORM PROCESS THE
3. This technology supports key pub lishing functions including document authoring manage ment and publishing of document collections and support for database operations and interactive application program development These functions are supported in a uniquely and fully WAN integrated manner as described further below In one feature of the present invention a WAN document residing on a WAN server may be accessed via a hypermedia link edited and stored to the same server or any other WAN server using a client computer coupled to the same server or any other WAN server The processes of accessing editing and storing may be performed using a seamless user inter face on the client computer By seamless user interface we mean that users are not required to request additional steps such as intermediate copying or storage of the document being edited or to switch back and forth among distinct 10 15 20 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 modes or interfaces Thus browsing and editing of WAN documents is truly integrated A related feature of the invention allows convenient transfers of content and or hypermedia links among a plurality of WAN documents such as by cut and paste or drag and drop copying Another related feature provides immediate execution and feedback for any display instructions added to the document using a standard WAN mark up language In another feature of the present
4. 2002 Sheet 7 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 8b Cut the chicken into chunks cut the onion into slices and cut both the white and green parts of leek spring onions into slices Heat the butter marge oil and brown the chicken one minute Add the onion slices and cook one minute add the cashews and cook one minute then add the leek or whatever and cook one minute surprise surprise Add the rice and toss through then slosh in the Sherry salt and pepper File Edit Elements I Tools Browse jm Serve with a green salad Nice SAS ka is eR xX So e is eR kd 7122 Carey Schnell Wright Schnell Wright a Location http zal navisoft com 8001 Mahl 6 Title Marjoram Potato Casserole Suggested Anchors Carey SCHNELL Wild Rice Risotto Newsgroups rec food recipes An Aussie Fran cschnell iiasa ac at Corey SCHNELL da Stlva Subject Marjoran Potato Casserole leek Message ID Organization IJASA Laxenburg Austria Date Tue 3 Aug 1993 07 41 31 MT Marjoran Potato Casserole arjoram Potato Casserole COLLECTION Potato Recipes onli 770 9 Potatoes Spicy Grill Chicken and Potatoe me of fresh marjoran dried otherwise COLLECTION Risottos medium Jo 250g cream 2 egg yolks freshly ground pepper 40 g butter 75g ham ae U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 8 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 10a HARSANA X Copy Paste Deserib Search Smart Back Fwd f Stop A Le Location http nav
5. gore navisoft com 8001 NS GetSearchForm comments4 W tj 4 WES X Title JSearch Form for Table comments4 N Search Search Telecommunication Customer Comment Form Help Select 174a mi custnane OOOO O E Customer Name Electronic Mail Mail address Telephone Number 17a 174c US 6 393 469 B1 1 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PUBLISHING HYPERMEDIA DOCUMENTS OVER WIDE AREA NETWORKS CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of U S patent applica tion Ser No 08 412 981 filed Mar 28 1995 now U S Pat No 5 870 552 which is incorporated by reference FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to the field of authoring publishing and managing electronic hypermedia documents across distributed wide area networks such as the World Wide Web BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The distribution of information is being revolutionized before our very eyes Wide area networks WAN s notably the Internet are assuming the role of information superhighways and are distributing electronic embodi ments of mail textbooks magazines advertisements and even audio and video clips around the world Herein the term document denotes and includes any and all such electronic content generically FIG 1 conceptually illustrates the basic architecture of a client server WAN like the Internet Servers 10a form the backbo
6. 60 65 16 cated by the presence of menu bar 70 in FIGS 10b 10c and 10d users can seamlessly take full advantage of the editing capabilities of that environment in the course of filling out description or search forms For example while a WAN document is being accessed and edited by the user in one display window the user can fill out a corresponding description form or access control form in another window concurrently Moreover users can even modify and custom ize the style and appearance of entry or search forms by using the editing facilities of menu bar 70 such as the html mark up commands of the Elements and Format menus as discussed previously in connection with FIG 4 For example FIG 10c depicts an edited version of FIG 10b that still corresponds to the database table of FIG 10a Thus fields 170a n of FIG 10c map directly onto fields 166a n of FIG 10b but are merely displayed in a somewhat different appearance Thus the steps of generating and filling in new tables entry forms and search forms are seamlessly integrated with the editing and browsing environment previously described Moreover even the step of submitting a completed form to the application server for processing may likewise be per formed in seamless fashion together with the preceding steps Thus at step 148 a user who has completed a database entry or search form submits the form to the application server by pressing a hypermedia enter
7. FORM 140 Tutorial Tech Support 142 About NaviPress FIG 6 144 146 148 PIG 9 150 U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 5 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 Ho Eile Edit Tools Browse Window Help MiniW HAHAOH Hl Home Page lease title this page Page 1 in MW3 U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 6 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 8a 120 704 File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help eX ESIS Pore KR gt gt m X A ES Pore KN HA m ky ky e Location http gore navisoft com 8001 recipes rice beans grain E Title iit Rice Risotto water is evaporated about 40 mins Cut the chicken into chunks cut the onion into slices and cut both the white and green parts of the leek spring onions in to slices Heat the butter marge oil and brown the chicken one minute Add the onion slices and cook one minute add the cashews and cook one minute then add the leek or whatever and cook one minute surprise surprise Add the rice and toss through then slosh in the Sherry salt and pepper Serve with a green salad Nice and light for a hot day Mahlzeit 122 An Aussie in exile in Austria 124 Suggested Anchors Carey Schnell Wright A Carey SCHNELL E 126 Wild Rice Risotto An Aussie da Stlva leek y E Potential Pages For Selected Anchor Marjoram Potato Casserole Spicy Grilled Chicken and Potatoes 130 132 U S Patent May 21
8. NS GetSearchForm ns__groups2users NS GetSearchForm ns__permissions INS GetSearchForm ns__methods 2 sumoguy3 gif costs htm O security htm 4 startup htm 2 sumoguy8 gif 0 NS GetSearchForm ns__costs 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_charges 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_total__charges search htm INS GetSearchFormPicker srchdata htm srchpage htm hitlist htm hilite htm 2 sumoguy4 gif NS GetSearchForm ns__permissions INS GetSearchForm ns__users srchdata htm 8 http Avww navisoft com STUB 2 sumoguyS gif srchpage htm 2 sumoguy6 gif 8 http www navisoft com STUB 0 NS GetSearchForm ns__default__collection hitlist htm 0 NS GetSearchForm ns__default_collection 0 http www navisoft com STUB 0 http Avww ncsa uiuc edu SDG Software XMosaic help on version 2 5b5 html 0 http Avww netscape com info newsrelease16 htm 0 http Avww w3 org hypertext WW W Arena 0 NS GetSearchForm ns__total__charges 2 sumochar gif hilite htm 0 NS MoreLikeThis Url 2fservdoc 2ftop htm 0 servdoc top htm 0 NS GetLHP Url 2fservdoc 2ftop htm amp terms cool 2 sumoleaf gif under htm 2 cthulhu gif entup htm 8 http www navisoft com STUB 2 sumoguy7 gif 0 NS GetEntryForm ns__permissions smartlnk htm 2 fujibrch gif describe htm 8 http Avww navisoft com STUB 2 fujimt gif custom htm 2 sum
