Patent Grant
7743082
The present invention generally relates to computer systems, and more particularly to the storage of documents and/or content of a website.
Many contemporary companies utilize websites (e.g., corporate intranets or the like) to make company information, documents, and other content accessible to multiple users. A well organized website permits multiple authors to contribute and edit content, and provides a mechanism through which the content is made widely available.
Website content may be saved in a variety of places within an ordinary file system folder hierarchy. Often, a website is arranged so that a content contributor may elect a location within the file system folder hierarchy for saving content. The folder hierarchy may be confusing to a user, making it difficult for the user to know where to save contributed or edited content in the file system.
After saving a document, a document contributor, if given permission to do so, often edits the home page and/or sub-pages of a website to add links to the new document. The user may not understand the hierarchy of the website, which is often very different from the hierarchy of the file system folders, and may place links to the document in the wrong place, or may not place any links to the document at all. Other users will thus not be aware of the existence of, or may not be able to find, the new document. To help the contributor, or if the contributor is not allowed to place links in the website, a website administrator may place links to the document in the correct page or pages of the website. However, such administrators may not be able to timely maintain documents placed on the website, and thus become a bottleneck to efficient management of documents on the website. However, the use of an administrator is often preferred because the administrator may not want a number of users to be able to edit the home page or other pages of the web site, because the web site structure may be compromised.
If a user does not understand how to access documents on a website, or if the website is not properly maintained, the user may not be able to find a particular document. Although searching mechanisms (e.g., full text) may be used, the search mechanisms are often not appropriate for sites having a large number of documents, for example, because users generally type in too few words to effectively limit the search, and thus receive an unworkable number of matches. In addition, a search is generally only effective if the user is looking for a known file. Often, the user may not know of a file, but if a web site were properly maintained, the user may be able to successfully browse through the structure of the web site to find relevant files.
Briefly, the present invention facilitates content contribution to (and management of) a website through the use of document libraries. In general, a document library includes a database, a special “document library” file system folder, and the documents in that folder (or within subfolders of that folder). The database maintains properties of documents in the document library file system folder, and is used to dynamically update views of the document library file system folder and views of the documents themselves. Each document library folder is a folder in which content of a specified type may be read and saved. For example, one document library file system folder may contain a certain department's written specifications, another may contain the department's published whitepapers, another may contain the department's schedules, and so forth.
Each document library has its own set of properties associated therewith that are applicable to the specific kind of documents that the document library contains, and the properties become part of the metadata for the documents of that document library. The properties are maintained in the database, and the set of properties corresponding to a document library may be added to, deleted from, or modified (e.g., set with default values). To locate a document, the database may be queried (e.g., through a view page) to quickly locate documents with properties matching the query, e.g., via sort and/or filtering operations. Also associated with each document library is a template for that document library, via which new documents may be created, and a form via which properties values for each new document may be entered. The form may have default values for some or all of the properties, and some of the properties may be mandatory (i.e., requiring data), while others are optional.
A view page enables the contents of document library file system folders to be viewed. More particularly, a web view page may be constructed by binding a section of the web view page with a particular document library, or by binding the web view page with a query that is directed to the document library and that specifies documents having one or more defined properties. A web view page displays links to documents meeting the defined properties. The links on the web view page may be sorted by one or more of the properties, and one or more properties of the document may also be displayed.
Via network access software (e.g., a browser), a new document may be created or an existing document may be edited through links in the document library view. Alternatively, an editing program such as Microsoft Word may create or edit a document. In any event, when saving a document to a document library file system folder, the website server reads the form associated with each document in a document library to extract the properties of the document, saves the properties to the database, and saves the document (along with its properties) to the document library file system folder on the file system. Alternatively, the properties may be saved in the document, and then when the document is saved to the server, the properties are extracted and saved to the database. Because the document library web view page is bound to the database, the newly saved document automatically becomes viewable via the document library web view page.
Properties may be set for a document in a variety of ways, e.g., via the form associated with the document library. Saving a document to a particular folder may associate the document with a particular document library, and thus may define property fields for the document. Alternatively, a document may be “saved” to a document library via a “Save” or “Save As” user interface that displays representations of document libraries. Selecting a particular document library causes the document to be saved to the folder associated with the designated document library, and associates the property set of the document library with the document. Some of these properties may have default values, and other properties values may be entered or selected (e.g., from form fields) by a user. Properties may also be set or modified for a document while editing the document (e.g., in an application such as Microsoft Word), or when viewing the document via network access software.
