Method and apparatus for publishing hypermedia documents over
Contents
1. Special Style Heading Backward Forward Stop Cut Copy Paragraph 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 1 gt U S Patent Feb 9 1999 1004 File 102 Edit View Tool Views New MiniWeb T New Page Open Close 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 FORM 140 142 144 146 148 150 Browse Clean Up Zoom In Zoom Out y 106 f Describe Page Jile Search Server Cascade Server Adminstration gt Arrange Icons Preferences lt 1 MiniWeb lt Location gt Sheet 4 of 11 5 870 552 Window Help Global History Hot List 2 MW lt 1 gt Page lt 1 gt E Help FIG 6 ig Come U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 5 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 7 File Edit Tools Browse Window Help lease title this page Page 1 in MW3 110 foo mpe 110 page3 htm U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 6 of 11 5 870 552 zon FIG 8a Fie Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help 3 4 p pk gt2. 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 smartlInk 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 Up Style Title Please title this page Page 21 in servdocs 1 sumobanr gif Up Style Title 1 sumoguy1 gif Up Style Title sumoguy2 gif Up Style Title sumoguy3 gif Up Style Title sumoguy4 gif Up Style Title sumoguy5 gif Up Style Title sumoguy6 gif Up Style Title sumochar gi Up Style Title 1 sumoleaf gif Up Style Title sumoguy7 gif Up Style Title sum
3. Cut Copy Paste describ Search Back Fwd Stop E Location lhttp gore navisoft com 8001 recipes rice beans grain Li 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 Carey SCHNELL Wild Rice Risotto An Aussie da Stlva leek Marjoram Potato Casserole Spicy Grilled Chicken and Potatoes U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 7 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 8b Cc 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 E Elements Format Tools Browse m Serve with a green salad
4. Cortese Amy et al Cyberspace Business Week Feb 27 1995 pp 78 86 Marriott Michel et al Super Cyber Surfers Newsweek Mar 20 1995 pp 43 44 U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 1 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 1 PRIOR ART or e SERVER 10b SERVER 10n 10c A TYPICAL WEB HOME PAGE 42 ACME COMPANY oN HOME PAGE UNNE acme SE 460 e CORPORATE INFO 6b e SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST FIG 2 PRIOR ART 48 CLICK ON A BULLET ITEM U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 2 of 11 5 870 552 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 80 ACCESS SOURCE DOCUMENT ACCESS TARGET DOCUMENT VIA HYPERMEDIA LINK EDIT TARGET DOCUMENT DOCUMENT PUBLISH TARGET DOCUMENT AS REVISED PUBLISH SOURCE DOCUMENT INCLUDING NEW URL pus RA FIG 5b 94 98 86 U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 3 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 4 704 Eie Edit Elements Format Tool Browse Window Help 72 Rew Ar Open Forced Line Break Check Links Close Link Describe Page Print Setup Image Map Preferences AL Remove Format
5. 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 will 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 pag
6. 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 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 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 5 870 552 5 FIG 8a is a screen image illustrating use of the preferred NaviLinks facility to generate suggested hypermedia links FIG 8b is a scre
7. 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 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 perf
8. 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 preferably includes interactively transferring or copying any selected portion 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 5 870 552 7 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 traditional
9. system to include software implement ing the browsing and editing environment and do not require any modification of other WAN computers For more details on an exemplary embodiment of the WAN document editing and browsing environment the user 10 15 20 25 35 45 50 55 60 65 8 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 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 c
10. 148 a user who has completed a database entry or search 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 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 m
11. AREA NETWORKS 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 n form the backbone 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
12. MA Cut Copy Paste pescribilSearch Back Fwd Stop Sy Location p navisoft com 8001 NS GetEntryForm comments4 W Title JEntry 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 custname Customer Name 6 mail Electronic Mail Address address U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 10 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 10c File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help A A a A E ut Copy Paste describlisearch Smart Back Fwd Stop ll Location ft com 8001 test support coments4 html Title Entry Form for Table comments4 Company ogo ere 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 SNE IDA E ETE NS TI a ES customer Nane 170b U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 11 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 10d File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help AS a AE Copy Paste describl Search Back Fwd Stop Location gore navi soft com 8001 NS GetSearchForm comments4 V Title Search Form for Table comments4 N Search Search Telecommunication Customer Comment Form Help Select Customer Name Electronic Mail Mail address 5 870 552 1 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PUBLISHING HYPERMEDIA DOCUMENTS OVER WIDE