9. a WAN server Manual copying is often tedious and inconvenient especially where a publisher fre quently publishes a large quantity of content from diverse sources including text files graphics images video and sound clips etc Yet current authoring tools generally provide little assistance with this chore The non integrated nature of current authoring tools pre sents other difficulties and limitations as well For example it is not generally possible to open multiple WAN docu ments for editing and to transfer text images and URL s among those documents in the seamless fashion as is pres ently done with typical word processors for local computer documents As another example current Web authoring tools generally do not provide full WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get feedback as to html markups and hypermedia links In other words the creation and editing of documents is typically performed in a purely local context html and URL codes must then be separately tested in a serial fashion by loading the document into a WAN browser or the like This serial iterative process is highly inefficient 2 Current WAN publishing tools provide little assistance with managing collections of documents Although the World Wide Web is famous for supporting hypermedia document links current tools provide scant support for maintaining and operating on collections of related docu ments as a group Much progress is needed in this
10. and reviewing customer feedback or for relating specified access controls such as security restrictions and access costs perhaps of a hierar chical nature to specific proprietary WAN documents Therefore the form driven interface environment of the present invention is preferably integrated not only with editing and browsing tools as previously described but also with a database management system such as the Ilustra object relational database management system FIG 9 illustrates a sample process flow diagram for developing and utilizing form driven interactive database services in accordance with the present invention At step 140 a developer user begins the process of setting up a new interactive service by using client computer 20d to create a new database table for the service preferably using an integrated authoring environment such as window 160 in FIG 10a As shown window 160 includes menu bar 70 and the seamless browsing and editing facilities described earlier herein The table created in step 140 will include a plurality of data fields 162a n As illustrated in FIG 10a each one of data fields 162a n preferably may be associated with vari ous specifications such as a required data type and whether or not database entries in the table will be indexed and hence searchable using that field As indicated by comment 164 in FIG 10a step 140 is completed by pressing a create table button or the like The create
11. documents interrelated by hyperme dia links in a convenient manner Those of skill in the art recognize that when the target reference of a hypermedia link is moved the link is thereby broken much like the address on a letter to a recipient who has moved and left no forwarding address Thus moving a collection of documents interrelated by numerous hypermedia links has been extremely onerous using prior art technology since the hypermedia links must manually be fixed to address new locations In accordance with the present invention one or more relative hypermedia links are preferably created among the documents of a collection A relative link only addresses its target document relative to the source document s address In other words only a portion of the full target address is given namely a portion sufficient to locate the target relative to the source Preferably a specification of a hierarchical directory structure for each collection is main tained in a separate file along with the collection so that only the topmost page in the collection need be tied to an absolute address while other hypermedia links within the collection can be made relative and still be interpreted properly Sample listings for such a specification are included on the following pages Because the links are relative they do not need to be modified when the collection is moved US 6 393 469 B1 navidoc 1 0 graph 1 nametype 0 titl
12. in the direction indicated by the arrows Thus the miniweb display provides an intuitive graphical view of the relation ship among a collection of hypermedia documents The graphical interface of FIG 7 is preferably displayed in a separate window of client computer 20d alongside document editing windows in accordance with FIG 4 Users can preferably use the miniweb window as a short cut to access desired documents within a collection by simply double clicking on the corresponding icon in the miniweb or by dragging and dropping an icon from the miniweb onto a document editing window Moreover the precise appearance of icons and connecting arrows preferably indi cates the nature or state of the corresponding document or link For example icon 110i represents a sound file while icon 110b is a hypermedia web document as suggested by the appearance of those two icons Further the color and shading of icons and arrows may indicate such states as a modified and unsaved document or a relative or absolute address link For more details regarding the graphical inter face of FIG 7 and its preferred uses the reader is referred to the draft User Manual in the Appendix and particularly chapters 4 Appendix B thereto Once again source code included in the Appendix provides exemplary means for implementing the miniweb facility we have described Automated Authoring of WAN Hypermedia NaviLinks Most content on the Wor
13. publishing tools do not address the creation of application programs For on line network publishing to realize its full potential publishers will want to do more than simply dump passive one way content onto the Internet They will want to provide application programs allowing network users to take advantage of interactive on line ser vices such as subscribing to a publication registering for a conference or perhaps even more exotic applications like participating in multi player games contests Current net work publishing and authoring tools largely ignore this area Accordingly there is a great need for a new development platform for distributed publishing that overcomes the vari ous limitations described above This need is especially pronounced and important in view of the rapid expansion of interest in the Internet and the Web and the tremendous economic opportunities presently available to publishers if a suitable development platform can be provided Recently authoring tools have begun to emerge which attack some of the foregoing problems in piecemeal fashion See PC Maga zine at pp 110 196 However there remains a great need for a comprehensive solution to the problems described and especially for an authoring publishing tool that is truly and fully network integrated SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION We disclose herein a development platform technology for publishing hypermedia documents across wide area networks WAN s
14. table button is actually just a special kind of hypermedia link which transmits a requested operation for processing by a target WAN server on which server software 50 is available as will be described in greater detail further below In this case click ing on a create table button sends a network message formally registering the new database table with server 10d or another selected WAN server hereinafter the applica tion server on which server software 50 including a database management system is available Once a database table is created at step 142 template forms are generated for interactively updating and searching the database described by the new table Updating such as by adding a new database entry may interactively be per formed using a form as illustrated in FIG 10b in which informational fields 166a n correspond to the data fields 162a n specified in the database table Thus a user who accesses the entry form at step 144 can then describe the database attribute values for a new entry at step 146 simply by filling in informational fields 166a n Analogous com ments apply with regard to forms for submitting a specific database search or query such as the form of FIG 10d which includes corresponding information fields 174a n Because description and search forms are integrated with the authoring environment previously described as indi 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
15. FIG 8b illustrates the results of pressing these buttons The visual appearance of anchor item 122 is updated to indicate that it is now encoded as an URL i e a hypermedia link as a result of the user applying a suggested link In addition as a result of the user selecting a Show Page request document editing window 134 has been created overlapping on windows 120 and 124 and displays an open WAN document containing another recipe by the same author and entitled Marjoram Potato Casse role US 6 393 469 B1 15 WAN Integrated Form Driven Interactive Services A hypermedia publishing platform should preferably sup port not only the authoring and distribution content but also a variety of form driven interactive services such as content based indexing of documents and controlled access to proprietary WAN documents Preferably application developers and end users should be able to generate and store new forms retrieve existing forms fill out forms and submit them for appropriate processing all in a convenient and seamless manner utilizing an integrated editing and browsing environment such as described earlier in connec tion with FIGS 4 7 A great many desirable interactive WAN services are database oriented For example a service might involve a particular database view i e a specified set of indices for indexing WAN documents for managing historical versions of WAN documents for collecting
