Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Distributed data processing – Client/server
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-19
2001-06-26
Sheikh, Ayaz (Department: 2155)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Distributed data processing
Client/server
C709S217000, C709S219000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06253229
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to computer managed communication networks and particularly to ease of use of interactive computer controlled display interfaces with hotspots in received hypertext documents which interactively link users from such documents to other documents and programs.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The 1990's decade has been marked by a societal technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. Like all such revolutions, it unleashed a significant ripple effect of technological waves. The effect has in turn driven technologies which have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the internet-related distribution of documents, media and programs. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels, and the World Wide Web or internet which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility reached “critical mass” and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, businesses and consumers have direct access to all matter of documents, media and computer programs.
In addition, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which had been the documentation language of the internet World Wide Web for years offered direct links between pages and other documentation on the Web and a variety of related data sources which were at first text and then evolved into media, i.e. “hypermedia”. This even further exploded the use of the internet or World Wide Web. It was now possible for the Web browser or wanderer to spend literally hours going through document after document in often less than productive excursions through the Web. These excursions often strained the users' time and resources. In order for the internet to mature from its great expectations to solid commercial fruition, it will be necessary for the internet to greatly reduce its drain on time and related resources. A significant source of this drain is in the Web page, the basic document page of the Web.
In the case of Web pages, we do not have the situation of a relatively small group of professional designers working out the human factors; rather in the era of the Web, anyone and everyone can design a Web page. As a result, pages are frequently designed by developers without usability skills. Often the pages include elaborate image files which require relatively great amounts of time to download at the receiving station. In addition, there appears to be an increasing amount of advertising on the Web wherein the seeker of information at times has to be subject to “commercials” often in the time and resource taxing image formats.
The present invention provides a solution to this problem of downloaded bloated Web pages. The invention gives the user at the receiving workstation the power to drastically limit the incoming Web page information which would be time and resource consuming. The invention permits the user to operate in a “hotspots only” mode which permits the user to download and display only the hypertext hotspots or links which will link the user to other Web pages or data sources. This is particularly valuable to the user who has definite data sources which he is seeking or has previously wandered through pages and subsequently recalls certain sources which he deems to be of value. It is also helpful to a user who wishes to get an advance abstract of an area which he is considering exploring. By quickly going through several pages, he gets a capsule view which should help him to decide whether he is going up the right stream.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a computer controlled display system for displaying documents and particularly for displaying Web pages and related documentation on receiving display workstations in a computer managed communication network. Users access these Web pages via a plurality of such data processor controlled interactive display stations receiving documents transmitted to said display stations from locations remote from said stations. Such documents include a sequence of hypertext display pages made up of text and images which may be very complex. Each page also contains a plurality of hotspots of varying dimensions, each of said hotspots being responsive to user interactive pointing means to display a linked document or information source. The invention involves restructuring each page in the received document so that all images and text are removed from the received page except for the hotspots. The invention accomplishes this by providing said display page in an alternate version wherein only the hotspots on the page are displayed together with means for selecting said alternate version for display. In response to these selecting means, the alternate version containing hotspots only is transmitted to a receiving display station. The means for selecting the alternate version with hotspots only is preferably located at the receiving display station as part of an interactive network browser at that display station. For best results, the browser at the display station through which the alternate version is selected coacts with a network server which has means for fetching said documents from said network and transmitting said fetched documents to said receiving station together with said means for providing said display page in said alternate version having hotspots only, and said means, responsive to said means for selecting, for transmitting said alternate version.
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Nielsen Christopher Robbins
Poston Rick Lee
Stair Stephen Gray
Tsao I-Hsing
International Business Machines - Corporation
Kraft Jerry B.
McBurney Mark E.
Sheikh Ayaz
Tran Philip B.
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