This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-051823, filed Feb. 25, 2005, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the management of event information indicating the log of operations performed by a user in an information processing apparatus and, more particularly, to an information management apparatus, information management method, and information management program which, for example, generate, store, and display event information comprising information associated with operations performed by the user, e.g., searching for, browsing, and editing documents, and the meta-information of the operations, e.g., times and operation types.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the spread of personal computers and an increase in the use of the Internet, end users handle, on computers, various and a large quantity of documents which exist in various places. Such documents exist in, for example, the storage devices (local file systems) of the computers of users and a network formed by computers connected through a communication network. There are also documents and the like which are generated by digitizing printed matter in the real world using a scanner apparatus and OCR (Optical Character Reader).
These documents exist in various forms. Documents are handled by software called an application on a computer. Such documents have different forms in accordance with the applications which handle them. For example, such forms include the text form in which documents are formed from readable character information and are browsed and edited by an application called a text editor, the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) form for documents which are communicated on WWW (World Wide Web) and are browsed by an application called a browser, and the e-mail form in which documents are transmitted/received on a network in accordance with a protocol called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) or POP (Post Office Protocol) and browsed and edited by an application called a “mailer”.
When a large quantity of documents having such various forms exist in the local file system of an information processing apparatus, the user generally arranges and manages such documents in accordance with the tree structure of the file system. Recently, as the capacities of storage devices such as hard disks have increased, the quantity of documents stored has increased, and the tree structures have become excessively complicated. This makes it difficult for users to intuitively grasp the tree structures.
The user generally searches for a necessary document by using a search means. In WWW, a server apparatus called a search engine exists, which allows a search through a browser. An OS (Operating System) such as Windows XP (trademark) or Mac OS X (trademark) has a means for searching for a document in the local file system. An application such as a mailer often has a search means for e-mail documents and the like to be handled in the application.
A current search means is generally based on keyword search operation in which the user designates a keyword contained in a required document as a query. In keyword search operation, however, the user must designate a keyword by trial and error to obtain a document. In addition, there are various kinds of keyword search mechanisms in accordance with the locations of documents and their forms. The user must perform, for example, the operation of finding or switching search means according to need.
Under the circumstances, search means based on meta-information, such as Spotlight (trademark) available from Apple (trademark) and MSN search (trademark) available from Microsoft (trademark) have been developed. In such a search means, each document has content summary information, application-dependent information, or the like as meta-information, and an API (Application Program Interface) for searching for meta-information on the OS level is prepared, thereby allowing various kinds of searches to be made for documents in the local storage altogether.
Japanese Patent Application No. 11-108535 discloses an information processing method and information processing apparatus which can store documents upon associating time information with each document. In Japanese Patent Application No. 11-108535, it is described that when a user sets a desired date, a document corresponding to the time information is reproduced.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,738,973 also discloses a method of presenting an access log associated with a document. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,738,973, it is described that access log icons are presented near document icons and the like on the basis of the access logs of sequentially recorded documents, thereby allowing the user to intuitively grasp a reference log or update log.
In “Toshiyuki Masui, Koji Tsukada, and Akira Takabayashi, Information Navigation by Neighbor Hopping, Toshiyuki Masui (editor), Interactive System and Software XI, 2003”, a technique called “neighbor hopping” of searching for documents highly relevant to a given document is disclosed. In this reference, a system is described in which when a user pays attention to a given document, documents and the like which are relevant in content to the given document, have the same attribute as that of the given document, and are stored at locations on a file system which are near the location of the given document are retrieved and presented, and associative searches can be easily performed by repetitive clicking operation.
In conventional document management, as a file system storing documents becomes excessively complicated and increases in size, and documents exist in a wide network space, problems arise, including taking a long time for a user to search for a document, not allowing the user to intuitively browse documents, and scattering related documents.