16. United States Patent US006393469B1 12 10 Patent No US 6 393 469 B1 Dozier et al 45 Date of Patent May 21 2002 54 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR 5 557 730 A 9 1996 Frid Nielsen 0 345 839 PUBLISHING HYPERMEDIA DOCUMENTS 5 708 825 A 1 1998 Sotomayor 707 501 1 OVER WIDE AREA NETWORKS 5 724 595 A 3 1998 Gentner 0 707 501 1 5 727 156 A 3 1998 Herr Hoyman et al 709 219 T f 5 771 355 A 6 1998 Kuzma ossen 709 232 ye Inventors a Ree be cotta 5 778 398 A 7 1998 Nagashima et al 707 501 1 gt gt ka i Long Santa Barbara Douglas M 5 870 552 A 2 1999 Dozier et al 709 219 McKee Santa Barbara James G OTHER PUBLICATIONS Davidson Santa Barbara Karen Brady Woodside all of CA US Vatton I Amaya W3C s Browser Editor www w3 org Amaya Jul 1998 73 Assignee America Online Inc Dulles VA US Vatton I Amaya 1 3 www w3c org Amaya User New Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this Jul 1998 patent is extended or adjusted under 35 Publishing on the Web B Rousseau 1995 Cern School of U S C 154 b by 0 days Computing Proceedings Cern 95 05 1995 Cern School of Computing Proceedings Arles France Aug 20 Sep 2 This patent is subject to a terminal dis 1995 1995 Geneva Switzerland Cern Switzerland pp clamer 279 293 XP000578592 Claris MacProjectII Users Guide Claris Corporation 21 Appl No 09 204 745 Mo
17. a hypermedia link from the source document to the target document wherein the foregoing instructions are performed regard less of whether the first source and target servers are the same or different servers 37 The computer program of claim 36 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to access the target document further include instructions for causing the com puter to select an anchor item of content within the source docu ment automatically generate a list of one or more suggested target documents for the selected anchor item and interactively select one of the suggested target documents as the target document 38 The computer program of claim 37 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to select an anchor item of content include instructions for causing the computer to automatically generate a list of one or more suggested 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 22 anchor items and wherein the instructions for accessing the target document are performed for one or more of the suggested anchor items 39 The computer program of claim 36 wherein the foregoing instructions are performed with the client com puter using a seamless user interface 40 A computer implemented method for publishing elec tronic documents on a wide area network WAN com prising a plurality of servers said method for use by a user having a client computer operably coupled to a first server said method co
18. abase for particular customer feedback in accor dance with the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OP THE INVENTION Introduction FIG 3 provides a broad outline of a client server archi tecture in accordance with the present invention for use in the context of a WAN such as illustrated in FIG 1 User s client machine 20d preferably includes digital computer facilities including CPU 68 user I O peripherals 66 and storage device 64 including internal and external memory storing operating system 62 and client software 60 WAN server 10d preferably coupled to client 20d through a high speed local connection is equipped with digital com puter facilities analogous to those of client 20d and also with server software 50 As described in much greater detail below client software 60 and server software 50 preferably share the responsibility for providing advantageous and innovative electronic pub lishing capabilities in accordance with the present invention Note that a user of client computer 20d seeking the benefits of the present invention need only have client software 60 available on client computer 20d and all or part of server software 50 available on server 10d depending on the particular features desired The user can then advanta geously access and publish documents to and from the remainder of the WAN in accordance with the present invention even though other computer systems on the WAN have not been similarly mod
19. aim 11 wherein the graphical icons and the graphical lines each have one or more display attributes indicating one or more states of the corresponding documents and hypermedia links 14 The computer program of claim 7 wherein the desired operation includes setting one or more access controls for the collection of documents 15 The computer program of claim 7 wherein the desired operation includes modifying a common portion of content within the collection of documents 16 Acomputer program residing on a computer readable medium for providing interactive application services on a WAN comprising a plurality of servers for use with a client computer operably coupled to a first server said computer program comprising instructions for causing a computer to create a template form comprising one or more informa tional fields and one or more hypermedia links said links addressing one or more utility programs stored on an application server interactively fill in the informational fields on the template form interactively select one or more of the hypermedia links and process the template form by executing the utility pro grams in response to the previous step wherein the instructions for causing the computer to create and fill in the template form and select the hypermedia link are all performed regardless of whether the first server and application server are the same or are different servers 17 The computer program of
20. and edited in accordance with the present invention FIG 5b illustrates a flow diagram for a second scenario in which WAN hypermedia documents are created and edited in accordance with the present invention US 6 393 469 B1 5 FIG 6 illustrates a preferred set of interactive commands for working with a collection of interrelated hypermedia documents FIG 7 illustrates a preferred graphical interface for orga nizing and working with a collection of interrelated hyper media documents FIG 8a is a screen image illustrating use of the preferred NaviLinks facility to generate suggested hypermedia links FIG 8b is a screen image further illustrating use of the preferred NaviLinks facility to generate suggested hyper media links FIG 9 illustrates a flow diagram for developing and running WAN based form driven interactive application programs in accordance with the present invention FIG 10a illustrates a preferred interface form for adding a customer feedback table to an indexed database in accor dance with the present invention FIG 10b illustrates a default template form for adding a particular customer s feedback to an indexed database in accordance with the present invention FIG 10c illustrates a modified template form for adding a particular customer s feedback to an indexed database in accordance with the present invention FIG 10d illustrates a template form for searching an indexed dat
21. area For example an integrated publishing environment should pref erably allow users to visually navigate through collections of interconnected documents to upload download and trans US 6 393 469 B1 3 port collections of documents from one WAN location to another as a group and to set access privileges or other attributes for a WAN collection as a group Current tools generally fall far short of these objectives 3 Current publishing tools provide little assistance with content based indexing and retrieval Current navigational tools such as browsers provide very little assistance with systematically organizing and searching the information content contained within the numerous sites comprising a network like the Internet Clearly as the volume of both information and traffic on the Internet continues to explode publishers need to be able to make their content available to subscribers in an intelligently organized fashion that facili tates uniform content driven search and access 4 Current publishing tools provide little assistance with asset management For commercial publishers of proprietary material like newspapers or periodicals asset management is critical In other words publishers need to be able to control and limit access to their WAN documents and to keep track of usage for billing and other purposes Yet currently available tools for WAN publishing generally ignore this area almost completely 5 Current
