Patent Grant
8538997
Modern data processing systems, such as general purpose computer systems, allow the users of such systems to create a variety of different types of data files. For example, a typical user of a data processing system may create text files with a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or may create an image file with an image processing program such as Adobe's PhotoShop. Numerous other types of files are capable of being created or modified, edited, and otherwise used by one or more users for a typical data processing system. The large number of the different types of files that can be created or modified can present a challenge to a typical user who is seeking to find a particular file which has been created.
Modern data processing systems often include a file management system which allows a user to place files in various directories or subdirectories (e.g. folders) and allows a user to give the file a name. Further, these file management systems often allow a user to find a file by searching for the file's name, or the date of creation, or the date of modification, or the type of file. An example of such a file management system is the Finder program which operates on Macintosh computers from Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Another example of a file management system program is the Windows Explorer program which operates on the Windows operating system from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Both the Finder program and the Windows Explorer program include a find command which allows a user to search for files by various criteria including a file name or a date of creation or a date of modification or the type of file. However, this search capability searches through information which is the same for each file, regardless of the type of file. Thus, for example, the searchable data for a Microsoft Word file is the same as the searchable data for an Adobe PhotoShop file, and this data typically includes the file name, the type of file, the date of creation, the date of last modification, the size of the file and certain other parameters which may be maintained for the file by the file management system.
Certain presently existing application programs allow a user to maintain data about a particular file. This data about a particular file may be considered metadata because it is data about other data. This metadata for a particular file may include information about the author of a file, a summary of the document, and various other types of information. A program such as Microsoft Word may automatically create some of this data when a user creates a file and the user may add additional data or edit the data by selecting the “property sheet” from a menu selection in Microsoft Word. The property sheets in Microsoft Word allow a user to create metadata for a particular file or document. However, in existing systems, a user is not able to search for metadata across a variety of different applications using one search request from the user. Furthermore, existing systems can perform one search for data files, but this search does not also include searching through metadata for those files.
Existing systems have the ability to generate an index database of the full content of files, but the process of generating the index does not, in existing systems, attempt to control the indexing process based upon a power state of the data processing system.
Methods for managing data in a data processing system and systems for managing data described herein.
At least some of these methods and systems include the ability to modify how indexing of files (to create an index database) is performed in view of the power state of the systems. These methods and systems may, for example, use different logical queues for indexing tasks that are assigned different priorities, at least when the systems are in certain power states.
These various methods and systems may provide for improved power consumption performance while also providing the ability to maintain databases which a user can use to search for data. In one aspect of the invention, an exemplary method includes determining a power state of a data processing system and establishing a first set of indexing queues or importation queues if the data processing system is in a first power state and establishing a second set of indexing queues or importation queues if the data processing system is in a second power state. The second set of queues may comprise at least two queues and the first set of queues is only one queue in certain embodiments. Indexing tasks in the first set of indexing queues have a higher priority than at least some of the indexing tasks in the second set of indexing queues in certain embodiments. Typically, the first power state is a higher power state, such as when the data processing system is powered by an alternating current source, and the second power state is a lowered powered state such as when the system is powered by a battery.
In another aspect of the present inventions, an exemplary method includes processing requests for indexing files or importation of files at a first priority when a data processing system is in a first power consumption state, and processing requests for indexing of at least some files or importation of at least some files at a second priority when a data processing system is in a second power consumption state.
In another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method includes determining whether a data processing system is a lower power consumption state, and determining whether, if the data processing system is in a lower power consumption state, an indexing or importation operation is of a first type or a second type, and performing indexing or importation at a first priority if the indexing operation or importation operation is of the first type, and performing indexing or importation at a second priority if the indexing operation or importation operation is of the second type, where in the first priority is a higher priority than the second priority. In one implementation of this exemplary method, the importation or indexing operation is of the first type when importation or indexing is required as a result of a contemporaneous change by a user to a file, and the indexing operation or importation operation is of the second type when indexing or importation is required as a result of an initial index of a volume or a re-index of a removable volume that has files that have been modified since the removable volume was last mounted by the data processing system.
In another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method includes receiving an indication (e.g. one or more indicators) of a power state (e.g. battery powered only or AC powered, etc.) of a data processing system (e.g. a general purpose computer system or an MP3 music player, etc.) and determining how to process indexing tasks in response to the indication. Typically, in this exemplary method, the determining is performed automatically based upon the indication and may include assigning different processing priorities to different indexing tasks (e.g. background indexing or user initiated indexing of files just changed by a user) which may be stored in different indexing queues which are stored in non-volatile memory, such as a hard drive.