In addition, as the user proceeds with work on a computer, it becomes more difficult for the user to grasp the process of work, because of the above problems, e.g., taking much time and labor to search for documents.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an information management apparatus, information management method, and information management program which manage information associated with past work and the meta-information of the work altogether in accordance with event information, and can easily obtain necessary information on the basis of event information display.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information management apparatus that manages information for displaying on a display device, comprising: an event generation device configured to generate a plurality of events each including work information of a work having a work type and time information indicating at least when the work was done; an event storage device to store the plurality of events generated by the event generation device; an event display control device connectable to the display device, and configured to arrange the plurality of events in an order corresponding to their time information, and to control the display device to display the events in different display forms in accordance with the work type; an event selection device configured to select an event from the plurality of events displayed by the display device controlled by the event display control device; and an information display control device connectable to the display device and configured to control the display device to display the work information which the selected event has.
An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the views of the accompanying drawing.
An embodiment of the present invention is directed to a document management apparatus which manages document information to allow a user to intuitively and properly perform work such as searching for a document, performing browse display, generating a componentized document, and generating a scrap sheet on the basis of event display.
The present invention can be implemented as a program which causes a computer to function as an information management apparatus having such an arrangement. In this case, the program according to the present invention is stored in a program storage device in the computer. The program storage device is formed from a nonvolatile semiconductor storage device, a magnetic disk device, or the like. When the above program is loaded into a random access memory (RAM) under the control of a CPU (not shown) and executed by the CPU, the computer can be made to function as an information management apparatus according to the present invention. Note that an operating system which manages various computer resources and provides a graphical user interface (GUI) and the like is also installed in this computer.
In this embodiment, in a state wherein the computer is started, i.e., the switch of the computer hardware is turned on to activate the OS, and software for document management processing is activated, a window like that shown in
In this embodiment, document information based on the XML (extensible Markup Language) form is handled.
Information in the text form stored in a storage in the computer and mail information handled by a mail application can be stored in the local database in this embodiment by using a program called “crawler”.
The search query input unit 2 accepts a search query input from the user. The search query input unit 2 is provided in a panel 30 in
A combo box 31 included in a search strategy selection area in the panel 30 is used to display and change information called search strategy. When the user performs clicking operation on the display of the combo box 31, a menu which prompts the user to select a search strategy is displayed. The user then selects a search strategy from this display and performs clicking operation. As a result, a new search strategy is selected. The search strategy is information indicating which kind of search is performed by using which means when there is a plurality of search means.
This embodiment comprises a WWW search strategy, local search strategy, and related document search strategy as search strategies. According to the WWW search strategy, a search engine on WWW is used to search for a document on WWW. According to the local search strategy, a database on a local machine is used to search for a document stored therein. According to the related document search strategy, event information is used to search for documents deeply relevant to the document displayed on the document display unit 5.
The user can notify the search query input unit 2 of the start of search processing by pressing a search (execution) button 32 in the panel 30. In this case, the search query input unit 2 inputs a search query and search strategy to the document search unit 3. The search query input unit 2 acquires the character string information in the text input area or the information in the document display unit 5 and scrap sheet, and input the information as a search query to the document search unit 3. In addition, the search query input unit 2 obtains a search strategy in accordance with the input state of the search strategy selection area, and inputs it to the document search unit 3.
The document search unit 3 searches for a document by using an external search means such as a search engine on WWW or a database management system on the local machine. Which means is to be used for a search depends on which search strategy is designated. First of all, the search query string is analyzed to obtain keywords from which delimiter characters are removed. A search is executed on the basis of the obtained search queries to obtain pieces of document reference information ordered according to the degrees of identification with the search queries. Document reference information is, for example, a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). The pieces of document reference information are input to the search result display unit 4.