22. claim 16 for use with a database residing on said application server wherein the one or more utility programs include one or more database management mechanisms and wherein the instructions for causing the computer to process the template form include instructions for causing the computer to perform at least one or more of the following inserting retrieving updating and deleting one or more entries of said database 18 The computer program of claim 17 for use in index ing a plurality of documents located on any one or more servers of the WAN wherein the instructions for causing the computer to fill in the template form include instructions for causing the computer to describe one or more of the docu ments 19 The computer program of claim 17 for use in account ing one or more costs associated with a plurality of docu 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 20 ments located on one or more servers of the WAN wherein the instructions for causing the computer to fill in the template form include instructions for causing the computer to specify cost information for one or more of the docu ments 20 The computer program of claim 17 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to create the template form include instructions for causing the computer to create a table including a set of data specifications corresponding to the informational fields and register said table with the application s
23. collections where there are explicit links between specific related portions of documents FIG 6 illustrates a preferred menu driven authoring environment called the MiniWeb for working with col lections of related documents in accordance with the present invention Typically menu bar 100 is displayed continually at the top of a computer display window in which a particular collection is being operated on Many of the basic operations provided by the pull down menus available through menu bar 100 are performed collectively upon the current document collection or miniweb in other words a single command will be applied to all members of the collection as a group For example pull down file menu 102 includes commands to save a miniweb to any speci fied location in the WAN When invoked the command automatically stores all documents and objects in the col lection to the desired new or old storage site Preferably edit menu 104 includes commands to globally search and replace a common portion of content such as an updated company logo or URL shared by many or all documents in the collection although this particular command option is not explicitly shown in FIG 6 Similarly tools menu 106 performs administrative tasks such as setting access con trols i e costs and security privileges for collections as a group A related aspect of this invention involves the ability to transport collections of
24. cuments of the collection are linked by one or more hypermedia links and wherein the instructions for causing the computer to collectively perform a desired operation include instructions for causing the computer to move the collection of documents from an original location to a different location on the WAN without modifying the hypermedia links US 6 393 469 B1 19 9 The computer program of claim 8 wherein one or more of the hypermedia links addresses one of the target docu ments relative to one of the source documents 10 The computer program of claim 9 further including instructions for causing the computer to create one or more external hypermedia links within one or more source docu ments of the collection each of said external hypermedia links absolutely addressing one or more documents outside the collection 11 The computer program of claim 7 where at least one of the documents in the collection contains a hypermedia link and further including instructions for causing the computer to display on a client computer of the WAN a graphical icon corresponding to each one of the documents in the collection and a graphical line corresponding to each one of the hypermedia links within the collection 12 The computer program of claim 11 further including instructions for causing the computer to access a document of the collection by using a cursor control device to signal the corresponding icon 13 The computer program of cl
25. e style template Pages top htm Up Style Title The NaviServer Documentation 1 94 467 install htm Up Style Title Installing the NaviServer 1 startup htm Up Style Title Starting up the NaviServer 1 security htm Up Style Title Security on the NaviServer 1 costs htm Up Style Title Charging money for access 1 search htm Up Style Title Searching the NaviServer 1 srchdata htm Up Style Title Searching Database Tables 1 srchpage htm Up Style Title Searching for Pages 1 hitlist htm Up Style Title Hitlists and Hittables 1 hilite htm Up Style Title Hiliting and MoreLikeThis 1 under htm Up Style Title Coming Soon 1 entup htm Up Style Title Entering Data and Updating It 1 smartlnk htm Up Style Title SmartLinking 1 describe htm Up Style Title Describing Pages 1 custom htm Up Style Title Customizing Entry Update and Search Forms 1 archive htm Up Style Title Archive Versioning 1 logging htm Up Style Title Logging 1 ops htm Up Style Title NaviServer URL Reference 1 maktable htm Up Style Title Creating and Dropping Tables 1 tables htm Up Style Title NaviServer System Tables 1 hitlist htm Up Style Title Hitlists and Hittables 1 sumobanr gif Up Style Title 1 sumogu
26. eb as discussed earlier in the Background section At step 96 the paste URL command of edit menu 74 is used to paste the stored hypermedia link onto a selected anchor item of content within the source document At step 98 this new document including the new hypermedia link may be published by storing it to any WAN server simply by using the save commands of file menu 72 Thus in accordance with the present invention publishing hyper media content across a WAN is achieved in a highly advan tageous manner that fully and seamlessly integrates hyper media browsing and editing As briefly noted above the WAN integrated editing envi ronment is enhanced by elements menu 76 and format menu 77 which provide WYSIWYG feedback for html markup authoring without any need for users to separately launch a browser program or upload the document being edited Other preferred features of the editing environment depicted in FIG 4 include WAN browser menu 78 display options and preferences and access to help Menu bar 70 further provides access to various WAN tools and services dis cussed further below including NaviLinks link generation form driven database update and search and asset administration services In summary prior art technology has traditionally sepa rated between WAN browsing on one hand in which WAN documents are accessed and mark up codes are inter preted and executed and document editing o
27. ecipe document to related documents NaviLinks window 124 is thus shown overlapping on docu ment editing window 120 Window 124 displays list 126 of suggested anchor items An anchor item is an item of content within a source document encoded as a hypermedia link users click on anchor items to bring up linked target documents Thus the highlighted entry in list 126 corre sponds to item 122 in the recipe document namely the recipe author s name Carey Schnell Wright NaviLinks window 124 also displays list 128 of potential target docu ments for the currently highlighted anchor item The lists of suggested anchor items and potential targets are generated automatically preferably using statistical language process ing techniques such as provided in the Xerox Lexical Technology XLT package commercially available from the Xerox Corporation Because of the integrated nature of the tools described herein in accordance with the present invention the process of exploring and selecting among the suggested anchor items and corresponding hypermedia links shown in FIG 8a can be performed very conveniently For each anchor item in list 126 a suggested link in list 128 can be encoded directly onto the anchor item in the source document by pressing Apply button 132 or the target document addressed by the suggested link can itself be accessed and edited in yet another editing window by pressing Show Page button 130
28. erac tive services provided by a preferred embodiment of the present invention the reader is referred to the Appendix and especially to chapter 5 of the draft User Manual and chapter 3 3 of the White Paper Details regarding a preferred archi tecture and implementation for server software 50 in support of menu driven interactive database services will now be described Preferred embodiments of client software 60 NaviPress and server software 50 NaviServer com municate through a WAN hypermedia protocol such as http All requests and responses between client and server are accomplished through http Thus NaviPress sends requests to NaviServer using GET PUT POST BROWSE and DELETE methods and NaviServer returns results using standard http return codes as well as some special content types in accordance with the present invention Both Navi US 6 393 469 B1 17 Press and NaviServer are thus open in the sense that any http compliant client computer can access most services provided by NaviServer and NaviPress can be used with any http compliant WAN server NaviPress requests for services from NaviServer may contain ordinary URL s but sometimes contain special URL s that map to server functions If a request is not immediately serviceable e g GET a page for browsing NaviServer checks to see if the URL contains a special data field encoding a registered operation that maps to server specific processin
