Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-11
2001-04-24
Sax, Steven (Department: 2773)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06222542
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates in general to the field of data management in a graphical user interface (GUI) operating system (OS) environment and more specifically, to capturing text and bitmaps from GUI window to a buffer, marking text within the GUI window and to routing data from the buffer to input/output devices or other applications and utilities for further processing.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The majority of computer system users today work on computers running some type of GUI OS such as Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, developed by Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash. and IBM OS/2, manufactured by IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y. These operating systems are able to execute many application programs, including threads, at the same time (i.e. multitasking). These applications perform such specific tasks as word processing, database management, spreadsheet calculations, etc.
The above mentioned GUI oriented operating systems are all based on the concept of a window. The window is the basic unit of the GUI and the user interacts with applications through one or more windows. Text and pictures (i.e. bitmaps) are among the basic units of information with which the user works while interacting with the GUI.
Applications can exchange data and control each other within the multitasking OS. There are several mechanisms of interprocess communications and data exchange within most modern operating systems. They include shared memory, the clipboard, application to application communication mechanism and data object linking and embedding services. These facilities share one major disadvantage: the application must have been designed and coded to specifically support any of these interprocess communications mechanisms.
The majority of these GUI operating systems today incorporate some form of temporary buffering facility, whereby data from one window may be cut or copied to a buffer (i.e. the clipboard in the Windows OS) and later pasted into another application. The use of this buffer is a simple and effective mechanism of getting data from one application into another, especially when the applications were not designed to work with each other. This mechanism allows applications from different vendors to share data without each knowing about the other. However, for this mechanism to function, the application itself must have been written to include the necessary cut, copy and paste functions for a user to exploit the temporary buffer mechanism (i.e. the clipboard in Windows). Unfortunately, there exist many applications that do not incorporate this mechanism to get data out of their window(s) and put it into the clipboard. Applications such as terminal emulators, data communication programs (i.e. modem and faxing programs), Internet access software, etc., generally do not supply a simple and easy mechanism to get data out of their programs and to route it to a destination.
Screen capture programs, well known in the prior art, offer an alternative to the clipboard for capturing window data, but they too suffer from disadvantages. Screen capture programs operate on the level of screen memory. They allow a user to capture any portion of the actual visible screen without regard to the type of data being displayed. Captured data is by necessity stored as bitmapped graphics data. It is impossible to capture a text portion of a screen corresponding to, for example, a word processor and store the captured data as text or string data (e.g., in ASCII format), without additional processing such as optical character recognition (OCR). Screen capture programs suffer from not being able to store the data they capture in the data's native format.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,386, issued to Chalas, teaches a system for adding functions to an existing application program executing in a computer system having a GUI that includes a clipboard. The system intercepts communications between the OS and the application program and determines when the user is invoking one of the added functions. The system sends captured information to the clipboard in response to user commands.
It is desirable to have a system for and a method of getting text and bitmaps data from any application running in system, without utilizing a clipboard, saving it in buffer and delivering it to any other application or output device.
Hereinafter, the term output device is defined as any hardware device, file, software application or other receptacle, existing either in hardware or software, that is able to receive data. The term standard graphic format is defined as any graphic format supported by the Windows operating system. The term standard text format is defined as the ASCII format widely used in today's PCs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method of capturing text in its intrinsic format (i.e. ASCII) from any substantial window belonging to art arbitrary application and storing the text for later use in a buffer (not the clipboard), whereby the arbitrary application need not support an application to application communication mechanism, data object linking and embedding services or clipboard operations such as cut, copy and paste.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method of capturing bitmap images from any substantial window belonging to an arbitrary application and storing the bitmap image for later use in a buffer (not the clipboard), whereby the arbitrary application need not support an application to application communication mechanism, data object linking and embedding services or clipboard operations such as cut, copy and paste.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for marking text on any substantial window belonging to an arbitrary application using text already present in a buffer.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system for delivering text and bitmaps, previously stored in a buffer, to other applications or output devices selected by the user.
There is therefore provided, in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a method in a computer system of acquiring, processing and routing text and/or bitmap data contained in window, selected by a user, the method comprising the steps of acquiring the data, in native text and bitmap format, from a window, storing the acquired data in a data buffer, a processing the data stored in the data buffer in order to designate part of it, and routing the designated data to at least one output device, selected by the user.
In addition the step of acquiring comprises the steps of loading the application EXE module and associated dynamic link libraries (DLL) into memory, determining a window handle of the window selected by the user, installing at least one hook on a window procedure associated with the GUI window selected by the user, using window subclassing, installing at least one application programming interface function (API) hook on at least one native API function of the operating system, forcing the GUI window selected by the user to be redrawn thereby causing all text and/or bitmap data within the selected window to be sent to the selected window, filtering data and filling a text buffer with the text and/or bitmap data sent to the selected window.
The step of filling a text buffer and filtering data comprises forcing the selected window to redraw its contents, gaining control from the original window procedure pass to the subclassing procedure which resides in the DLL of the present invention, initializing the text buffer to a known state, utilizing the DLL of the present invention to capture and filter text and/or bitmap data redrawn to the selected window, saving it in the buffer, and returning control to original window procedure.
The step of capturing comprises temporarily removing the at least one API hook, copying data within the parameters of API functions to a temporary buffer for further processing, calling at least one original OS API function so as t
Algom Avner
Poreh Illan
Shpilberg Ilya
Vaindiner Alexander
AnySoft, LTD
Sax Steven
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