The search result display unit 4 displays a search result list 50 obtained by the document search unit 3. From the search result list 50, user can select a document to be displayed on the document display unit 5. On the basis of the pieces of input document reference information, the order of search, the types of documents, URIs, and the like are displayed, as shown in
The document display unit 5 obtains document data on the basis of the input document reference information, and display the information on the screen. The document display unit 5 accepts input operation by the user who has used the mouse. When a partial area on the display is designated by dragging with the mouse, the designated part of the document can be input to the componentization unit 6 to be componentized. With respect to the componentized area, display operation is performed to indicate that the area has been componentized. The user can scrap the componentized document by dragging the componentized document from the display of the componentized document onto the display of the scrap sheet unit 7.
The componentization unit 6 performs componentization processing for documents. A document generated by componentization processing will be referred to as a “componentized document”. A document and information indicating partial area of the document are to be inputted to the componentization unit 6. For example, the latter information indicating the part can be position information indicating a section in the document as a code sequence. For example, the document information shown in
The information of a componentized document is generated by extracting part of an original document and adding information indicating the partial area of an original document. In this embodiment, information such as an ID attribute, panel tag, and component tag is added. In the above case, on the basis of the provided information, a part 60 shown in
The scrap sheet unit 7 receives a componentized document from the document display unit 5 and generates a scrap sheet. A scrap sheet is a document corresponding to a componentized document set including at least one componentized document. Componentized documents comprising a scrap sheet will also be referred to as “scrap components”. Scrap components are arranged in a scrap sheet in a unified order. The user can change the order of scrap components by performing editing operation with respect to the scrap sheet unit 7. Scrap sheet information is expressed as the array information of scrap component IDs. For example, scrap sheet information is “12345ABC,12345ABD,12345XYZ” with the IDs being delimited by delimiter character “,”. Scrap sheet information is contained and stored in event information.
In this embodiment, the operation in which the document search unit 3 performs a search, the operation in which the document display unit 5 performs display, the operation in which the componentization unit 6 componentizes a document, and the operation in which the scrap sheet unit 7 accepts a componentized document input are called “events”, and information processed in each operation is stored as “event information”.
The event generation unit 8 generates event information and inputs it to the event storage unit 9. The event information includes time information indicating when the event was executed. Each event information is of any one of types including a search type, display type, componentization type, and scrap type depending on the processing represented by the event. Search-type event information includes search query information and search strategy information. Display-type event information includes document reference information. Componentization-type event information includes document reference information and information indicating partial area. Scrap-type event information includes scrap sheet information and componentized document reference information. The event information can further have character string information called “user meta-information”.
The event storage unit 9 stores all event information generated by the event generation unit 8. In this embodiment, an existing relational database management system is used to permanently store event information as information in the table form shown in
The operation in which the event generation unit 8 generates event information, and the event storage unit 9 stores it will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in
The event display control unit 11 accepts user operation and performs setting for display. With regard to the display of event information, the granularity and time interval of event information to be displayed can be variously changed. The granularity of event information indicates a phase when a plurality of associated events are to be displayed altogether, as shown in
Filtering conditions indicate designated contents associated with, for example, the following items.
Time Interval:
This information designates a time range in which events to be extracted are included. For example, the information designates the upper and lower limits of a closed interval like from “Nov. 17, 2004, 09:30:00” to “Nov. 17, 2004, 12:00:00”.
Granularity of event sequence:
This information designates a granularity when an event sequence is simply displayed. In this embodiment, as shown in
Type of Event:
This information designates a specific event type to extract only corresponding event information.
Document Reference:
The reference information of a given document allows the filtering of only event information which has referred to the document.
For example, a URI like “http://www.tsb.co.jp/digitalcamera.html” allows the filtering of an event in which this document is displayed, an event in which componentization processing is performed for the document, and the like.
ID of Componentized Document:
This information designates the ID of a given componentized document to allow the filtering of only event information which has referred to the componentized document. For example, setting “12345XYZ” allows the filtering of an event in which a componentized document having this ID is generated, an event in which this componentized document is scraped, and the like.
The event display control unit 11 inquires of the event storage unit 9 as to filtering conditions, of those described above, other than those associated with the granularity of display, and obtains a corresponding event information group.
