Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-28
2004-08-10
Von Buhr, Maria N. (Department: 2125)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C345S215000, C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06775659
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to methods for mapping relationships between data files (or portions of a single data file), methods of moving between data files (or within a data file), and to an apparatuses arranged for performing the methods. The invention further relates to a device including a display which displays a map of data files, particularly a device having a low resolution screen either in absolute terms or in relation to the number of data files which are to be mapped (e.g. 100s or even 1000s of files).
The files referred to throughout this document may be electronic files, but may alternatively be files stored on any other recording medium, for example an optical or holographic data storage medium. As discussed in detail below, the invention is particularly suitable, for example, for displaying relationships between data files which are part of the world wide web.
DISCUSSION OF THE PRIOR ART
The vast amount of information stored on the world wide web is divided into data files, each of which has an “address”, and is stored on a computer called a “server”. One kind of file is called a “page” and simply contains a set of information. The format of the information differs from one page to another, for example, some pages may contain just text, while others might for instance reference some audio or visual files to display at a certain point in the pages. Using a program called a “browser”, a user of the web is able to display the pages in a part of his or her screen called a “browser array”, for example one page at a time. Specifically, the user may be said to have a location within the web which corresponds to a page of the web, and to view the page which corresponds to his location.
Like the pages of a conventional book which are arranged in a numbered sequence, the pages of the world wide web have defined logical relationships to each other, but the logical relationships between the pages of the web are much more complicated than a simple numbered sequence. The purpose of these logical relationships is to connect pages which contain related information. For example, a page containing information on a first topic (say “patents”) may be logically related to one or more other pages containing information on related topics (such as “patent attorneys”).
The logical relationships between pages are defined by logical links known as “hyperlinks”. The hyperlinks are conventionally defined in a “hypertext” programming language (or possibly a more sophisticated content presentation format such as a Flash or Lingo file), the type of language upon which the world wide web is based (the term hypertext is commonly used to include “hypertext mark-up language” (HTML), Dynamic HTML, Wireless Markup Language (WML), Active Server Pages, etc), and the term “hyperlink” is further used here to mean a link in an AWT such as one defined in JAVA, or any other languages used for layout and interaction. A single page may contain one or more “hyperlinks” each associated with a portion of the page (e.g. a few words of that page) known as an “anchor”. The hyperlink defines a logical relationship between the “anchor” portion of the page and a second page of the world wide web (or possibly a particular place in that second page). A user can access that second page simply by positioning a curser in the anchor portion of the display and clicking a button, such as a button of a mouse. This automatically replaces the page he is viewing with the second page connected to it by the hyperlink. Thus, the second pages are said to be “one click” from the first page, meaning that a user connected to the first page can access the second pages (i.e. display some or all of the information in the second page within his browser array) by a single clicking motion (not including clicks performed by the user on the scrollbar). The first page may contain any number of anchors, each associated with a respective portion of the first page, and each leading via a respective hyperlink to a respective second page.
Of course, a second page too may have anchors in it, each leading to a respective third page. The third pages are said to be “two clicks” from the first page, meaning that they can be accessed from the first page by two clicking motions, a first clicking motion which takes the user from the first page to the second page (i.e. changes the browser display to represent the second page, or represents that page in a second browser display), and a second clicking motion which moves the user from the second page to the third page. The hyperlinks thus provide an efficient way of navigating through the myriad of pages available on the web in search of specific information, by moving between the pages logically related by hyperlinks. Since any page may contain many anchors, there can be many second pages related to each first page, and many third pages related to each second page. In fact, the number of pages n-clicks away from a given first page rises approximately exponentially with n.
A further complexity is provided by a type of file called a “frame set”. Although pages of the world wide web may be unstructured, in the sense that they consist entirely of a list of stored information, a “frame set” does have a structure, and may be thought of as a file which partitions the browser array into a number of sections and displays another predetermined file in each of those sections, for example so that different sorts of information on a given topic are classified into different sections. Any number of anchors may be located in any of the files displayed in the sections. Supposing that a user uses a browser to access a first file which is a frame set, the browser display area is divided into a number of sections corresponding to the number of sections in the frame set. When the user clicks on an anchor portion within one of the sections, that (or a different) section of the browser display area (or possibly the whole browser area or the whole of a new browser area) is replaced by a second file (e.g. a page) connected to the anchor portion by a hyperlink. However, the rest of the display area (i.e. the other sections of the frame set) remains displayed to the user.
The world wide web is in fact a single example of a networked computer file system based on a hypertext. Other examples of a hypertext based system include other Internet systems not for some reason classified as being the world wide web (for example, because they are owned by a large company or government department and not publicly accessible), so-called “intranet” systems, or indeed any other system using a hypertext language (such as HTML or Dynamic HTML) to define and permit movement between files. These systems are in turn examples of what may be called a “hyperspace”, that is a set of data files, each having an address or name, the set of files having logical relationships defined between members of the set.
For example, a conventional directory structure is an example of a hyperspace. A directory structure consists of data files of two forms: (i) data files here called “branch nodes” which contain (usually only contain) logical links to other data files, and (ii) data files called “leaf nodes” which may contain information but do not contain links to other data files of the hyperspace. An empty directory is an example of a leaf node, as is a text file, a picture file, a video file or an audio file; and a directory which is not empty is an example of a branch node.
Such a logically related set of data files may be a pure hierarchy (tree structure). That is, one directory (the “root directory”) is designated the uppermost level of the hierarchy. There is a maximum of one logical link to each directory (although the directory itself may contain any number of logical connections to other data files), and every data file (including all the directories) can be reached from the root directory by a single path, along a series of the logical connections defined above. The data files which can be reached by a single logical link from a given directo
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Symtec Limited
Von Buhr Maria N.
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