29. erver 21 The computer program of claim 16 wherein the one or more hypermedia links addressing one or more utility programs each include one or more internal fields of data specifying one or more operations to be performed by the utility programs 22 The computer program of claim 21 wherein the internal fields of data further specify one or more argument values for use in performing said operations 23 The computer program of claim 21 wherein the internal fields of data further include one or more tags recognized by the application server 24 The computer program of claim 21 further including instructions for causing the computer to register the opera tions with the application server using the developer s client computer 25 The computer program of claim 16 wherein the instructions for causing the computer to create and fill in the template form and select the hypermedia link are all per formed using a seamless user interface accessed using the client computer 26 A method for providing interactive application ser vices on a WAN comprising a plurality of servers for use with a client computer operably coupled to a first server said method comprising the following steps creating a template form comprising one or more infor mational fields and one or more hypermedia links said links addressing one or more utility programs stored on an application server interactively filling in the informational fields on the templa
30. esponsive to the selection of the hypermedia links for processing the template form by executing the utility programs wherein said apparatus is operable regardless of whether the first server and application server are the same or different servers
31. g code For example NaviServer prefer ably includes about twenty pre installed operations listed in Table 1 for implementing common server functions such as publishing administration information retrieval and docu ment management functions These special URL s take the general form of prefix operation arguments where the arguments are an arbitrarily long string that is passed to the operation The NaviServer looks for registered pre fixes and recognized operations and then passes the request to the appropriate utility program or process NaviServer is designed so that custom services can be added easily Application developers can register new operations with their own unique prefixes Since a standard open protocol is used for communications between client and server even vendors of other authoring tools can write interfaces that advantageously publish content to a server running NaviS erver software TABLE 1 Examples of NaviServer operations GetSearchFormPicker Get list of links to a variety of search forms installed on the server Examples include problem report forms customer comments permissions GetSearchForm Get a specific search form for specifying search criteria SearchQueryByForm Search via query by form GetLocalHilitedPage Get a local highlighted page where highlights identify the terms in the page that met the selection criteria GetRemoteHilitedPage geta remote highlighted page where h
32. he computer program of claim 2 wherein the copied portion of the source document includes one or more hyper media links 4 The computer program of claim 1 wherein the instruc tions for causing the computer to edit the target document further include the following instructions for causing the computer to encode a portion of the target document with one or more display instructions using a standard mark up language of the WAN and upon performance of the encoding step render an appear ance of the target document in accordance with the display instructions 5 The computer program of claim 4 wherein the instruc tions for causing the computer to encode a portion of the target document include instructions for causing the com puter to interactively select one or more menu commands 6 The computer program of claim 1 wherein the forego ing instructions are performed with the client computer using a seamless user interface 7 Acomputer program residing on a computer readable medium for publishing and managing a collection of related documents on a WAN said computer program comprising instructions for causing a computer to specify the related documents to be included in the collection and collectively perform a desired operation on each docu ment in the collection by interactively issuing a single command corresponding to the operation 8 The computer program of claim 7 wherein one or more source documents and target do
33. ified or upgraded The inventors are as of this writing in the process of developing a preferred embodiment of the present invention including client software 60 called NaviPress and server software 50 called NaviServer As a supplement to the detailed description provided below an Appendix is pro vided herewith which contains illustrative source code architectural specifications entitled NaviPress and NaviS erver A Client Server Publishing System for the World Wide Web hereinafter White Paper and excerpts from 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 a draft User Manual for NaviPress and NaviServer The reader is referred to the Appendix for more details regarding this preferred embodiment and the Appendix materials are incorporated herein in their entirety by this reference Network Integrated Editing The present invention enables users to access edit and store documents distributed throughout a WAN in the advantageous manner of state of the art private computer or local area network word processing tools In accordance with the present invention the basic process framework by which WAN documents are accessed edited and stored is seamless and is substantially the same as if all steps occurred locally on a private computer In particular users are not required to perform any intermediary downloading or copy ing steps or to switch back and forth among distinct
34. ighlights identify the terms in the page that met the selection criteria MoreLikeThis search via more like this find similar documents by using terms in the target page NaviLink generate anchor terms and phrases GetEntryForm get form for database entry GetUpdateForm get form for database update GetUpdateOrEntryForm get update existing data or entry new data form as appropriate GetMeta Tables get list of entry tables Admin administrative controls and views for access permissions and costs tables view add drop users and groups view add assign and usage raw or by user About gets information about server name version host port database archiving charging Archieve Versions archive a version of a page or document GetNewTableForm get a new table form for creating a new table CreateTable create a table For more details on this subject the reader is referred to the Appendix hereto especially the White Paper at chapter 4 and sample source code for the server software and related code Other Variations The fully integrated client server environment illustrated herein represents a very powerful and flexible platform for authoring hypermedia content Detailed illustrations have been provided for the edification of those of ordinary skill in 5 10 15 20 30 35 45 50 60 65 18 the art and not as any kind of limitation on the scope of the invention Numerous variations a
35. indexing and retrieval of documents management and control of proprietary assets and a support for developing form driven interactive services all in a manner that is uniquely and seemlessly WAN integrated 42 Claims 11 Drawing Sheets 94 98 ACCESS SOURCE DOCUMENT ACCESS TARGET DOCUMENT COPY URL FOR TARGET TO CLIPBOARD PASTE URL FROM CLIPBOARD TO SOURCE DOCUMENT PUBLISH SOURCE DOCUMENT INCLUDING NEW URL US 6 393 469 B1 Page 2 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Baker Steven Hypertext Browsing on the Internet UNIX Review Sep 1994 Gunn Angela Power in Pictures Easier Than It Looks Computer Shopper Nov 1994 McArthur Douglas C World Wide Web and HTML Dr Dobb s Journal of Software Tools Dec 1994 Lewis Peter H Business Technology Prodigy Leads Its Peers Onto the World Wide Web The New York Times Jan 18 1995 Sec D p 7 Col L1 Business Financial Desk Flynn Laurie The Executive Computer Browsers Make Navigating the World Wide Web a Snap The New York Times Jan 29 1995 Sec 3 p 6 Col 1 Business Financial Desk Boutell Thomas World Wide Web Frequently Asked Questions World Wide Web FAQ Jan 23 1995 resides on the World Wide Web on Sunsite Cover Story Electronic Publishing PC Magazine Feb 7 1995 pp 110 196 Cortese Amy et al Cyberspace Business Week Feb 27 1995 pp 78 86 Marr
