Common namespace for internet and local filesystem objects

Details Common namespace for internet and local filesystem objects Common namespace for internet and local filesystem objects

2002-07-30

2004-01-13

Powell, Mark R. (Department: 2152)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput

Remote data accessing

Accessing a remote server

Reexamination Certificate

active

06678724

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates generally to the field of operating system design, and, more specifically, to the field of file object namespaces.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The world wide web (“the web”) is a very large body of information maintained on thousands of computer systems connected by the Internet. The web is organized into millions of documents called web pages. A group of related web pages produced and maintained by the same person or organization is known as a “web site.”
A user typically interacts with the web using an application program known as a web browser or web client executing on the user's computer system, or the “client” computer system. Each web page may be independently accessed by providing a reference to the web page, called a “URL,” or “uniform resource locator,” to the web browser application. The web browser application uses the URL to retrieve the contents of the web page via the Internet, then displays those contents in a window displayed by the web browser application. Web page contents can include data such as text, still images, and audio and video clips; programs executable on the client machine; and links to related web pages.
Conventional web browsers operate in a manner completely distinct from the filesystem viewers typically provided by operating systems and user interface shells. For example,
FIG. 1
is a screen diagram showing a window displayed by a filesystem viewer application called the Windows Explorer provided with a Microsoft® Windows® 95 operating system and user interface shell. The window
100
contains a subwindow
110
whose contents describe the contents of a filesystem directory. The contents of the subwindow show that the current directory contains two file folders, “Drivers” and “Icu”, as well as an MS-DOS Application “Readme” and a Text Document “Readme”. The user may further use the filesystem viewer application to issue commands to manipulate the contents of the displayed directory, such as commands to move, rename, delete, or launch files in the directory and create new folders or files in the directory.
In contrast,
FIG. 2
shows the contents of the same directory displayed by a conventional web browser application. Window
201
is displayed by the conventional web browser application, and contains subwindow
220
. It can be seen that the contents of this subwindow have a significantly different visual appearance from the contents of subwindow
110
(FIG.
1
). For example, the subwindow displayed by the web browser uses icons, such as icons
221
and
222
, that differ from the icons used by the file viewer application, such as icons
111
and
112
. The web browser application further uses different labels to characterize the types of each object contained in the directory,
225
F-
228
than the labels used by the filesystem viewer,
115
-
118
(FIG.
1
). Finally, the web browser displays different file sizes,
223
and
224
than the filesystem viewer,
113
and
114
(FIG.
1
), for the same objects. Even further, the web browser displays a directory label
229
and a parent directory link
230
not displayed by the file viewer application. Additionally, the web browser application does not allow the user to issue commands to manipulate the contents of the displayed directory. Such differences in the operation of the web browser to display the contents of a filesystem directory from the filesystem viewer make it difficult for a user to use both applications.
Further, Internet addresses, such as those used in URLs to identify web pages, are completely distinct from the shell hierarchy used in most user interface shells and operating systems to represent the contents of a local filesystem, as well as other resources available from or through the user's computer system. The emission of these addresses from the hierarchy makes it difficult for users to switch back and forth between objects stored in the hierarchy and objects stored at Internet addresses.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to integrating web addresses into a shell hierarchy of resources including the local filesystem, so that both web addresses and local filesystem locations can be specified as locations within the shell hierarchy. A unified web/filesystem browser application displays the shell hierarchy including both web addresses and local filesystem locations. When the user selects an item in the displayed shell hierarchy, the type of the selected item is used to select from the registry a file viewer module for displaying the selected item, whether the item is a word processing document, a filesystem directory, a web page, or a document of another type. In a further embodiment of the invention, a web browser that itself displays web pages is adapted to display the contents of a folder by calling the same code for displaying the contents of a folder as a dedicated application, provided by the user interface shell, for viewing directory contents.


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