Other advantages will become apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which:
Exemplary Operating Environment
Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
With reference to
A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk 29, optical disk 31, ROM 24 or RAM 25, including an operating system 35, (including a file system 36 therein and/or associated therewith), one or more application programs 37, other program modules 38 and program data 39. A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer 20 through input devices such as a keyboard 40 and pointing device 42. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 21 through a serial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port or universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 47 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 23 via an interface, such as a video adapter 48. In addition to the monitor 47, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.
The personal computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 49. The remote computer 49 may be another personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the personal computer 20, although only a memory storage device 50 has been illustrated in
When used in a LAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 is connected to the local network 51 through a network interface or adapter 53. When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 typically includes a modem 54 or other means for establishing communications over the wide area network 52, such as the Internet. The modem 54, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 23 via the serial port interface 46. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 20, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
The present invention may have particular application to a hand-held device, such as a pocket PC. In its most basic configuration, a hand-held device typically includes a processing unit 21 and read-only memory (ROM) 24 and/or random access memory (RAM) 25. Additionally, the hand-held device may also have mass storage (removable and/or non-removable) such as magnetic or optical disks or tape, described above. Similarly, the hand-held device may also have input devices such as described above and/or output devices such as a display. Other aspects of a hand-held device may include network connections to other devices, computers, networks, servers, etc. using either wired or wireless media, such as described above.
Web Server Document Library
The client computer 20 includes software for accessing content (e.g., web pages or documents) available from the website component 61. This software may be in the form of network access software 62 (e.g., a browser) and/or content editing software 64 (e.g., a word processing program such as Microsoft Word®). One or both of these software components may be provided, or their functions may be provided, in one software program.
The website component 61 includes (or, alternatively, is associated with) one or more document libraries. In general, as is described further below, a document library comprises a document library database 66, a document library file system folder 68, and documents 70 in the document library file system folder (or within subfolders of the document library file system folder). As used herein, a “document” is referred to broadly to mean a file that is produced by an application or any other content, such as image files and XML files and the like, that can be saved to a website.
The website component 61 preferably includes a plurality of document library file system folders 681-68M, wherein each document library file system folder 68 is a folder on the file system 36 in which content of a specified type may be read and saved. The document library file system folder 68 may include subfolders. For example, one document library file system folder 68 may contain a certain department's written specifications, another may contain the department's published whitepapers, another may contain the department's schedules, and so forth. Subfolders may be present, e.g., the department's schedules may be contained in different subfolders of the same document library file system folder 68.
One or more web view pages 721-72P are accessible via the web server 49. As is described further below, the web view pages 72 utilize the properties of the documents to create views of documents (i.e., provide links to the documents on the web view page).
Each document library preferably has its own set of properties. The properties are preferably any type of meta-information that may be associated with a document, e.g., meta-information such as state of a document, expire-time, work-flow assignment, arbitrary groupings made by disjoint collections of documents, and the like. The set of properties for the document library are relevant to the type of documents it contains. Each document in a document library may have no value or a valid value for each of the properties in its containing document library's property set. The values for each of the properties for a particular document make up the document's properties values set 71. Only one properties values set 71 is shown in
For example, if the document library contains documents related to motor specifications for a brand of cars, the properties for that document library may include the motor type, the author of the specification, the years in which the motor was sold, the displacement of the engine, and the like. A particular properties value set for a document may include the specific motor type, author, year(s), and displacement for a particular motor. As another example, another document library may include photos, and the set of properties for that document library may be the photographer, the date the photo was taken, the resolution of photo, the general subject (e.g., trip to China), or the like. The values for each of the properties for a particular photo make up the properties values set 71 for the photo.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a particular document library does not have a specially-defined property set. The document library serves, for example, as a “Shared Documents” library for a small website, where contributors place all the documents they want to share. In this case, the documents may all be viewed via a particular web view page. In addition, if wanted, the documents may be searched for or sorted via built-in properties like author, title, filename, creation date, etc.