36. invention at least two WAN documents residing on the same or different WAN servers are accessed and a hypermedia link addressing one of the documents is inserted into another Once again the processes of accessing and editing are performed using a seamless user interface on a client computer In a related feature of the invention a list of suggested target hyperme dia links is automatically generated using statistical lan guage processing techniques and the link to be inserted is interactively chosen from that list Another feature of the present invention provides a method for publishing and managing a collection of related documents on a WAN The related documents to be included in the collection are specified and a desired operation such as setting access controls or changing location may then be performed collectively on each document in the collection simply by interactively issuing a single command corre sponding to the operation A related feature includes hyper media links between documents of the collection which address target documents relatively to source documents i e each link address does not specify an absolute address for the target independently of the source In another related feature elements of the collection including documents and hypermedia links are graphically depicted using icons and connecting lines thereby facilitating convenient visual navigation and organization of the collection In a further fea
37. iott Michel et al Super Cyber Surfers Newsweek Mar 20 1995 pp 43 44 Veljkov et al Pocket Guides to the Internet vol 2 Trans ferring Files with File Transfer Protocol ISBN 0 88736 944 8 Meckler Corp Westport CT USA pp 11 17 1994 San Francisco Reservations Internet Magazine No 2 Japan Dec 18 1994 pp 126 127 cited by examiner U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 1 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 1 PRIOR ART SERVER 10b SERVER 10n 10c A TYPICAL WEB HOME PAGE 42 ACME COMPANY 10 HOME PAGE WU ROUJ FES IN AWE SN Abata CORPORATE INFO 46b e SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST FIG 2 PRIOR ART U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 2 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 ioe STORAGE STORAGE OPERATING OPERATING SYSTEM SYSTEM CLIENT SERVER SOFTWARE SOFTWARE CLIENT 20d SERVER 20d 90 ACCESS SOURCE DOCUMENT ACCESS TARGET DOCUMENT COPY URL FOR TARGET TO CLIPBOARD 80 ACCESS SOURCE DOCUMENT ACCESS TARGET DOCUMENT VIA HYPERMEDIA LINK EDIT TARGET DOCUMENT PUBLISH TARGET DOCUMENT AS REVISED 94 PASTE URL FROM CLIPBOARD TO SOURCE DOCUMENT PUBLISH SOURCE DOCUMENT INCLUDING NEW URL FIG 5a FIG 5b 98 86 U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 3 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 4 704 Eile Edit Elements Format Too Browse Window Help i 39 New MiniWeb Show HTML Elements Get Attributes
38. isoft com 8001 NS GetNewTableForm SE When finished press the Create Table button to create the new table 164 Table Description Customer Feedback Form Table is Searchable E jeseripi ions Customer Namel not null o Cee ae en Pe a ns m index O coun aaa umn 2 Description Flectronic Mail Address not null O unique O index O 162b Ga oe ae 1 a Clum3 2062 T 3 U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 9 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 10b Le File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help Soy KARK gt gt X m FAR a maw KN PE k e Location p navisoft com 8001 NS GetEntryForm comments4 V e e Title Entry Form for Table comments4 N Entry Enter Data for Table comments4 Customer Comment Form When done filling in the fields below press the Enter button to insert your data into the database U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 10 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 10c 704 File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help ZEE ES a PS kA Back Fwd m Location ft com 8001 test support coments4 htm v Send Us Your Comments We want to hear from you Please fill in your name address phone number and comments press Enter to send us your comments U S Patent May 21 2002 Sheet 11 of 11 US 6 393 469 B1 FIG 10d 704 File dit Elements Format Tools Browse Help OSIRIA Sse Cut Copy Paste Descrtb Search Back Fwd J Stop ll Location
39. ld Wide Web is not originally created as hypermedia For example news articles product brochures and other literature originally created for non interactive environments do not initially contain any hyper media links to other documents Such links must be cre atively defined and implemented A preferred feature of the present invention provides assistance in the authoring of hypermedia WAN documents by facilitating and partially automating the creation of useful hypermedia links This facility which we call NaviLinks herein uses statistical language processing algorithms to generate automatically a list of suggested possible hypermedia links between a source document and a collection of potential target docu 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 14 ments A human author can then review the suggestions in a convenient manner and choose to incorporate modify or discard them The NaviLinks facility is preferably integrated along with the publishing tools described above and as illustrated in the screen shots of FIGS 8a and 8b Both figures depict document editing window 120 including menu bar 70 in accordance with the teachings of FIG 4 and the earlier discussion herein A document entitled Wild Rice Risotto evidently a recipe is currently open within window 120 In the example shown the user has already invoked the NaviLinks facility for assistance in creating hypermedia links from the r
40. ll automatically be accessed as identified by that link For example FIG 2 illustrates a simple example of a popular Web document known as a home page Home page 40 includes title 42 graphic image 44 instructional text 48 and list of bullet items 46a c Selections 46a c are each hypertext A Web hypermedia item is actually encoded with a Uniform Resource Locator URL tag which literally addresses a document located on a remote network server If a client of a Web server is equipped with suitable browser software then a user of that client can point and click on any one of the hypermedia items within home page 40 and an http request to view the associated linked content residing 10 15 20 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 elsewhere on the Internet will automatically be generated and dispatched by the client s server to the appropriate Internet server which hosts the linked document The linked material will then automatically be retrieved and ultimately displayed on the client Http further includes the Hyper Text Markup Language html which may be used to specify a certain layout structure for Web documents e g specifying subsections of the document as a title image list etc Html specifications are interpreted by a client s browser resulting in an appropriate display on the particular client s computer platform A survey and discussion of many popu lar Web browser
41. ly post to a clipboard i e temporary storage selected content from any document being edited while the paste command will insert whatever content is currently held in the clipboard into a different document at a point of insertion selected by the user The present invention provides further advantages in the context of hypermedia WAN documents as illustrated by the scenarios described in the flow charts of FIGS 5a and 5b With respect to FIG 5a at step 80 the user of client computer 20d invokes file menu 72 to access a source document such as by opening an existing document located on any WAN server In this example the source document contains a hypermedia link addressing a target document located on the same or any other WAN server At step 82 the user accesses the target document by clicking on the hypermedia link using a cursor control device which immediately opens the target document for editing in accor dance with menu bar 70 preferably in a separate document window At step 84 the user can immediately edit and revise the accessed target document This step preferably includes use of a markup language recognized on the WAN such as html elements menu 76 and format menu 77 in FIG 4 provide convenient tools for creating and editing html content with immediate WYSIWYG feedback The editing step also US 6 393 469 B1 7 preferably includes interactively transferring or copying any selected portio
