Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-04
2001-11-20
Homere, Jean R. (Department: 2177)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06321244
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to restructuring documents and more particularly to automatically restructuring SGML documents into card-based documents.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Documentation plays an important role in all stages of a product from design, manufacturing, assembly, to marketing, training, and to operation, maintenance, etc. Technical information is required and shared in all stages of the life-cycle of the product. Due to the advent of various document standards in the recent years, technical documents are being converted, or created from scratch, to conform to the document standards in various industries, e.g., automotive and truck (SAE J2008), semiconductor (PCIS), chemical (CML), air transportation (ATA-100), telecommunication (TCIF/IPI), etc. Different document standards are designed to address the issues at different levels of documentation needs and for different application domains. For example, some standards are meant for representing only the contents of the documents to support structuring of information, while others integrate both the contents and formats to support complex publishing.
Since 1988, a new trend in technical documentation has been emerging to adopt the international standard, SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) to define domain-specific document structures, which are then used to represent the content of technical documents. SGML is further described in SGML, ISO 8879:1986 Text and Office Systems—Standard Generalized Markup Language, Geneva, 1986. Documents in SGML separate the content (as much as possible) from the format, so that technical information is preserved, platform-independence is maintained, and can be re-used, e.g., for all products in a product line.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a system that automatically restructures SGML documents into a format referred to as Card-Based Documents. In a given instance, card-based documents present smaller, defined amounts of textual and graphic information than traditional SGML documents and are more suitable for training and marketing purposes and for displaying changes to the state of a machinery over time. The new restructuring system is based on a Card Layout Style Specification Language (CLSSL). The CLSSL controls the information, arrangement, sequencing, and presentation features of the cards. The CLSSL differs from existing presentation tools by offering superior reusability, scalability, inheritance (related to component style information), and author-defined control. In addition, by separating content from presentation, it achieves greater support for multiple presentations on different platforms.
The system for creating card-based hypermedia manuals comprises a scroll-card transformer, a media-card extractor, a card style editor, a platform-independent generator and a platform dependent generator. SGML documents are first transformed in scroll-card transformer into cards based on various scroll-to-card transformation guidelines. The non-textual media that are associated with textual documents are also transformed in the media-card extractor by extracting a portion of the information for individual cards. Once the textual and non-textual documents are transformed properly into cards, the card layout style editor is used to create the formatting commands, referred to as Card Layout Style Specifications (CLSS), for each type of card in the card-based manual. The card-based SGML manual together with a card layout style specification file is then processed by a presentation formatter to generate a platform-dependent format for the presentation tool.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5297249 (1994-03-01), Bernstein et al.
patent: 5644776 (1997-07-01), DeRose et al.
patent: 5794257 (1998-08-01), Liu et al.
patent: 5819092 (1998-10-01), Ferguson et al.
patent: 5848386 (1998-12-01), Motoyama
patent: 5860073 (1999-01-01), Ferrel et al.
patent: 5864338 (1999-01-01), Nestor et al.
patent: 5870552 (1999-02-01), Dozier et al.
patent: 5907837 (1999-05-01), Ferrel et al.
patent: 6006242 (1999-12-01), Poole et al.
patent: 6009436 (1999-12-01), Motoyama et al.
patent: 6041331 (2000-03-01), Weiner et al.
patent: 6061697 (2000-05-01), Nakao
Igarashi et al., Adaptive Recognition of Implicit Structures in Human-Organized Layouts, IEEE electronic library, p. 258-266, Sep. 1995.
Hampel Kenneth
Hsu Liang-Hua
Liu Peiya
Sullivan Sean Daniel Frank
Homere Jean R.
Paschburg Donald B.
Robinson Greta L.
Siemens Corporate Research Inc.
LandOfFree
Style specifications for systematically creating card-based... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Style specifications for systematically creating card-based..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Style specifications for systematically creating card-based... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2573555