Robust modification of persistent objects while preserving...

Details Robust modification of persistent objects while preserving... Robust modification of persistent objects while preserving...

1999-03-26

2002-02-12

Coby, Frantz (Department: 2171)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06347323

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is generally related to the preservation of attributes of persistent objects when modifications are made thereto, and more specifically, to preserving attributes of the objects when a file including the objects is opened within an environment different than that in which the file was originally created.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
As a general rule, new versions of software add functions and attributes to objects in the software that were not found in previous versions. Because of differences between successive versions of a program related to implementing new functionality, problems can arise when a document or file created under a newer version of a software program is subsequently opened, executed, and/or revised, and then saved by an older version of the software. For example, Microsoft Corporation's WORD™ version 7 word processing program includes a feature in which Internet (or intranet) links are automatically recognized so that the corresponding site/page is readily accessed in a browser program that is activated when the link is selected (i.e., by double clicking a mouse or other pointing device while the cursor controlled by the device is over the link). To clearly differentiate such links from normal text, they are typically displayed using a blue font. Any document that includes such a link, when opened in an earlier version of the WORD™ word processing program, will also display the link in the blue font, but the older version of WORD™ will not provide the underlying hypertext link to the site referenced by the link and is not able to automatically cause a browser to open up the page referenced by the link. Moreover, if the document that originally included the link was created in version 7 of WORD™ is opened and saved in an earlier version of the word processing program, a hypertext link will no longer be associated with blue font text that references the site if the saved document is subsequently opened in version 7 of the word processing program. In other words, since the older version of the word processing program is not equipped to recognize the hypertext association originally included in the document, the software does not preserve the hypertext association in the document when saving it. The new or added functionality associated with objects in the document is thus lost as a result of the document being opened and saved by the earlier version of the word processing program.
A related problem arises when a hypertext markup language (HTML) document created in a conventional text editor is subsequently imported into, for example, Microsoft Corporation's FrontPage™ software application, which includes an HTML editor. This HTML editor is of the “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) type, which greatly facilitates developing the desired look and feel of a web page, compared to simple text editors. (Note—the discussion of HTML documents that follows herein and in the claims is intended to encompass extended markup language (XML) documents as well.) Earlier versions of FrontPage™ have not made any attempt to preserve the stylistic formatting of an HTML document applied by the user in a text editor, when the document was opened within the HTML editor and then saved, but have simply applied a generally predefined style that is hard coded into the HTML editor, when saving any HTML document. Thus, the original formatting layout, indent levels, whitespace, and other stylistic attributes of objects provided by a user to a document when it was originally created and saved with a text editor, were lost by opening the document to make any change within the FrontPage™ HTML editor environment. Simply saving the document after it was opened in the FrontPage™ editor caused these stylistic and layout attributes to be lost.
One of the reasons that the formatting style of an HTML document has not previously been preserved under these circumstances is that an HTML editor usually transforms such a document into a substantially different representation internally, because the internal representation more effectively models how a web browser will display a web page defined by an HTML document. Particularly after changes to an imported HTML document have been made in an HTML editor, it becomes substantially more difficult to regenerate format and style (whitespace) of the original HTML document. However, people who create HTML documents often have strong opinions about retaining the style that they have applied to these documents. Users often believe that their style lends an HTML document readability; further, they may desire to retain a consistent look to all of the HTML documents that they create, based on their preferences. It is not surprising that many users of prior art HTML editing programs such as earlier versions of FrontPage™ have been unhappy about the loss of their preferred formatting style and layout in an HTML document when the document was opened in the HTML editor and then saved.
Of even greater concern than possible loss of a preferred formatting is that changes made by previous versions of FrontPage™ to the whitespace and layout of an HTML document imported into the HTML editor can actually break the functionality of scripts and cascading style sheets on a page. The result is that simply by opening and re-saving the page (or by editing it in the “wysiwyg” view of the program), the page is so changed that scripts may not function and the formatting and layout of tables is possibly changed.
Ideally, an HTML document created in one environment that is imported into another environment, such as an HTML editor, should preserve the document's original formatting, including both the text and layout style (whitespace) around objects, as much as possible. Importing an HTML document into an editor should not cause any loss of functionality or loss of formatting in tables. Furthermore, the HTML editor should determine the formatting style employed in an imported HTML document created in a different environment so that the style may be applied to changes made to the document within the HTML editor and to newly added objects. Clearly, if a user has simply opened an HTML document within the HTML editor and saved it without making any changes, additions, or deletions, the exact formatting style and text of the original document should be retained. It would also be desirable to enable the user to compare the original version of the HTML document with the version that is saved, after changes, deletions, or additions have been made by the HTML editor. This comparison might be made using any of various types of document comparison tools available from other sources, so that the user can see the changes made as a result of editing the HTML document.
The prior art does not provide a fully satisfactory solution to these problems. Macromedia's DREAMWEAVER™ software includes an HTML editor that preserves much of the whitespace in an imported HTML document that has been opened and then saved. However, once a structure or region in an imported HTML document is edited in the DREAMWEAVER HTML editor, the whitespace is reformatted to conform to an internally predetermined style that is part of the software program. Furthermore, if text is added to an imported HTML document open in the DREAMWEAVER™ HTML editor, the indent level of the existing surrounding text is not applied to the newly added text. When a copy/paste occurs in an open document, i.e., when formatted text is copied and then pasted into a different part of an HTML document, all surrounding whitespace related to the copied text is lost in the region in which the text is pasted. In addition, this HTML editor does not appear to support the preservation of misnested tags. Tags are misnested if the order in which they are opened is not the same as the (reverse) order in which they are closed. For example, the tag <b><u>hello</b></u> is misnested—it should be <b><u>hello</u></b>. For some tags, the effect of misnesting a

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