The properties set for a document library may be defined as desired by the creator of a document library. In addition, the properties set corresponding to a document library may be added to, deleted from, or modified by a user having authorization. To this end, a document library may have associated therewith a properties set page 74 (
Properties values may be set for a document in a variety of ways, including manual setting of the properties by a user, or programmatic setting by action occurring on the document (e.g., saving of the document). In addition, property values may change as a result of a change in the “state” (e.g., expire-time, work-flow assignment, arbitrary groupings made by disjoint collections of documents, and the like) of a particular bit of meta-information for the document.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, properties values may be set via a properties form 82 (
Access to the properties form 82 may be provided as desired by a designer of a website, but as examples, may be accessed while editing the document via a link in the user interface of the content editing software 64, or when viewing the document via a link in the user interface of the network access software. The properties form 82 includes fields, e.g. the fields 83, 84, 86, each of which represents one of the properties in the property set for the respective document library. A properties form may be designed so that some property fields are mandatory (e.g., require data), while others may be optional. The completed fields define the properties values of the respective document. One or more of the fields 83, 84, 86 on the properties page may be set to a default value. For example, a time stamp may set a “date last revised” property. Saving a document to a particular file folder may associate the document with a particular document library, and thus may set one or more property fields to a default. For example, the documents within one folder may all include a default department (e.g., accounting) in a “departments” field. This default field may be set to “accounting” when a document is created or is saved to a document library associated with the accounting department.
Fields that are not filled by default may be completed by a user, and default fields may be changed (or may be fixed). One or more of the fields in the property set may be form fields that require selection from a field of options. For example, the Importance field 84 may include the following form field options: Low, Medium, and High.
In the example shown in
Properties values for a document may be set or changed as desired. For example, a user may be prompted to set the properties values for a document at creation or saving of the document in a word processing program. After creating or editing a document 70, if the document is not associated with a document library file system folder 68, then the user may be prompted to select a document library from a list shown via a dialog box, page, or the like. For example, a document 70 may be “saved” to a document library via a “Save” or “Save As” user interface that displays representations of document libraries. Selecting a particular document library causes the document 70 to be saved to the document library file folder 68 associated with the designated document library, and sets the properties set for the document, permitting properties values to be entered as appropriate. As described above, some of the values for the properties may be set by default, and other properties may be entered (e.g., by typing an entry) or selected (e.g., from form fields) by a user. The properties form 82 may be presented to the user so that the properties values may be entered or selected for the document.
If a new property is added to a property set by a user (e.g., via the properties set page 74), the user may have to set values for the new property for the documents already in the respective document library. Alternatively, some of the properties may be set by default for the documents in the document library, or may be set for each of the documents the next time document is accessed or saved.
The properties values set 71 is saved as part of the document, for example as metadata for the document. Alternatively, the properties value set 71 may be associated with the document in another way, e.g., maintained in a database. For example, the properties value set 71 may be maintained exclusively in the document library database 66. However, maintaining the properties value set 71 in metadata for the document permits a document to be copied to another machine or web server without losing the properties value set.
As generally shown in
The web view pages 72 may be used to access the documents 70 that are maintained in the website component 61. The web view pages 72 described herein are, for example, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) pages. HTML-created pages permit easy embedding of hyperlinks to web-based URLs or local references, and editing by a designer or a user. Note, however, there is no intention to limit the present invention to HTML, as virtually any page format language, e.g., XML (Extensible Markup Language) or DHTML (Dynamic HTML) or other page creation mechanism will suffice.
The web view pages 72 preferably provide links to one or more documents available on the web site based upon the information available in the document library database 66. More particularly, a web view page 72 may be constructed by binding a portion of the web view page with a query directed to the document library database 66. As is described further below, the document library database 66 is accessed by the web view pages 72 so as to dynamically update links to documents 70 meeting the requested or queried properties.
The document library database 66 may be accessed by a web view page 72, for example, to provide a view on the web view page of documents 70 that are contained within a particular document library file system folder 68. This structure is advantageous, because when a document is saved to a particular document library file system folder, the document automatically becomes viewable on the web page view associated with the document library. The user and/or an administrator does not have to manually add a link to the page.
