L ACCESS SOURCE DOCUMENT L CUPBOARD r0 SOURCE
Contents
1. Elements Get Attributes Horizontal Rule Forced Line Break Link Anchor Save Save As Image Print Setup Image Map Print 77 Remove Format P Backward Special Style gt Forward Cut Stop Heading Show Border Style Sheet Copy UAL Paste UAL Find Next Window Tile NaviLinks Describe Page Server Administration P Preferences gt Delete File Copy Paragraph Reload Page Paste Lists Global History Clear Forms Hot List Select All Add To Hot List US 2003 0041117 A1 Format Jool Browse Window Help Cascade Arrange Icons 1 MiniWeb lt Location gt 2 MW lt 1 gt Page lt 1 gt Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 4 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 1004 File Edit View Tool Browse Window Helo 102 Global History Hot List New New Page Open Close Zoom Out paige 106 Tools 33 Describe Page gt Search Server Server Adminstration Preferences Cascade Arrange Icons Copy UAL Paste UAL Set Stationary 140 142 144 146 FILL IN THE FORM SUBMIT THE FORM PROCESS THE FORM 148 iG 9 150 Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 5 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 HG7 File Edit Tools Browse Window Help MiniW SEEBI Home2. at pages 173 196 0006 An important challenge that must be addressed especially in light of the burgeoning expansion and Apopu larity 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 Asummary of the primary limitations of current Internet and Web publishing tools follows 0007 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 0008 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 manu ally copy the documents to a WAN server Manual copying is often tediou
3. continued 0 NS GetEntryForm ns_permissions smartlnk htm 2 fujibrch gif describe htm 8 http Awww navisoft com STUB 2 fujimt gif custom htm 2 sumofeet gif 2 NS GetSearchForm ns_columns archive htm 4 startup htm 2 sumohnds gif 0 http navisoft com 8001 NS Archive Versions index html O http navisoft com 8001 index html O http navisoft com 8001 NS Archive 19950222000000 index htm1 logging htm 4 startup htm 2 sumoarm gif ops htm 2 iceman gif NS GetSearchFormPicker NS Admin NS About INS GetNewTableForm maktable htm 0 NS GetDropTableForm 0 NS GetCreateTableForm 2 sumobboo gif tables htm 2 sumochr2 gif page21 htm sumobant gif sumoguy1 gif sumoguy2 gif sumoguy3 gif surnoguy4 gif sumoguy5S gif su moguy6 gif suxnochar gif sumoleaf gif sumoguy7 gif sumoguys gif fujibrch gif fujimt gif sumobboo gif sumofeet gif sumohnds gif stumoarm gif cthulhu gif iceman gif sumochr2 gif menre 0051 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 with
4. and search forms are inte grated with the authoring environment previously described as indicated by the presence of menu bar 70 in FIG 105 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 105 but are merely displayed in a somewhat different appearance 0063 Thus the steps of generating and filling in new tables entry forms and search forms are seamlessly inte grated with the editing and browsing environment previ ously described Moreover even the step of submitting a completed form to the application server for processing may likewise be performed in seamless fashion together with the preceding steps Thus at step 148 a user who has completed a database entry or searc
5. miniweb facility we have described US 2003 0041117 Al 0053 Automated Authoring of WAN Hypermedia NaviLinks 0054 Most content on the World Wide Web is not origi nally created as hypermedia For example news articles product brochures and other literature originally created for non interactive environments do not initially contain any hypermedia links to other documents Such links must be creatively 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 ments A human author can then review the suggestions in a convenient manner and choose to incorporate modify or discard them 0055 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
6. specified set of indices for indexing WAN documents for managing historical ver sions of WAN documents for collecting and reviewing customer feedback or for relating specified access controls such as security restrictions and access costs perhaps of a hierarchical nature to specific proprietary WAN docu ments 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 Illustra object relational database management system 0060 FIG 9 illustrates a sample process flow diagram for developing and utilizing form driven interactive data base 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 various 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
7. 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 US 2003 0041117 Al BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0020 FIG 1 illustrates a basic high level architecture for a typical client server WAN such as the Internet or the World Wide Web 0021 FIG 2 illustrates a simple example of a typical home page document on the World Wide Web 0022 FIG 3 broadly outlines a client server architecture in accordance with the present invention 0023 FIG 4 illustrates a preferred document editor environment in accordance with the present invention 0024 FIG 5a illustrates a flow diagram for a sc
