Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1997-10-24
2001-03-13
Alam, Hosain T. (Department: 2771)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C345S215000, C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06202061
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses for creating a collection of digital media in a digital processing system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The creation and editing of electronic documents on digital processing systems, such as computer systems, has allowed users of such systems to create elaborate and creative documents. One obstacle to the use of such systems is the interface between the user and the computer system. This interface, often referred to as a user interface, is sometimes so difficult to understand and/or to use that only relatively trivial electronic documents can be created and edited by a typical user.
Graphical user interfaces are typically easier to use than command line user interfaces. As a result, graphical user interfaces have proliferated on computer systems. Such interfaces provide different types of views to the user. For example, one view which is commonly available from document processing software is a “page view” which typically shows a full view of a complete page of a document. This view is different from what may be considered to be a magnified view showing only a portion of a page. Thus, if a page contains several objects, such as several different digital images on one page, the magnified view may only show one or two such images, whereas the page view would show all the images on the page.
Another conventional method used in graphical user interfaces involves miniaturized images which represent a page. These miniaturized images are often referred to as “thumbnails.” An example of these thumbnails may be found in certain computer programs, such as ClarisWorks from Apple Computer, Inc. These thumbnail views of a page are presented to a user when the user desires to open an existing document to either view the document or edit the document. Typically, a dialog box is displayed to the user, and this dialog box includes a listing of available, existing documents which may be viewed using the program. By selecting one of the documents, a thumbnail image of the document may be made to appear in the dialog box. This allows the user to verify that the document is the document which the user desired to view. This is often useful in cases where the file name for the document does not tell the user the content of the file (e.g. because the user forgot the file name which was used to store the document). This thumbnail image is also often referred to as a preview image. That is, it allows the user to preview the image before actually opening the full page of the document.
Often, a page of a document will have multiple objects, such as digital images, on the page. Typically, these multiple objects are placed on the page through manual interaction between the user and the computer system. For example, the user may select several different objects and cause them to be placed on the page. While this is often desirable in many cases, it does not allow the user to automatically create a collection of documents which may be desirable in certain cases.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention discloses methods and apparatuses for creating a collection of digital media in a digital processing system. A method in one example of the invention defines search parameters, such as at least one search parameter. Using the search parameter, the digital processing system searches through parameters for a first plurality of digital media to obtain a second plurality of digital media which may be a subset of the first plurality of digital media. Then the digital processing system generates automatically after the search a media container for the second plurality of digital media.
In one particular embodiment of the present invention, the digital media are digital pictures and the media container is a picture album. The computer user may select the search criteria and then have the computer system automatically search through a picture database to provide the digital pictures which match the search parameters. Then after confirming with the user that a new picture album is created, the digital processing system automatically generates from the search results a picture album containing the pictures which were found in the search.
Computer systems which employ the methods of the present invention are also described, as well as software stored on computer readable storage medium which allows the computer system to perform the present invention.
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Khosla Aditya
Lei James
Morris Steve
Narayen Shantanu
Wang Wu
Alam Hosain T.
Blakely & Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman
Pictra, Inc.
Shah Sanjiv
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