Markup system for shared HTML documents

Details Markup system for shared HTML documents Markup system for shared HTML documents

1998-08-29

2001-05-08

Feild, Joseph H. (Department: 2176)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000, C345S215000, C709S204000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06230171

ABSTRACT:

DESCRIPTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to information processing, and particularly is directed to dynamic hyper-text markup language (HTML) collaborative document processing.
2. Prior Art
The traditional peer-to-peer multi-party collaboration systems allow several participants to join a conference group to share documents while communicating over an audio and sometimes video network infrastructure. Additionally, with growing popularity of the World Wide Web (Web), several Web-based multimedia collaboration systems have been recently introduced, in which the participants join in a conference and navigate the Internet to explore its resources together. The Web-based multimedia collaboration systems are often based on a client/server model, having client applications frequently implemented in Java™ and downloaded dynamically during the initial set-up phase.
A key feature of multi-party collaboration systems is the markup of shared documents. Markups allow presenters to bring the attention of other participants to specific portions of the shared material, using pointer, annotations and highlights. In order for the traditional peer-to-peer multi-party collaboration systems to support interoperability among various collaborative applications, the traditional systems must rely on complex standards such as the T.120 series developed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Examples of such traditional peer-to-peer multi-party collaboration systems are Microsoft's NetMeeting™ and Whiteboard™ (“wb”), the application which is part of the MBONE suite of conferencing tools.
Compared to the traditional peer-to-peer multi-party collaboration systems, the Web-based collaboration systems offer a much higher degree of interoperability, since virtually every desktop system is Web-enabled and client applications are downloaded as part of the service establishment phase. However, while markup functionalities are easily achieved in traditional peer-to-peer collaboration systems, their implementation becomes more problematic for Web-based collaboration systems. The problem stems from the difficulty of creating a platform independent application capable of directly writing and marking over the HTML document displayed in the Web browser's window.
The current Web-based collaboration systems are limited in that they only offer markup functionalities by means of shared whiteboards, i.e., applications that control a separate (blank) window over which users can write and draw. Examples of such systems are IBM's WebCollab system and NIST's Java Collaborative environment. Therefore, it is highly desirable to provide a cross-platform system capable of directly annotating HTML documents displayed within the browser's window while at the same time allowing each participant to view the same HTML document with the annotations as the document is being annotated.
Web-based collaboration systems allow users to create and join conference groups by accessing a given URL using a Web browser. A client application, written in Java® and dynamically downloaded during the set-up phase, allows participants of a conference group to synchronously share HTML documents.
A conference moderator (or floor holder) selects a desired HTML document (or Web page) and the Web-based collaboration system distributes the document to all other participants of the same conference group.
Depending on the particular implementation, the document content or its reference is distributed. Some of the Web-based collaboration systems also provide a shared audio channel.
FIG. 1
illustrates an architecture for a Web-based collaboration system. The system includes the Web servers
110
, the collaboration server
112
, the client-side managers
114
, and the Web browsers
116
. At each participant's workstation
118
, the Web browser
116
acts as the display as well as the interaction environment for the user. The client-side manager
114
is responsible for directing the Web browser
116
to display the current shared document as well as collecting user inputs such as conference join and document display actions. User inputs are transferred to the collaboration server
112
as client-side manager requests. Typically, a client-side manager
114
is implemented as a front-end Java® applet.
The collaboration server
112
is responsible for collecting and verifying requests from client-side managers
114
. Examples of requests are: create a new conference group, join a conference group, requesting a conference group floor or selecting a new document for display. Collaboration servers
112
may be either centralized or distributed. In the case of a distributed collaboration server its functionalities are incorporated inside the client-side managers
114
, while in the case of a centralized one the functionalities are located in a separate process (as shown in FIG.
1
).
Collaboration servers may also employ different types of mechanism for broadcasting a document to conference group participants. For example, in a client pull model, the collaboration server
112
delivers to the client-side managers
114
the names of the URL which contain the document to broadcast. Each of the client-side managers
114
then will access and retrieve the URL to be displayed in the associated browser's window. An alternative approach is based on a server push model. In this approach, the collaboration server
112
retrieves the requested document directly from the Web server
110
, and broadcasts the document with its components to the client-side managers connected to the conference. In this case, the client-side managers
114
, buffer the document and its components locally and instruct the browsers
116
to display the document. An advantage of the server push model is that only one request is issued to the Web server on behalf of all the conference participants, thus reducing the Web server load. Another advantage of this approach is that the retrieved document may be modified by the collaboration server before being broadcasted to the conference participants as a shared document. In this fashion, whenever the moderator selects one of the hyper-links inside the displayed document, the request will be redirected to the collaboration server which will handle broadcasting the new document to all participants. On the other hand, an advantage of a client pull model is the reduced complexity of both client-side managers and collaboration server.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To resolve the above shortcomings of the existing Web collaboration systems, it is one object of the present invention to provide a platform-independent markup system capable of directly annotating HTML documents displayed inside the browser's window and operable across various platforms as well as vendor-specific Web browsers.
It is another object of the present invention to have the annotations themselves be HTML components that are dynamically added to the document.
Different layouts of various HTML contents among the participants of a collaboration session can produce undesired markup effects. For example, when the participants utilize computer platforms having different screen resolutions, window sizes or font sizes, from other participants, a mark surrounding one segment of the document displayed in one participant's browser can appear as a mark surrounding a different segment of the same document as displayed by another participant's browser. Accordingly, it is a further object of the present invention to provide a mechanism for synchronizing the views of the participants by controlling the browsers' environments. The present invention is directed to a platform independent, markup system for shared HTML documents. The distinctive feature of this markup system is that it is HTML-based: it allows for annotating active HTML pages inside the browser's windows; and the annotations themselves are HTML components that are dynamically added to the document. Being HTML-based and running within Web-browsers le

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