In another aspect of the inventions, an exemplary method limits power consumption by performing indexing operations (or metadata importing/exporting operations) in a sequence which is determined by storage locations; this exemplary method may include determining storage locations of files to be indexed in indexing queues and determining one or more sequences of indexing operations based on the storage locations. For example, if a first set of files to be indexed is on a first storage device having a first spindle (which rotates the media storing the first set of files) and a second set of files to be indexed is on a second storage device (e.g. another hard drive) having a second spindle (which rotates the media storing the second set of files), then a sequence of indexing operations specifies that if the first spindle is spinning and the second spindle is not spinning, the first set of files is to be indexed before beginning to index the second set of files. As a further example, indexing operations may be organized in a sequence to cause the indexing operations to continue indexing files in the same partition as other files currently being indexed before beginning to index files in another partition. As yet another example, indexing operations may be organized in a sequence to cause the indexing operations to continue indexing files of the same user before beginning to index files of another user.
Other aspects of the present inventions include various data processing systems which perform these methods and machine readable media which perform various methods described herein.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements.
The subject invention will be described with reference to numerous details set forth below, and the accompanying drawings will illustrate the invention. The following description and drawings are illustrative of the invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention. Numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, in certain instances, well known or conventional details are not described in order to not unnecessarily obscure the present invention in detail.
The present description includes material protected by copyrights, such as illustrations of graphical user interface images. The owners of the copyrights, including the assignee of the present invention, hereby reserve their rights, including copyright, in these materials. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever. Copyright Apple Computer, Inc. 2004.
As shown in
It will be apparent from this description that aspects of the present invention may be embodied, at least in part, in software. That is, the techniques may be carried out in a computer system or other data processing system in response to its processor, such as a microprocessor, executing sequences of instructions contained in a memory, such as ROM 107, RAM 105, mass storage 106 or a remote storage device. In various embodiments, hardwired circuitry may be used in combination with software instructions to implement the present invention. Thus, the techniques are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software nor to any particular source for the instructions executed by the data processing system. In addition, throughout this description, various functions and operations are described as being performed by or caused by software code to simplify description. However, those skilled in the art will recognize what is meant by such expressions is that the functions result from execution of the code by a processor, such as the microprocessor 103.
Capturing and Use of Metadata Across a Variety of Application Programs
The method of
The method of
One particular field which may be useful in the various metadata formats would be a field which includes an identifier of a plug in or other software element which may be used to capture metadata from a data file and/or export metadata back to the creator application.
Various different software architectures may be used to implement the functions and operations described herein. The following discussion provides one example of such an architecture, but it will be understood that alternative architectures may also be employed to achieve the same or similar results. The software architecture shown in
The software architecture 400 also includes a file system directory 417 for the metadata. This file system directory keeps track of the relationship between the data files and their metadata and keeps track of the location of the metadata object (e.g. a metadata file which corresponds to the data file from which it was extracted) created by each importer. In one exemplary embodiment, the metadata database is maintained as a flat file format as described below, and the file system directory 417 maintains this flat file format. One advantage of a flat file format is that the data is laid out on a storage device as a string of data without references between fields from one metadata file (corresponding to a particular data file) to another metadata file (corresponding to another data file). This arrangement of data will often result in faster retrieval of information from the metadata database 415.
The software architecture 400 of
The method of
It will be appreciated that the notification, if done through the OS kernel, is a global, system wide notification process such that changes to any file will cause a notification to be sent to the metadata processing software. It will also be appreciated that in alternative embodiments, each application program may itself generate the necessary metadata and provide the metadata directly to a metadata database without the requirement of a notification from an operating system kernel or from the intervention of importers, such as the importers 413. Alternatively, rather than using OS kernel notifications, an embodiment may use software calls from each application to a metadata processing software which receives these calls and then imports the metadata from each file in response to the call.
As noted above, the metadata database 415 may be stored in a flat file format in order to improve the speed of retrieval of information in most circumstances. The flat file format may be considered to be a non-B tree, non-hash tree format in which data is not attempted to be organized but is rather stored as a stream of data. Each metadata object or metadata file will itself contain fields, such as the fields shown in the examples of
A flexible query language may be used to search the metadata database in the same way that such query languages are used to search other databases. The data within each metadata file may be packed or even compressed if desirable. As noted above, each metadata file, in certain embodiments, will include a persistent identifier which uniquely identifies its corresponding data file. This identifier remains the same even if the name of the file is changed or the file is modified. This allows for the persistent association between the particular data file and its metadata.
User Interface Aspects
Various different examples of user interfaces for inputting search parameters and for displaying search results are provided herein. It will be understood that some features from certain embodiments may be mixed with other embodiments such that hybrid embodiments may result from these combinations. It will be appreciated that certain features may be removed from each of these embodiments and still provide adequate functionality in many instances.