The event display control unit 11 generates event information objects in the memory on the basis of the above event information, and transfers them to the event display unit 10. These event information objects are updated every time the event display control unit 11 performs processing.
Filtering processing associated with display scroll control will be described with reference to the flowchart of
Filtering processing corresponding to the granularity of display will be described next.
First of all, filtering conditions other than those associated with the granularity of display are processed by the above method. The event information group obtained as a result of this processing is converted into information in a form representing simplification. Simplification is expressed by attaching a label formed from a character string to a specific event sequence. When the granularity is 0, no simplification is performed. When the granularity is 1, an event sequence in which the same document is referred to is simplified.
When the granularity is 2, the event sequence is simplified according to granularity “1” first, and then a scrap-type event sequence is simplified. Note that this sequence may includes a componentization-type event sequence in which scrap components are generated.
The event display unit 10 displays event information in the memory. As shown in
When the user performs clicking operation with a mouse or the like on the display of each event information, the event display unit 10 causes various kinds of processing associated with events to take place through the event display control unit 11. When, for example, the user performs left-clicking operation, the event display control unit 11 causes the information display unit 1 to perform display processing of information associated with work which event information has.
When the user performs right-clicking operation, the event display control unit 11 displays a context menu 160 like that displayed in
When the user performs input operation with respect to a scroll bar or zoom-in/zoom-out button displayed by the event display unit 10, the event display unit 10 informs the event display control unit 11 of a change in display form.
An outline of a sequence up to the display of information associated with given work in this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of
When the user cannot find any target work on the event display (NO in step S1703), the flow returns to step S1701. This operation can be repeated until target work is found.
The information display unit 1 displays the information associated with the work which the event information has. A processing sequence for this operation will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in
If, for example, the search type is determined, the search query contained in the event information is input to the search query input unit 2 and restored (step S1809), and search processing is performed (step S1810). In the case of the display type, a document is acquired on the basis of the event information and supplied to the document display unit 5 (step S1808), and the display is updated (step S1811). In the case of the componentization type, a componentized document is acquired on the basis of the event information (step S1807) and supplied to the document display unit 5, and the display is updated (step S1811). In the case of the scrap type, a scrap sheet is acquired on the basis of the event information (steps S1805 and S1806), and the display is updated (step S1811) as in the above case.
According to the above embodiment of the present invention, event information comprising information associated with user work and meta-information about the work can be generated, stored, and displayed. This makes it possible to perform batch management of information associated with past work in association with work (event) log independently of a file system structure.
Since event information can be displayed together with time-series information and meta-information of work, the user can intuitively grasp the process of work performed in the past. The display form of event information can be variously changed. For example, work done over a long period of time may be displayed so as to provide an overview thereof, or displayed in a calendar form.
The user can start new work from the display of information associated with past work as a starting point. For example, the user browses a series of search operations and makes the computer display search queries generated in the past again, thereby performing a new search.
The user can easily and flexibly search for information about past work on the basis of information about work and meta-information of the work in event information. When, for example, the user is browsing a given document, he/she can easily search for information about searches which he/she has simultaneously performed, a copy source document from which a given document is copied and pasted on another document, and the like.
A specific example of use of the information management apparatus according to this embodiment will be described next with reference to the views of the accompanying drawing. In this example of use, the user is scheduled to participate in a conference of an organization called “oo technical society”. The user checks the place where the conference will be held and the contents of the conference by using the information management apparatus according to this embodiment, and organizes information about the conference. The conference is held as scheduled. On the day of the conference as well, the user generates information summarizing the conference while comfortably browsing stored event information and information summarized in a scrap sheet by using the information management apparatus according to this embodiment.