42. modes or interfaces in order to access and browse WAN documents to edit them and to store them As a more concrete illustration of this capability FIG 4 illustrates a preferred menu driven document editor in accordance with the present invention Typically menu bar 70 would be displayed continually at the top of a computer display window in which a particular document is being edited Pull down menus such as file menu 72 are displayed when a user selects a corresponding item from command bar 70 preferably using a cursor control device For example file menu 72 includes commands to open existing documents for editing and to save such docu ments as revised etc This general menu driven methodol ogy is of course by now familiar to those of ordinary skill in the relevant arts The present invention enables these capa bilities to be applied seamlessly across a wide area network In other words a user can conveniently access edit and save any WAN document in much the same way as the user has been accustomed to doing with respect to documents residing locally on the user s private personal computer Consider a scenario in which multiple WAN hypermedia documents are being worked upon As indicated in FIG 4 edit menu 74 includes cut and paste commands allowing text and other information to be transferred conveniently between multiple WAN documents Cut and copy com mands will typical
43. mprising the steps of accessing a source document located on a source server the source document including at least one hypermedia link addressing a target document located on a target server accessing the target document by signaling the hyperme dia link using a cursor control device editing the target document and saving the target document as modified on a destination server wherein the foregoing steps are performed regardless of whether the first source target and destination servers are the same or different servers 41 The computer implemented method of claim 40 wherein the foregoing steps are performed with the client computer using a seamless user interface 42 An apparatus for providing form driven interactive services on a WAN comprising a plurality of servers the apparatus comprising a seamless user interface environment accessible via a client computer said client computer operably coupled to a first server the seamless user interface environ ment further comprising form generation means for creating a template form said template form compris ing one or more informational fields and one or more hypermedia links said links addressing one or more utility programs stored on an application server edit means for interactively filling in the informational fields on the template form and cursor control means for interactively selecting one or more of the hyperme dia links and application service means r
44. n of the source document to the target docu ment or vice versa such as by cutting and pasting or by dragging and dropping the selected portion using a cursor control device Moreover the copied portion may include hypermedia links URL s or other mark up codes and any such mark up codes will immediately be active as soon as inserted into the target document Because the browsing and editing environment is seamless in accordance with the present invention these editing tasks can now be performed without requiring users to switch between separate interface modes or to temporarily download documents into local storage as was traditionally necessary Finally at step 86 the target document is saved as revised to any WAN server by using the save or save as commands of file menu 72 Note that server 10d the source server target server and the ultimate destination server of the target document may all be the same server or may all be different In the scenario described in FIG 55 at steps 90 and 92 the user of client computer 20d accesses a source document and a target document such as by invoking file menu 72 The source and target may originally be located on any wan servers At step 94 the copy URL command of edit menu 74 is used to post a hypermedia pointer addressing the target document onto a clipboard for temporary storage Recall that URL is the term for a hypermedia link on the World Wide W
45. n the other hand in which documents are modified Conventionally users must manually switch between distinct browsing and editing environments or modes and or perform interme diate steps in which WAN documents of interest are down loaded to the user s private local storage thereafter edited and thereafter uploaded back to the WAN The present invention now enables users to access WAN documents copy content including hypermedia links and other mark up codes among multiple WAN documents and execute WAN mark up codes all in a seamless fashion without requiring intermediate steps Moreover these capabilities require only the user s computer system to include software implement ing the browsing and editing environment and do not require any modification of other WAN computers 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 For more details on an exemplary embodiment of the WAN document editing and browsing environment the user is referred to the Appendix and especially to the draft User Manual at Chapters 2 3 and Appendix A Exemplary source code for use in implementing this unique environment is also included in the Appendix Working With Collections of WAN Documents Another aspect of the present invention is the ability to publish maintain and otherwise operate on collections of multiple related documents as a group This is an especially valuable capability in the context of hypermedia
46. nal fields and registering said table with the application server 31 The method of claim 26 wherein the one or more hypermedia links addressing one or more utility programs each include one or more internal fields of data specifying one or more operations to be performed by the utility programs 32 The method of claim 31 wherein the internal fields of data further specify one or more argument values for use in performing said operations 33 The method of claim 31 wherein the internal fields of data further include one or more tags recognized by the application server 34 The method of claim 31 further including the step of registering the operations with the application server using the developer s client computer 35 The method of claim 26 wherein the steps of creating and filling in the template form and selecting the hypermedia link are all performed using a seamless user interface accessed using the client computer 36 Acomputer program residing on a computer readable medium for publishing electronic documents on a WAN comprising a plurality of servers for use by a user having a client computer operably coupled to a first server said computer program comprising instructions for causing a computer to access a source document located on a source server and a target document located on a target server and copy a pointer addressing the target document into the source document using a cursor control device thereby creating
47. nd modifications within the spirit of the present invention will of course occur to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the preferred embodi ments that have now been disclosed Such variations as well as any other systems embodying any of the following claims all remain within the scope of the present invention What is claimed is 1 Acomputer program residing on a computer readable medium for publishing electronic documents on a wide area network WAN comprising a plurality of servers said computer program for use by a user having a client computer operably coupled to a first server said computer program comprising instructions for causing a computer to access a source document located on a source server the source document including at least one hypermedia link addressing a target document located on a target server access the target document by signaling the hypermedia link using a cursor control device edit the target document and save the target document as modified on a destination server wherein the foregoing instructions are performed regard less of whether the first source target and destination servers are the same or different servers 2 The computer program of claim 1 wherein the instruc tions for causing the computer to edit the target document include instructions for causing the computer to copy a portion of the source document into the target document using a cursor control device 3 T