The combination of text entry region 709 and the search parameter menu bar allow a user to specify a search query or search parameters. Each of the configurable pull down menus presents a user with a list of options to select from when the user activates the pull down menu. As shown in
It will also be appreciated that the various options in the pull down menus may depend upon the fields within a particular type of metadata file. For example, the selection of “images” to be searched may cause the various fields present in the metadata for an image type file to appear in one or more pull down menus, allowing the user to search within one or more of those fields for that particular type of file. Other fields which do not apply to “images” types of files may not appear in these menus in order reduce the complexity of the menus and to prevent user confusion.
Another feature of the present invention is shown in
The window 1001 includes an additional feature which may be very useful while analyzing a search result. A user may select individual files from within the display region 1005 and associate them together as one collection. Each file may be individually marked using a specific command (e.g. pressing the right button on a mouse and selecting a command from a menu which appears on the screen, which command may be “add selection to current group”) or similar such commands. By individually selecting such files or by selecting a group of files at once, the user may associate this group of files into a selected group or a “marked” group and this association may be used to perform a common action on all of the files in the group (e.g. print each file or view each file in a viewer window or move each file to a new or existing folder, etc.). A representation of this marked group appears as a folder in the user-configurable portion 1003A. An example of such a folder is the folder 1020 shown in the user-configurable portion 1003A. By selecting this folder (e.g. by positioning a cursor over the folder 1020 and pressing and releasing a mouse button or by pressing another button) the user, as a result of this selection, will cause the display within the display region 1005 of the files which have been grouped together or marked. Alternatively, a separate window may appear showing only the items which have been marked or grouped. This association or grouping may be merely temporary or it may be made permanent by retaining a list of all the files which have been grouped and by keeping a folder 1020 or other representations of the grouping within the user-configurable side bar, such as the side bar 1003A. Certain embodiments may allow multiple, different groupings to exist at the same time, and each of these groupings or associations may be merely temporary (e.g. they exist only while the search results window is displayed), or they may be made permanent by retaining a list of all the files which have been grouped within each separate group. It will be appreciated that the files within each group may have been created from different applications. As noted above, one of the groupings may be selected and then a user may select a command which performs a common action (e.g. print or view or move or delete) on all of the files within the selected group.
The window 1201 shown in
A column 1211 of window 1201 allows a user to select various search parameters by selecting one of the options which in turn causes the display of a submenu that corresponds to the selected option. In the case of
The window 1301 shown in
The search results user interface shown in
It will be appreciated that this method may employ various alternatives. For example, a window may appear after the command option 2232 or 2233 has been selected, and this window asks for a name for the new folder. This window may display a default name (e.g. “new folder”) in case the user does not enter a new name. Alternatively, the system may merely give the new folder or new storage facility a default path name. Also, the system may merely create the new folder and move or copy the items into the new folder without showing the new window as shown in
Indexing the full text content of files, such as user files, can be a huge power drain particularly when a large number of files need to be indexed or when the content of the files requiring indexing is large. When a data processing system is operating in a high power mode, such as when it is connected to an alternating current source, and there is no requirement or need to place the data processing system in a lower power mode, there is no need to restrain or inhibit indexing for power consumption control. However, when the data processing system is operating on a battery supply rather than an alternating current source (e.g. AC power) or when the user or the system has caused the system to enter a lower power consumption state (e.g. the system has automatically caused the system to enter a lower power consumption state to reduce the operating temperature of the system), then it may be desirable to restrain indexing or importation of files into an indexed database or metadata database respectively. Typically, the indexing of a content of files occurs in at least one of the following situations: (1) as a result of a user driven change such as when a file has just been modified by a user; (2) as a background process to initially index volumes or to re-index files that have been modified since the disks or volumes were last seen by the system; or (3) as a result of a scan or sweep of a volume, which scan or sweep may be scheduled (e.g. scheduled in time) or not scheduled. Similarly, importation of metadata from a file may occur in at least one of the following situations: (1) as a result of the user driven change, such as when a file has just been modified by a user; (2) as a background process to initially import metadata from files on a volume or to update the files that may have been modified since the volume was last seen by the system, such as in the case when the volume is a removable hard drive which sometimes is connected to the system; or (3) as a result of a scan or sweep of a volume, which scan or sweep may be scheduled (e.g. scheduled in time) or not scheduled. The reduction of power consumption by a system will tend to maximize the battery life of a battery which is supplying power to a system or will reduce the amount of heat generated by the system in situations when the heat generated by the system needs to be reduced.