As shown in
The user selects a document 193 having the subject information “regarding conference of 9/17 interactive content technical expert committee” from the displayed list, and performs double-clicking operation on the display. Document information 194 is then read in the document display unit 5 and displayed. At the same time, display-type event information 193 like that shown in
The user then selects a desired area 195 on the display to scrap desired part of the document information 194. In accordance with this selecting operation, the componentization unit 6 componentizes the document area in the document, and actually draws a rectangle 196 like that shown in
A generated componentized document 210 is scraped and incorporated in a scrap sheet 211 by being dragged and dropped from the display of the generated componentized document onto the display of the scrap sheet. At the same time, scrap-type event information 212 like that shown in
The user performs a WWW search on the basis of information indicating an address in the document. The character string “oo building 3-11Kanda Surugadai Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo” in a rectangle area 212 shown in
The user selects anchor information in the document, and performs clicking operation on the display of the information. As a result, the document display unit 5 reads in a document 220 like that shown in
The user browses the obtained information about an area surrounding the conference place, and componentizes an area 221 including a map in the document and nearest station information. Scraping operation is performed for a componentized document 223 generated by this operation. The resultant information is inserted in a portion above a componentized document 222 of mail which has been previously scraped. With the above work, a componentization-type event and scrap-type event are generated.
The user then uses a service called “route search site” which is provided on WWW as shown in
The operation of repeating a previous search by using event information will be described. When the user scrolls a scroll bar 250 on the event display unit 10 shown in
Referring to
When the user performs a WWW search by using a character string 272 “next-generation television technology” in the document 271 shown in
A scrap sheet 291 generated by the above series of operations can be set as TODO-type event information. A method of generating TODO-type event information will be described below.
As shown in
As shown in
On the day of the conference, the user generates information summarizing the conference while browsing the information organized in the scrap sheet and a past event sequence. A description of the generation of events will be omitted below.
As shown in
Two other methods of searching for a past scrap sheet will be described. When no TODO event is set, these methods can be used.
A search is made by using the keyword “oo technical society” (first method). As a consequence, as shown in
If no scrap sheet can be found from the list display, a target scrap sheet can be easily tracked back from a document scraped in the scrap sheet (second method). As shown in
When componentization is performed and scrap processing is performed from, for example, a state wherein a mail document 410 is displayed as shown in
A case wherein the user will change the departure time and search for a movement schedule by using a route search service on WWW will be described below. As shown in
During the conference, the user further checks matters relevant to the conference. In this case, as shown in
Once a document on WWW is displayed, document information is stored in the local database. When the user left-clicks information associated with work of a document-display event to display the information, document information in the local database is read in. In this case, as shown in
Assume that the user has generated a memo document while browsing related documents during preparation for the conference. In this case, if a memo document 470 is displayed once in advance, the document can be found together afterward when the related document is retrieved, as shown in
A case wherein the user generates a new scrap sheet on the day of the conference will be described. As shown in
While a plurality of scrap sheets are generated in the above manner, many related documents can be retrieved by using scrap sheets and event sequence on the basis of a given document or componentized document. As shown in
It is also preferable that in this search, with regard to an event in which a document is referred to, a document which is referred to by a given event located near the event on an event sequence is also included as a search target.
As has been described above, by using event information and a scrap sheet generated in the process of making checks before a conference, the user can easily refer to the scrap sheet again, display information about work which an event associated with a componentized document in the scrap sheet has, and resume related work from the display operation.
According to the embodiment described above, pieces of event information associated with events in which the document search unit 3 searches for a document, the document display unit 5 displays a document, the componentization unit 6 componentizes a document, and the scrap sheet unit 7 performs scrap processing can be stored and managed. Using these pieces of event information makes it possible to, for example, improve the efficiency of event filtering under various conditions, browsing of an event sequence upon simplification of the event sequence at various granularities, and search processing of reference documents in events.
Additional advantages and modifications will readily occur to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the invention in its broader aspects is not limited to the specific details and representative embodiments shown and described herein. Accordingly, various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the general inventive concept as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2005-051823 | Feb 2005 | JP | national |