8. tools do not address the creation of application programs For on line network pub lishing 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 services such as subscribing to a publication regis tering for a conference or perhaps even more exotic appli cations like participating in multi player games contests Current network publishing and authoring tools largely ignore this area 0014 Accordingly there is a great need for a new devel opment platform for distributed publishing that overcomes the various limitations described above This need is espe cially pronounced and important in view of the rapid expan sion of interest in the Internet and the Web and the tremen dous economic opportunities presently available to publishers if a suitable development platform can be pro vided Recently authoring tools have begun to emerge which attack some of the foregoing problems in piecemeal fashion See PC Magazine at pp 110 196 However there remains a great need for a comprehensive solution to the problems described and especially for an authoring pub lishing tool that is truly and fully network integrated SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0015 We disclose herein a development platform tech nology for publishing hypermedia documents across wide area networ
9. 4 costs htm 4 archive htm 4 logging htm 2 sumoguy 2 gif security htm NS GetSearcForm ns_users NS GetSearchForm ns_groups NS GetSearchForm ns_groups2userS NS GetSearchForm ns_permission NS GetSearchForm ns_methods sumoguy3 gif costs htm 0 security htm 4 startup htm 2 suxnoguys gif 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_costs 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_charges 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_total_charges search htm NS GetSearchFormPicker srchdata htm srchpage htm hitlist htm hilite htm sumoguy4 gif NS GetSearcForm ns_permissions NS GetSearchForm ns_users srchdata htm 8 http www 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 INS GetSearchFormIns_default_collection 0 http www navisoft com STUB 0 http Awww ncaa uiuc edu SDG Software XMosaic help on version 2 5b5 htm1 O http Avw netscape com info newsrelease16 html O http Avww w3 org hypertext WW W Arena 0 NS GetSearcbForm 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 Avww navisoft com STUB 2 sumoguy7 gif GO O G N Feb 27 2003 US 2003 0041117 Al
10. L contains a special data field encoding a registered operation that maps to server specific processing 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 th
11. Page lease title this page Page 1 in MW3 Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 6 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 205 FIG 8a File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse X ae ne ma se Fwd m Location http gore navisoft com 8001 recipes rice beans grain Tithe water is evaporated about 40 mins Al 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 tre Sherry salt and pepper Serve with a green salad Nice and light for a hot day Mahl zeit 122 An Aussie in exile in Austria 124 Suggested Anchors ey ght Al Carey SCHNELL Wild Rice Risotto An Aussie da Stlva leek Marjoram Potato Casserole Spicy Grilled Chicken and Potatoes Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 7 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FIG 8b a File Edit Elements Format Jools Browse Help ERSS ka Ig b gt m A ER e Ig aa Cut the chicken into chunks cut the onion into slices and cut Al 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 minut
12. US 20030041117A1 a Patent Application Publication co Pub No US 2003 0041117 Al as United States Dozier et al 43 Pub Date Feb 27 2003 54 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PUBLISHING HYPERMEDIA DOCUMENTS OVER WIDE AREA NETWORKS 75 Inventors Linda T Dozier Goleta CA US George W Williams V Santa Barbara CA US Dave Long Santa Barbara CA US Douglas M McKee Santa Barbara CA US James G Davidson Santa Barbara CA US Karen Brady Woodside CA US Correspondence Address W KARL RENNER Fish amp Richardson P C 601 Thirteenth Street NW Washington DC 20005 US 73 Assignee America Online Inc 21 Appl No 10 097 418 22 Filed Mar 15 2002 90 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 Related U S Application Data 63 Continuation of application No 09 204 745 filed on Dec 2 1998 now Pat No 6 393 469 which is a continuation of application No 08 412 981 filed on Mar 28 1995 now Pat No 5 870 552 Publication Classification ADEA 1 o KAE G06F 15 16 652 U S Cl iiinis 709 217 709 203 57 ABSTRACT The present invention addresses the critical needs of pub lishers seeking to create and publish hypermedia content in electronic form across the wide area networks WAN s such as the World
13. Up Style Title Please title this page Page 21 in servdocs 1 sumobanr gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy1 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy2 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy3 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy4 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguyS gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy6 gif Up Style Title 1 sumochar gif Up Style Title 1 sumoleaf gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy7 gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy8 gif Up Style Title 1 fujibrch gif Up Style Title 1 fujimt gif Up Style Title 1 sumobboo gif Up Style Title 1 sumofeet gif Up Style Title 1 sumohnds gif Up Style Title 1 sumoarm gif U Style Title 1 cthulhu gif Up Style Title 1 iceman gif Up Style Title 1 sumochr2 gif Up Style Title 1 Ghosts l US 2003 0041117 Al continued Refs top htm install htm O startup htm O security htm 0 costs htm 0 search htm 0 under htm 0 entup htm 0 smartlnk htm 0 describe htm 0 custom htm 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 oO archive htm logging htm ops htm maktable ht tables htm sumobanr gif srchpage htm 0 http www yahoo Com Computers World_Wide_Web Databases_and_Searching install htm O startup htm 2 sumoguyl gif startup htm