Generally, power consumption may be reduced by achieving, at least partially, at least one or more of the following goals: (1) doing minimal input/output operations when running on batteries; (2) not spinning up a hard disk drive when it is not spinning; (3) not keeping the drive spinning longer than it would otherwise have to spin. One exemplary embodiment uses the following technique to attempt to satisfy at least some of these goals. When indexing or importation is needed as a result of the user making a change, the disk is by definition already spinning and the data is typically in a disk cache so in many embodiments, the indexing or importation is done as soon as possible in order to achieve the first and third goals. When indexing or importation is due to a background indexing or importation, the system will let indexing or importation continue for a period of time, e.g. for two minutes, after the user action or for some other period of time if the disk or hard drive is still spinning in order to allow any short reconciliation scan or operation to complete but not allow an initial scan to make import/output operations for lengthy periods of time which might defeat the first and third goals.
Power consumption may also be reduced by performing indexing operations (and/or metadata importing/exporting operations which add or modify metadata in a metadata database) in a sequence which is determined, at least in part, by storage locations. This technique can reduce the amount of movement of the read/write head of a disk drive and thus reduce the amount of power consumption by a data processing system. An exemplary method which uses this technique may include determining storage locations of files to be indexed in indexing queues and determining one or more sequences of indexing operations based on the storage locations. This exemplary method may also be employed separately or in combination with one or more of the other methods described herein. The storage locations may be based on one or more levels of storage hierarchy. For example, if the first set of files to be indexed is on a first storage device, which has a first spindle (which rotates the media storing the first set of files), and a second set of files to be indexed is on a second storage device (e.g. another hard drive) which has a second spindle (which rotates the media storing the second set of files), then a sequence of indexing operations specifies that if the first spindle is spinning and the second spindle is not spinning, the first set of files is to be indexed before beginning to index the second set of files. Thus, the indexing tasks in an indexing queue can be examined to determine the associated storage locations and the sequence of the tasks can be based, at least in part, on the storage locations. The indexing tasks in the indexing queue can be processed in such a sequence. As a further example, indexing operations may be organized in a sequence to cause the indexing operations to continue indexing files in the same partition (e.g. on a hard drive storage media) as other files which are also stored in that partition and are currently being indexed before beginning to index files in another partition. As yet another example, indexing operations may be organized in a sequence to cause the indexing operations to continue indexing files of the same user (if those files are currently being indexed) before beginning to index files of another user; this particular example is based on an assumption that, in many cases, the same user's files will be stored in close proximity to each other (in terms of storage locations). These methods may also be employed, to reduce power consumption, when harvesting (e.g. importing) metadata for incorporation into a metadata database.
Power consumption may also be controlled by delaying indexing or metadata harvesting if there is heavy disk activity caused by other (non-indexing and non-metadata related) software. Also, a system may prioritize input/output (I/O) requests between indexing tasks and non-indexing tasks, wherein the I/O requests for non-indexing tasks receive a higher priority than the I/O requests for indexing tasks. A similar prioritization of I/O requests may be implemented for metadata related tasks and non-metadata related tasks which are given a higher priority than the metadata related tasks.
Power consumption may also be reduced by coalescing notifications (which are used to activate indexing and/or metadata harvesting) and/or determining an order to scan for files to index (or harvest metadata from). Further details regarding methods for coalescing notifications and determining an order to scan and other techniques which may be used in conjunction with power management methods are described in the copending U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 11/112,422 filed Apr. 22, 2005 by inventors Yan Arrouye, Dominic Giampaolo and Andrew Carol and entitled “Methods and Systems for Managing Data”, which application is also incorporated herein by reference. Power consumption may also be reduced by intelligently indexing files in a variety of ways described in the copending U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 11/112,280 filed Apr. 22, 2005 by inventors Yan Arrouye, Dominic Giampaolo, Andrew Carol, and Steven Zellers and entitled “Methods and Systems for Managing Data” , which application is also incorporated herein by reference.
The method of
It will be understood that a system's power state may be indicated by one or more states or parameters or measurements, including whether the system is powered by only a battery or whether the system is powered by AC power, or what the battery's state is (full of charge, half-full, nearly empty) or the heat of the system or the heat in one or more parts of the system, etc.
In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.
This application is a continuation-in-part of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/877,584, filed on Jun. 25, 2004. This application also claims priority to co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/643,087 filed on Jan. 7, 2005, which provisional application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety; this application claims the benefit of the provisional's filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e). This present application hereby claims the benefit of these earlier filing dates under 35 U.S.C. §120.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Parent | 10877584 | Jun 2004 | US |
| Child | 11112062 | US |