13. Nice BSAS Ka EN PP ci ES eS 6 EN pa Li 7 122 Carey Schnell Wright EJ tocation http navisoft com 8001 Mahlza Title Marjoram Potato Casserole Carey SCHNELL Wild Rice Risotto Newsgroups rec food recipes An Aussie Fran cschnell iiasa ac at Carey SCHNELL Subject Marjoram Potato Casserole Message ID Organization IIASA Laxenburg Austria Date Tue 3 Aug 1993 07 41 31 MT Marjoram Potato Casserole Marjoram Potato Casserole COLLECTION Potato Recipes Ton tg potatoes Spicy Grill Chicken and Potatoe COLLECTION Risottos medium to uch of fresh marjoram dried otherwise freshly ground pepper 40 g butter 75g han U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 8 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 10a File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help AMES Cut Copy Paste f Describlisearchl Smart Back Fwd Stop E Location Ihttp navisoft com 8001 NS GetNewTableForm When finished press the Create Table button to create the new table 7 164 Table Description Customer Feedback Forml Table is Searchable n Column 1 Name Type gt a Description customer Namel not null O unique index O A 5 e e not null O unique index Column 2 Name e mail Type text D iption 162b escription Electronic Mail Address a U S Patent Feb 9 1999 Sheet 9 of 11 5 870 552 FIG 10b 704 File Edit Elements Format Tools Browse Help Cy HARNS AR
14. United States Patent Dozier et al US005870552A 5 870 552 Feb 9 1999 11 Patent Number 45 Date of Patent 54 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PUBLISHING HYPERMEDIA DOCUMENTS OVER WIDE AREA NETWORKS 75 Inventors Linda T Dozier Goleta George W Williams V Santa Barbara Dave Long Santa Barbara Douglas M McKee Santa Barbara James G Davidson Santa Barbara Karen Brady Woodside all of Calif 73 Assignee America Online Inc Dulles Va 21 Appl No 412 981 22 Filed Mar 28 1995 51 0 G06F 13 38 GO6F 15 17 52 DS Cleo 395 200 49 395 200 33 707 501 58 Field of Search 395 200 01 200 09 395 200 31 200 47 200 48 200 59 762 774 792 200 33 200 49 707 501 513 56 References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 817 050 3 1989 Komatsu et al 364 900 5 091 849 2 1992 Davis et al 5 241 671 8 1993 Reed et al 5 267 351 11 1993 Reber et al 5 307 456 4 1994 MacKay iii 395 154 5 500 929 3 1996 Dickinson 395 160 5 530 852 6 1996 Meske Jr et al 395 600 5 537 546 7 1996 Sauter 395 200 01 5 557 730 9 1996 Frid Nielsen 395 200 48 5 708 825 1 1998 Sotomayor we 707 501 5 724 595 3 1998 Gentner 707 501 5 727 156 3 1998 Herr Hoyman et al 395 200 49 5 771 355 6 1998 Kuzma Lune 707 501 5 778 398 7 1998 Nagashima
15. WAN comprising means for specifying the related documents to be included in the collection and means for collectively performing a desired operation on each document in the collection by interactively issu ing a single command corresponding to the operation 10 20 25 30 35
16. are integrated with the authoring environment previously described as indi cated 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 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 16 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 106 depicts an edited version of FIG 10b that still corresponds to the database table of FIG 10a Thus fields 170a n of FIG 106 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
17. ary means for implementing the miniweb facility we have described Automated Authoring of WAN Hypermedia NaviLinks Most content on the World 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 ments A human author can then review the suggestions in a convenient manner and choose to incorporate modify or discard them 20 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 14 The NaviLinks facility is preferably integrated along with the publishing tools described above and as 20 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 w
18. ase view i e a specified set of indices for indexing WAN documents for managing historical versions 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 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 Illustra 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
19. ation on the scope of the invention Numerous variations and 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 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 55 60 65 18 We claim 1 A method for publishing electronic documents on a wide area network WAN comprising a plurality of servers said method for use by a user having a client computer operably coupled to a first server said method comprising the following steps 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 with the client computer using a seamless user interface regardless of whether the first source target and destination servers are the same or different servers 2 The method of claim 1 wherein the step of editing the target document includes the step of copying a portion of the source document into the target document using a curs
20. cal 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 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 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 5 870 552 3 systematically organizing and sea
21. cuments 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 feature 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
22. document addressed by the suggested link can itself be accessed and edited in yet another editing window by pressing Show Page button 130 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 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 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 5 870 552 15 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 datab
23. e 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 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 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 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 devel
24. electing an anchor item of content within the source document automatically generating a list of one or more suggested target documents for the selected anchor item and interactively selecting one of the suggested target documents as the target document 8 The method of claim 7 wherein the step of selecting an anchor item of content includes the step of automatically generating a list of one or more suggested anchor items and wherein the steps of claim 7 are performed for one or more of the suggested anchor items 9 A method for publishing and managing a collection of related documents on a WAN the method comprising the following steps 5 870 552 19 specifying the related documents to be included in the collection and collectively performing a desired operation on each docu ment in the collection by interactively issuing a single command corresponding to the operation 10 The method of claim 9 wherein the desired operation includes setting one or more access controls for the collec tion of documents 11 The method of claim 9 wherein the desired operation includes modifying a common portion of content within the collection of documents 12 The method of claim 9 wherein one or more source documents and target documents of the collection are linked by one or more hypermedia links and wherein the step of collectively performing a desired operation comprises mov ing the collection of documents from an original loca