14. Wide Web Toward this end a client server development platform is provided for handling the important functions of document authoring content based indexing and retrieval of documents management and con trol of proprietary assets and a support for developing form driven interactive services all in a manner that is uniquely and seamlessly WAN integrated Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 1 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FC PRIOR ART SERVER 10b 10c 7 SERVER 10n A TYPICAL WEB HOME PAGE 42 ACME COMPANY HOME PAGE CAN FET AE A Le CORPORATE INFO tst lt CS lt S FIG 2 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST PRIOR ART re SEE OUR TRODUGI CATALOG CLICK ON A BULLET ITEM 48 Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 2 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FIG 3 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 PASTE URL FROM CLIPBOARD TO SOURCE DOCUMENT PUBLISH SOURCE DOCUMENT INCLUDING NEW URL Mer a FIG 5b 80 ACCESS SOURCE DOCUMENT 94 ACCESS TARGET DOCUMENT VIA HYPERMEDIA LINK EDIT TARGET DOCUMENT PUBLISH TARGET DOCUMENT AS REVISED 98 86 Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 3 of 11 70 zie 72 New MiniWeb New Page Open Close FIG 4 Edit Elements
15. a group 0049 A related aspect of this invention involves the ability to transport collections of documents interrelated by hypermedia links in a convenient manner Those of skill in the art recognize that when the target reference of a hyper media 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 docu ments interrelated by numerous hypermedia links has been Feb 27 2003 extremely onerous using prior art technology since the hypermedia links must manually be fixed to address new locations 0050 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 docu ment 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 maintained 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 rela
16. already invoked the NaviLinks facility for assistance in creating hypermedia links from the recipe document to related docu ments NaviLinks window 124 is thus shown overlapping on document 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 hyper media link users click on anchor items to bring up linked target documents Thus the highlighted entry in list 126 corresponds 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 0056 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 docu ment by pressing Apply button 132 or the target docu ment addressed by the suggested link
17. can itself be accessed and edited in yet another editing window by pressing Show Page button 130 FIG 85 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 Feb 27 2003 0057 WAN Integrated Form Driven Interactive Ser vices 0058 A hypermedia publishing platform should prefer ably support 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 0059 A great many desirable interactive WAN services are database oriented For example a service might involve a particular database view i e a
18. ded for the edification of those of ordinary skill in the art and not as any kind of limitation on the scope of the invention Numerous variations and modi fications within the spirit of the present invention will of course occur to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the preferred embodiments 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 US 2003 0041117 A1 Feb 27 2003 11 NaviSoft a a a E o e a E D E E E E A E NaviPress and NaviServer A Client Server Publishing System for NaviPress and NaviServer form an integrated client server network publishing system for creating content managing information and developing applications on the World Wide Web Our software is intended for companies and enterprising individuals who want to create and maintain innovative operational Web applications NaviPress and NaviServer provide the following unique combination of services e the MiniWeb to graphically visualize and organize a collection of pages into a document integrated WYSIWYG authoring and browsing of Web pages without typing HTML hypertext markup language tags or names of URLs uniform resource locators the World Wide Web Linda T Dozier seamless access to both local and remote Web pages allowing remote authoring over the Internet NaviLinks to easily translate te
19. e 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 e Format Tools Browse AA Serve with a green salad vice 7122 Fani Schnell Wright Suggested Anchors Carey SCHNELL Wild Rice Risotto Newsgroups rec food recipes An Aussie From cschnell ijasa ac at Corey SCHNELL da Stiva Subject Marjoram Potato Casserole leek Message ID chicken Organization IIASA Laxenburg Austria Date Tue 3 Aug 1993 07 41 31 MT Marjoram Potato Casserole 750 g potatoes it Spicy Grill Chicken and Potatoe E of fresh marjoram dried otherwise COLLECTION Risottos medium 10 250g 2 egg yolks freshly ground pepper 40 g butter 75g ham oe Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 8 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FIG 10a a 70 File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help O x0 EI ers Cut Copy Paste fj Describj Searchl Smart ji Back Fwd Stop cA SS Location Ihttp navisoft com 8001 NS GetNewTab eForm Title New Table When finished press the Create Table button to create the new table 164 Al Table Name comments Table Description Customer Feedback Form Table is Searchable a Column 1 Description Customer Name not null O unique O index oO Column 2 Description E ectronic Mail Address not null O unique O i
