Patent Grant
8793232
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 perform indexing operations in response to a set, predetermined time (e.g. set by a user) or in response to an immediate user request to begin indexing operations.
Methods for managing data in a data processing system and systems for managing data are described herein.
In one aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method includes receiving, by an indexing software component, a notification that an existing file on a data storage device has been modified or a new file has been created on the data storage device and, in response to the notification, performing an indexing operation on the existing file or the new file. Preferably, the notification comprises an identifier that identifies the existing file (or the new file). In another embodiment, the notification is not based solely on time or a user input. The indexing operation may be delayed or stalled or have a reduced processing priority in response to detecting user activity. The notification may be entered into a queue for indexing operations and the queue may be saved in a non-volatile storage. Changes to the queue may be entered into a transaction log of notifications.
According to another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method for processing data includes determining a file is to be indexed into an indexing database or is to have its metadata added to a metadata database, adding an entry representing the file into a list for indexing operations (or metadata operations), and saving a list to a non-volatile storage. This method may further include removing the entry from the list after indexing the file (or after metadata operations) to create an updated list and saving the updated list to the non-volatile storage. This method may further include entering changes to the list in a transaction log. The notification may be from an operating system component which provides notification in response to storing data with respect to the file on a storage device, such as the non-volatile storage.
According to another aspect of the inventions, an exemplary method includes monitoring a user's use of a data processing system and adjusting automatically, in response to the monitoring, indexing operations or metadata processing operations. The indexing operations are typically operations which include indexing files to create entries to be added to an index database and the metadata operations typically involve the addition of metadata, for a file, into a metadata database. The indexing operations or metadata operations may be performed automatically by the data processing system in response to the notifications, which may be from an operating system component to an indexing software component or a metadata software component. Typically, fewer indexing operations are performed over a period of time as the user's use of the data processing system increases. The adjusting automatically of the indexing operations (or metadata operations) may involve changing the processing priority (e.g. through the Unix “Nice” command) of indexing software (or metadata software) relative to other software which is being executed on the data processing system. The priority of indexing operations may be changed or the priority of input/output (I/O) operations may be changed or the priorities of both operations may be changed.
According to another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method of processing data includes determining a time when an index database was last updated, wherein the index database contains content from files stored on a storage device, and determining whether files stored on the storage device have been modified or created after the time when the index database was last updated, and updating the index database for any file which was modified or created after the time when the index database was last updated. The updating may occur automatically without user interaction. A similar method may be performed to determine whether to update a metadata database.
According to another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method for processing data includes mounting a storage device and determining, automatically in response to the mounting, whether to index one or more files on the storage device. The determining whether to index one or more files may include comparing the last time of usage or closing of an index database to an un-mounting time or last write time of the storage device and may also include comparing a first time of usage or opening of the index database after the un-mounting time to a mounting time or first write time of the storage device. Typically, the index database is stored on the storage device which is being mounted. A similar method may be performed to determine whether to update a metadata database automatically in response to mounting a storage device.
According to another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method includes mounting a storage device and evaluating, after the mounting, whether to automatically index one or more files on a storage device by evaluating whether files on the storage device have been modified or new files have been added since an index database for the files on the storage device was last closed or written to.
According to another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method for processing data includes mounting a storage device and determining, automatically in response to the mounting, whether to index one or more files on the storage device without examining a record for each file indexed in the index database.
The foregoing exemplary methods may also be performed to determine whether metadata from new files or modified files need to be automatically added (e.g. imported) into a metadata database. For example, an exemplary method according to such an aspect of the inventions, includes mounting a storage device and determining, automatically in response to the mounting whether to import metadata from one or more files on the storage device.
Another exemplary method of processing data includes determining whether metadata from a file is to be imported or otherwise added into a metadata database, adding an entry representing the file into a list for importing or adding metadata from the file into the metadata database and saving the list to a non-volatile storage. The changes to the list may be entered into a transaction log, and entries in the list are removed from the list after adding metadata for the file into the metadata database.
According to another aspect of the inventions described herein, an exemplary method includes monitoring a user's use of a data processing system, and adjusting automatically, in response to the monitoring, importing or adding operations which add metadata from a file into a metadata database. Typically, the metadata database contains metadata data from a plurality of different types of files such that the type of information in metadata for files of the first type differs from the type of information in metadata for files of a second type.
Other aspects of the present invention include various data processing systems which perform these methods and machine readable media which perform one or more of these 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
The method of
The method of
The method shown in
The method shown in
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 divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/112,280, filed on Apr. 22, 2005 now U.S. Pat. No. 8,131,674, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/877,584, filed on Jun. 25, 2004, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,012. This application also claims priority to 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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