48. ne of the WAN The servers are interconnected by a telecommunications infrastructure and exchange informa tion in the form of one or more recognized protocols such as protocol 30 For example in the case of the Internet network protocols include FTP for file transfer and Telnet for remote log in Each server effectively represents and services its one or more clients Basically the clients are the ultimate sources and targets of underlying information while the servers dispatch and receive messages across the WAN in compliance with network protocols Each client may correspond to a single user s computer or may itself be hierarchically complex and may comprise a further sub network or collection of numerous computers such as the well known proprietary sub networks of America Online CompUServe and Prodigy In this way information of any kind can be distributed worldwide in electronic form at telecommunications speeds One of the most rapidly expanding aspects of the Internet is the World Wide Web the Web The Web is comprised of those Internet servers and their clients able to support the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol better known as http The Web allows documents and graphical materials to be interlinked by means of hypertext or more generally hypermedia document elements When a user utilizes a cursor control device to select and click on a hypermedia item in one document a related document wi
49. ofeet gif 1 NS GetSearchForm ns__columns archive htm 4 startup htm 2 sumohnds gif http navisoft com 8001 NS Archive Versions index html http navisoft com 8001 index htm1 http navisoft com 8001 NS Archive 19950222000000 index htm1 logging htm 4 startup htm 2 sumoarm gif ops htm ooo ooo iceman gif INS GetSearchFormPicker NS Admin NS About INS GetNewTableForm maktable htm 0 NS GetDropTableForm 0 NS GetCreateTableForm 2 sumobboo gif tables htm 2 sumochar2 gif page21 htm sumobanr gif sumoguy1 gif sumoguy2 gif BRED m 12 US 6 393 469 B1 13 continued sumoguy3 gif sumoguy4 gif sumoguy5S gif sumoguy6 gif sumochar gif sumoleaf gif sumoguy7 gif sumoguy8 gif fujibrch gif fujimt gif sumobboo gif sumofeet gif sumohnds gif sumoarm gif cthulhu gif iceman gif sumochar2 gif A preferred embodiment of the MiniWeb facility that has been described includes an advantageous graphical front end for viewing and navigating within a collection of hypermedia documents FIG 7 illustrates an example of such a miniweb interface Display icons 110a n each rep resent corresponding documents located anywhere on the WAN or anywhere within the user s local storage Arrow icons 112a n indicate hypermedia links between documents
50. s is provided in the Feb 7 1995 issue of PC Magazine PC Magazine at pages 173 196 An important challenge that must be addressed especially in light of the burgeoning expansion and popularity of the Internet and the Web is how best to facilitate the authoring and publishing of hypermedia documents on the Web Many large and small publishers of content such as newspaper and magazine publishers for example wish to make their content available in on line form to subscribers However this opportunity presents a major bottleneck because high quality development platforms and authoring tools have not yet been developed that adequately facilitate the authoring and publishing of hypermedia on a distributed WAN like the Web A summary of the primary limitations of current Internet and Web publishing tools follows 1 Current publishing tools are typically not fully network integrated Browsers or other cruiseware help users view existing WAN content but do not generally support authoring of new WAN content Current authoring tools on the other hand are typically either stand alone local products or at best offer a limited bridge to WAN access such that authoring and WAN navigation remain fundamentally non integrated processes For example in order to publish a document on a WAN it is typically necessary to edit documents in a local storage context using authoring tools and thereafter manually copy the documents to
51. te form interactively selecting one or more of the hypermedia links and processing the template form by executing the utility programs in response to the previous step wherein the steps of creating and filling in the template form and selecting the hypermedia link are all performed regardless of whether the first server and application server are the same or are different servers 27 The method of claim 26 for use with a database residing on said application server wherein the one or more utility programs include one or more database management mechanisms and wherein the step of processing the tem plate form includes at least one or more of the following steps inserting retrieving updating and deleting one or more entries of said database 28 The method of claim 27 for use in indexing a plurality of documents located on any one or more servers of the WAN wherein the step of filling in the template form comprises describing one or more of the documents 29 The method of claim 27 for use in accounting one or more costs associated with a plurality of documents located on one or more servers of the WAN wherein the step of filling in the template form comprises the step of specifying cost information for one or more of the documents 30 The method of claim 27 wherein the step of creating the template form includes creating a table including a set of US 6 393 469 B1 21 data specifications corresponding to the informatio
52. ture the present invention includes a method for providing form driven interactive services on a WAN A form driven service is developed by creating a template form comprising one or more informational fields as well as one or more hypermedia links addressing a database system or other utility program stored on an application server The form driven service is utilized by filling in the informational fields and clicking or other wise signalling on the hypermedia link when ready In response the application server is sent an appropriate WAN message and processes the form These steps except the last step are performed using a seamless user interface environment so there is once again no need for users to switch interfaces or request any intermediate copying in order to perform the process of creating and filling in a template form and signalling when the form is ready for processing BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 illustrates a basic high level architecture for a typical client server WAN such as the Internet or the World Wide Web FIG 2 illustrates a simple example of a typical home page document on the World Wide Web FIG 3 broadly outlines a client server architecture in accordance with the present invention FIG 4 illustrates a preferred document editor environ ment in accordance with the present invention FIG 5a illustrates a flow diagram for a scenario in which WAN hypermedia documents are created
53. untain View CA 1986 Chapters 1 4 pp 1 138 syed Hughes Kevin Entering the World Wide Web A Guide to 22 Filed Dec 2 1998 4 eo ya ae Cyberspace May 1994 Related U S Application Data Berners Lee Tim et al The World Wide Web Commu nications of the ACM Aug 1994 63 Continuation of application No 08 412 981 filed on Mar 28 1995 now Pat No 5 870 552 List continued on next page GH Int C17 ccc G06F 15 16 GO6F 17 24 Primary Examiner Zarni Maung Assistant Examiner Jason D Cardone 52 US Oieee cect 709 219 709 218 707 501 1 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Fish amp Richardson P C 58 Field of Search ccccccccccccsseeessseees 709 218 219 57 ABSTRACT 709 203 217 707 103 R 501 1 505 508 w The present invention addresses the critical needs of pub 345 733 737 738 748 749 760 3 lishers seeking to create and publish hypermedia content in 56 References Cited electronic form across the wide area networks WAN s U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 817 050 A 3 1989 Komatsu et al 5 091 849 A 2 1992 Davis et al 5 241 671 A 8 1993 Reed et al 5 267 351 A 11 1993 Reber et al 5 307 456 A 4 1994 MacKay 5 500 929 A 3 1996 Dickinson 5 530 852 A 6 1996 Meske Jr et al 5 537 546 A 7 1996 Sauter 90 such as the World Wide Web Toward the end a client server development platform is provided for handling the important functions of document authoring content based
54. y1 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy2 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy3 gif Up Style Title sumoguy4 gif Up Style Title sumoguy5 gif Up Style Title sumoguy6 gif Up Style Title sumochar gif Up Style Title 1 sumoleaf gif Up Style Title sumoguy7 gif Up Style Title sumoguy8 gif Up Style Title fujibrch gif Up Style Title 1 fujimt gif Up Style Title 1 sumobboo gif Up Style Title sumofeet gif Up Style Title 1 sumohnds gif Up Style Title sumoarm gif Up Style Title 1 cthulhu gif Up Style Title 1 iceman gif Up Style Title 1 sumochr2 gif Up Style Title Ghosts Refs g 5 E B install htm startup htm security htm costs htm search htm under htm entup htm smartlnk htm describe htm custom htm archive htm logging htm maktable htm tables htm sumobanr gif srchpage htm 0 http Avww yahoo com Computers World__Wide__Web Databases__and_Searching install htm O startup htm 2 sumoguy1 gif startup htm 4 costs htm 4 archive htm 4 logging htm 4 sumoguy2 gif securuty htm 0 NS GetSearchForm ns__users 0 NS GetSearchForm ns__groups Q OGOOGO OO O80 02 oC 0 oo US 6 393 469 B1 11 continued
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