20. e WAN in accordance with the present invention even though other computer systems on the WAN have not been similarly modified or upgraded 0037 The inventors are as of this writing in the process of developing a preferred embodiment of the present inven tion including client software 60 called NaviPress and server software 50 called NaviServer As a supplement to the detailed description provided below an Appendix is provided 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 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 0038 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
21. e page that met the selection criteria GetRemoteHilitedPage get a remote highlighted page where highlights identify the terms in the page that met the selection criteria US 2003 0041117 Al TABLE 1 continued Examples of NaviServer operations Feb 27 2003 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 Archive Versions archive a version of a page or document GetNewTableForm get a new table form for creating a new table CreateTable create a table 0068 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 0069 The fully integrated client server environment illustrated herein represents a very powerful and flexible platform for authoring hypermedia content Detailed illus trations have been provi
22. e present invention 0034 FIG 10d illustrates a template form for searching an indexed database for particular customer feedback in accordance with the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Introduction 0035 FIG 3 provides a broad outline of a client server architecture 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 Feb 27 2003 high speed local connection is equipped with digital com puter facilities analogous to those of client 20d and also with server software 50 0036 As described in much greater detail below client software 60 and server software 50 preferably share the responsibility for providing advantageous and innovative electronic publishing 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 advantageously access and publish documents to and from the remainder of th
23. enario in which WAN hypermedia documents are created and edited in accordance with the present invention 0025 FIG 5a illustrates a flow diagram for a second scenario in which WAN hypermedia documents are created and edited in accordance with the present invention 0026 FIG 6 illustrates a preferred set of interactive commands for working with a collection of interrelated hypermedia documents 0027 FIG 7 illustrates a preferred graphical interface for organizing and working with a collection of interrelated hypermedia documents 0028 FIG 8a is a screen image illustrating use of the preferred NaviLinks facility to generate suggested hyper media links 0029 FIG 8b is a screen image further illustrating use of the preferred NaviLinks facility to generate suggested hypermedia links 0030 FIG 9 illustrates a flow diagram for developing and running WAN based form driven interactive applica tion programs in accordance with the present invention 0031 FIG 10a illustrates a preferred interface form for adding a customer feedback table to an indexed database in accordance with the present invention 0032 FIG 10b illustrates a default template form for adding a particular customer s feedback to an indexed database in accordance with the present invention 0033 FIG 10c illustrates a modified template form for adding a particular customer s feedback to an indexed database in accordance with th
24. h form submits the form to the application server by pressing a hypermedia enter button or the like using a cursor control device as indicated by comments 168 on FIG 10a and 172 on FIG 106 akin to the create table button described above in connection with FIG 10a Entry and search forms are thus live meaning that completing 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 0064 Note that a WAN document referenced in a data base 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 Feb 27 2003 need not store documents locally Note also that multiple tables and hence multiple indexing views and forms cover ing the same documents are possible For example an administrator might systematically index all documents on a server while individual users might create their own index
25. iently between multiple WAN documents Cut and copy com mands will typically 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 0040 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 0041 Atstep 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 p
26. in the user s local storage Arrow icons 112a n indicate hypermedia links between documents 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 0052 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 Feb 27 2003 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 prefer ably indicates the nature or state of the corresponding document or link For example icon 1107 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 graphi cal interface 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