25. en 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 database for particular customer feedback in accor dance with the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF 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 dig
26. erver checks to see if the URL 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 highl
27. et al 707 501 OTHER PUBLICATIONS 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 Vatton I Amaya W3C s Browser Editor retrieved from internet as http Avww w3 org Amaya Jul 10 1998 Vatton I Amaya 1 3 retrived fro internet at http www w3 org Amaya User New html Jul 10 1998 Claris MacProjectll Users Guide Claris Corporation Mountain Viwe CA 1986 Chapters 14 pp 1 138 Dec 1986 Publishing on the Web B Rousseau 1995 Cern School of Computing Proceedings Cern 95 05 1995 Cern School of Computing Proceedings Arles France 20 Aug 2 Sep 1995 1995 Geneva Switzerland Cern Switzerland pp 279 293 XP000578592 Hughes Kevin Entering the World Wide Web A Guide to Cyberspace May 1994 Berners Lee Tim et al The World Wide Web Commu nications of the ACM Aug 1994 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 1 Business Financial De
28. etSearchForm ns__columns archive htm 4 startup htm 2 sumohnds gif 0 http navisoft com 8001 NS Archive Versions index html 0 http navisoft com 8001 index html 0 http navisoft com 8001 NS Archive 19950222000000 index html logging htm 4 startup htm 2 sumoarm gif ops htm N 2 iceman gif 1 NS Ge 1 NS Ad 1 NS Ab 1 NS Ge maktable htm 0 NS Ge 0 NS Ge SearchFormPicker min out NewTableForm DropTableForm Create TableForm 2 sumobboo gif tables htm 2 sumochr2 gif page21 htm sumobanr gif sumoguy1 gif sumoguy2 gif sumoguy3 gif 12 5 870 552 13 continued p gt sumoguy4 gi sumoguyS gi sumoguy 6 gi sumochar gif sumoleaf gif sumoguy7 gif sumoguy8 gi fujibrch gif fujimt gif sumobboo gi sumofeet gif sumohnds gi sumoarm gif cthulhu gif iceman gif sumoch 12 gif p gt p gt gt p gt p gt gt p gt 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 correspondin
29. g documents located anywhere on the WAN or anywhere within 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 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 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 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 exempl
30. ight create their own indexing schemes for documents and criteria of special interest For more details regarding various menu driven interac 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 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 5 870 552 17 URL s that map to server functions If a request is not immediately serviceable e g GET a page for browsing NaviS
31. ights identify the terms in the page that met the selection criteria GetRemoteHilitedPage geta remote highlighted page where highlights 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 GetMeta Tables form as appropriate 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 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 the art and not as any kind of limit
32. ing 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 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
33. ital 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 modified 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 a draft User Manual for NaviPress and NaviServer The reader is referred to the Appendix for more detai
34. ithin window 120 In the example shown the user has already invoked the NaviLinks facility for assistance in creating hypermedia links from the recipe 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
35. iting 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 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 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
36. ls 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 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 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 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 ed
37. ly 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 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 temporary 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 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 edit
38. nly 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 5 870 552 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
39. oguy8 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 gi Up Style Title 1 sumochr2 gif Up Style Title 1 Ghosts Refs top htm 0 install htm 0 startup htm 0 security htm 0 costs htm 0 search htm 0 under htm 0 entup htm 0 smartlnk htm 0 describe htm 0 custom htm 0 archive htm 0 logging htm 0 ops htm 0 maktable htm 0 tables htm 2 sumobanr gif 0 srchpage htm 0 http www yahoo com Computers World_ Wide__Web Databases_and_Searching install htm 0 startup htm 2 sumoguyl gif startup htm 4 costs htm 4 archive htm 4 logging htm 2 sumoguy2 gif security htm 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_ users 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_ groups 5 870 552 11 continued 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_ groups2users 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_ permissions 0 NS GetSearchForm ns_ methods 2 sumoguy3 gif costs htm 0 security htm 4
40. ollection 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 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 o
41. oped 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 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 typi