27. indicated by comment 164 in FIG 10a step 140 is completed by pressing a create table button or the like The create 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 0061 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 performed 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 US 2003 0041117 Al 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 0062 Because description
28. ing on one hand in which WAN documents are accessed and mark up codes are inter preted and executed and document editing on 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 0046 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 environ ment is also included in the Appendix 0047 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
29. ing schemes for documents and criteria of special interest 0065 For more details regarding various menu driven interactive 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 architecture and implementation for server software 50 in support of menu driven interactive database services will now be described 0066 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 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 0067 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 UR
30. ing steps or to switch back and forth among distinct modes or interfaces in order to access and browse WAN documents to edit them and to store them 0039 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 US 2003 0041117 Al 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 conven
31. is an especially valuable capability in the context of hypermedia collections where there are explicit links between specific related portions of documents 0048 FIG 6 illustrates a preferred menu driven author ing environment called the MiniWeb for working with collections 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 US 2003 0041117 Al down file menu 102 includes commands to save a miniweb to any specified location in the WAN When invoked the command automatically stores all documents and objects in the collection 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 Simi larly tools menu 106 performs administrative tasks such as setting access controls i e costs and security privileges for collections as
32. ks WAN s This technology supports key publishing functions including document authoring man agement and publishing of document collections and sup port for database operations and interactive application program development These functions are supported in a uniquely and fully WAN integrated manner as described further below Feb 27 2003 0016 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 interface on the client computer By seam less 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 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 execu tion and feedback for any display instructions added to the document using a standard WAN mark up language 0017 In another feature of the present invention at least
33. mporary storage Recall that URL is the term for a hypermedia link on the World Wide Web 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 Feb 27 2003 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 0044 As briefly noted above the WAN integrated edit ing environment is enhanced by elements menu 76 and format menu 77 which provide WYSIWYG feedback for html markup authoring without any need for users to sepa rately launch a browser program or upload the document being edited Other preferred features of the editing envi ronment 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 discussed further below including NaviLinks link generation form driven database update and search and asset administration services 0045 In summary prior art technology has traditionally separated between WAN brows
34. ndex oO Column 3 Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 9 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FIG 10b nS File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help X A py ER ima ae Back Fwd B Location p navisoft com 8001 NS GetEntryForm comments4 Y B Title JEntry Form for Table comments4 Nas Enter Data for Table comments4 Customer Comment Form Entry 168 When done filling in the fields below press the Enter button te insert your data into the database J custname 166a Customer Name e_mail Electronic Mail Address 166b iia address 166c f Mail address 7 i phone Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 10 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FGE File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help am 8 x10 SER Cut Copy i Paste f tescribiiSearchi Smart f Back A Location ft com 8001 test support coments4 htm Yy Title JEntry Form for Table comments4 Send Us Your Comments We want to hear from yon Please fill in your name address phone number and comments press Enter to send us your comments SS a E EE EEE E S G E E Patent Application Publication Feb 27 2003 Sheet 11 of 11 US 2003 0041117 A1 FIG 10d 704 File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help 2 ISIE Ssc el Cut Copy Paste bescribfiSearc Back Fwd j Stop BI Location gore navisoft com 8001 NS GetSearchForm comments4 V Title Search Fo