42. or control device 3 The method of claim 2 wherein the copied portion of the source document includes one or more hypermedia links 4 The method of claim 1 wherein the step of editing the target document further includes the following steps encoding a portion of the target document with one or more display instructions using a standard mark up language of the WAN upon performance of the encoding step rendering an appearance of the target document in accordance with the display instructions 5 The method of claim 4 wherein the step of encoding includes the step of interactively selecting one or more menu commands 6 A method 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 method comprising the following steps accessing a source document located on a source server and a target document located on a target server and copying a pointer addressing the target document into the source document using a cursor control device thereby creating a hypermedia link from the source document to the target document wherein the foregoing steps are performed with the client computer using a seamless user interface regardless of whether the first source and target servers are the same or different servers 7 The method of claim 6 wherein the step of accessing the target document further includes the following steps s
43. ormed 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 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 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 In another feature of the present 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 do
44. rching 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 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
45. sk List continued on next page Primary Examiner Mark H Rinehart Attorney Agent or Firm Fish amp Richardson P C 57 ABSTRACT The present invention addresses the critical needs of pub lishers seeking to create and publish hypermedia content in electronic form across wide area networks WAN s such as the World 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 control of proprietary assets and support for developing form driven interactive services all in a manner that is uniquely and seamlessly WAN integrated 20 Claims 11 Drawing Sheets 100 File Edit View Tools Browse Window Help 41 Home Page Tease title this page Page 1 in 443 JW gt QuE parrotsaif Simone gif ageS htm 5 870 552 Page 2 OTHER PUBLICATIONS 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
46. startup htm 2 sumoguy8 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 GetSearchForm 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 NS GetSearchForm ns_ default collection 0 http www navisoft com STUB 0 http www ncsa uiuc edu SDG Software XMosaic help on version 2 5b5 html 0 http www netscape com info newsrelease16 htm 0 http www w3 org hypertext WWW Arena 0 N NS GetSearchForm ns_total_ charges 2 sumochar gif hilite htm 0 NS MoreLikeThis Ur1 2fservdoc 2ftop htm 0 servdoc top htm 0 NS GetLHP Ur1 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 smartink htm 2 fujibrch gif describe htm 8 http www navisoft com STUB 2 fujimt gif custom htm 2 sumofeet gif 1 NS G
47. t located on a source server the source document including at 5 least one hypermedia link addressing a target document located on a target server cursor control means for accessing the target document by signaling the hypermedia link edit means for editing the target document and storage means for saving the target document as modified on a storage server wherein the foregoing means are all integrated in a seamless user interface accessible via the client computer and are operable regardless of whether the first source target and destination servers are the same or different servers 19 An apparatus for publishing electronic documents on a WAN comprising a plurality of servers for use with a client computer operably coupled to a first server said apparatus comprising source retrieval means for accessing a source document located on a source server target retrieval means for accessing document located on a target server and link generation means for copying a pointer addressing the target document into the source document using a cursor control device thereby creating a hypermedia link from the source document to the target document wherein the foregoing means are all integrated within a seamless user interface on the client computer and are operable regardless of whether the first source and target servers are the same or different servers 20 An apparatus for publishing and managing a collec tion of related documents on a
48. 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 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 1660 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
49. tion to a different location on the WAN without modifying the hypermedia links 13 The method of claim 12 wherein one or more of the hypermedia links addresses one of the target documents relative to one of the source documents 14 The method of claim 13 further including the step of creating one or more external hypermedia links within one or more source documents of the collection each of said external hypermedia links absolutely addressing one more documents outside the collection 15 The method of claim 9 where at least one of the documents in the collection contains a hypermedia link further including the step of displaying on a client computer of the WAN a graphical icon corresponding to each one of the documents in the collection and a graphical line corre sponding to each one of the hypermedia links within the collection 16 The method of claim 15 further including the step of accessing a document of the collection by using a cursor control device to signal the corresponding icon 17 The method of claim 15 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 18 An apparatus for publishing electronic documents on a WAN comprising a plurality of servers for use with a 20 client computer operably coupled to a first server said apparatus comprising retrieval means for accessing a source documen
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search