35. re interconnected by a telecommunications infrastructure and exchange information 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 rep resents 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 mes sages across the WAN in compliance with network proto cols Each client may correspond to a single user s com puter 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 net works of America Online CompUServe and Prodigy In this way information of any kind can be distributed worldwide in electronic form at telecommunications speeds 0005 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 will automaticall
36. referably includes interactively transferring or copying any selected portion of the source document to the target document 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 accor dance with the present invention these editing tasks can now be performed without requiring users to switch between separate interface modes or to temporarily download docu ments into local storage as was traditionally necessary 0042 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 0043 In the scenario described in FIG 5b 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 te
37. rm for Table comments4 N Search Search Telecommunication Customer Comment Form Help Select oe R 174b Customer Name 174c Electronic Mail Mail address m oore CN Telephone Number US 2003 0041117 Al METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PUBLISHING HYPERMEDIA DOCUMENTS OVER WIDE AREA NETWORKS 0001 This application is a continuation of U S patent application Ser No 09 204 745 filed Dec 2 1998 which is a continuation of U S Patent Application No 08 412 981 filed Mar 28 1995 now U S Pat No 5 870 552 both of which are incorporated by reference FIELD OF THE INVENTION 0002 The present invention relates to the field of author ing publishing and managing electronic hypermedia docu ments across distributed wide area networks such as the World Wide Web BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0003 The distribution of information is being revolution ized 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 0004 FIG 1 conceptually illustrates the basic architec ture of a client server WAN like the Internet Servers 10a n form the backbone of the WAN The servers a
38. s and inconvenient especially where a pub lisher frequently 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 0009 The non integrated nature of current authoring tools presents other difficulties and limitations as well For example it is not generally possible to open multiple WAN documents for editing and to transfer text images and URL s among those documents in the seamless fashion as is presently done with typical word processors for local com puter documents As another example current Web author ing 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 0010 2 Current WAN publishing tools provide little assistance with managing collections of documents Although the World Wide Web is famous for supporting US 2003 0041117 Al hypermedia document links current tools provide scant support for maintaining and operating on collections of related documents as a group Much progress is needed in this area For e
39. tive they do not need to be modified when the collection is moved navidoc 1 0 graph 1 nametype 0 title 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 Hittabies 1 hilite htm Up Style under htm Up entup htm Up Title Hiliting and MoreLikeThis 1 Styles Title Coming Soon 1 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 page21 htm
40. 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 0018 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 0019 In a further feature
41. xample an integrated publishing environment should preferably allow users to visually navigate through collections of interconnected documents to upload down load and transport 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 0011 3 Current publishing tools provide little assistance with content based indexing and retrieval Current naviga tional tools such as browsers provide very little assistance with systematically organizing and searching the informa tion 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 0012 4 Current publishing tools provide little assistance with asset management For commercial publishers of pro prietary material like newspapers or periodicals asset man agement 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 0013 5 Current Publishing
42. xt into hypertext and automatically identify related pages an information architecture for management and control of assets HTML as a general purpose forms oriented interface to a DBMS that eliminates the need for CGIs common gateway interfaces an easy to use hierarchical access control and cost model example Blueprints that function like Microsoft Wizards for the Web extensibility to implement custom services US 2003 0041117 Al What is claimed is 1 Acomputer program residing on a computer readable medium for publishing electronic documents comprising one or more 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 link addressing a target document located on a target server Feb 27 2003 access the target document by signaling the 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
43. y 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 Feb 27 2003 the hypermedia items within home page 40 and an http request to view the associated linked content residing 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 browsers is provided in the Feb 7 1995 issue of PC Magazine PC Magazine
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