As another example, the document library database 66 may be queried to provide a view of documents having similar properties values, such as documents written by a certain author. Again, this feature provides an advantage in that once a particular property or properties are set for a document, that document will automatically be displayed on a particular web view page. Thus, a contributor does not have to add links to the document within the website.
Information other than the documents in a document library may be shown on a web view page 72. For example, a section of a web view page 72b (FIG. 7—detail not shown) may be bound with a query that specifies documents having one or more defined properties. The documents may be located in the same document library, or may be distributed over more than one document library. As an example, one query may be directed to all documents having the author “John Doe.” The query may retrieve documents from two or more different document libraries.
The links to a document 70 on a web view page 72 may be sorted by one or more of the properties (e.g., date last modified). In addition, the links may include a display of one or more properties of the document. For example, as shown in
To locate a document, a search page 98 (
A template 100 (
The template 100 is associated with a document library folder, and documents based on the template default to saving to the appropriate document library folder. If the document library folder has a properties form (such as the property form 82 described above) associated therewith, the form may be used to enter or alter properties values for each new document. The properties form may have default values for some or all of the properties based upon the document library that is associated with the template. Alternatively, default values may be set based upon default settings within the template itself. These values may override the default values of the document library.
As described above, each document library includes a properties set, and saving a document into a document library folder for a document library makes the document part of that library and therefore subject to that library's property set and rules. Thus, creating a document from a template that is associated with one document library and saving the document to a second document library makes the document subject to the second document library's property set and rules.
Turning now to an explanation of the operation of the present invention,
In any event, if the document is not yet associated with one of the document libraries, then step 802 branches to step 804 where a document library is selected for the document (e.g., via a user interface that displays representations of available document libraries from which the user selects an appropriate one). After the document library is selected, step 804 branches to step 806, where the property set for the document library is assigned to the document. If the document was moved from another document library, this may involve removing some properties and/or adding others. Step 806 then branches to step 808, where a determination is made if the properties values for the document have been assigned (as described below).
If, however, the document library has been assigned for the document, then step 802 branches directly to step 808 where the properties values for the document are assigned. In either event, at step 808 a determination is made as to whether the properties values have been set for the document 70. If not, step 808 branches to step 810 where properties values are assigned (
If the properties values were previously assigned, step 808 branches directly to step 812, where the properties values are written to the document library database. The document is then saved to the document library file folder (step 814).
In any event, if there are default properties values (e.g., because of the particular document library chosen during a save command), then step 902 branches to step 904 where the default properties values are set. The process then branches to step 906, where a determination is made whether there are blank properties fields (discussed below).
If there are not properties values, then step 902 branches directly to step 906. If blank properties fields are present, then step 906 branches to step 908, where properties values may be entered. These properties may be mandatory or optional. The process then branches to step 910, where a determination is made as to whether there are form fields. If there are not blank properties fields, then step 906 branches to step 910.
If form fields are present, then step 910 branches to step 912, where a field may be selected from the available options. The user may also change default values, if allowed. It can be understood that the steps 906 to 912 may occur in any order, and, as an example, a user may fill some fields, select some property values, and/or change some default values as the user moves down a properties form 82. The user may or may not have left some entries blank or unselected.
In any event, the process branches to step 914, where the user indicates that he or she has completed the setting of the properties. If all mandatory fields have not been completed, then step 916 branches to step 918, where the fact that some fields need to be selected or values need to be entered is handled accordingly, e.g., by prompting the user to complete required fields, sending an error message, setting default values for unselected fields, or the like.
If the information matches the query, then step 1006 branches to step 1010, where property information for the document is displayed on the web view page 72. This information may be a document link, a property value, or the like. Additional HTML formatting, such as table rows and the like, may be used for each document returned by the query. If additional properties for the document are to be displayed, then step 1012 branches to step 1014 where the additional properties are retrieved and then displayed (step 1016), and displaying the web view page is complete. The process then loops back to step 1008 to determine if all documents have been checked. Also, if there are no other properties to display for the document, then step 1012 loops back to step 1008, where additional documents are checked against the query, if relevant.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative constructions, a certain illustrated embodiment thereof is shown in the drawings and has been described above in detail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit the invention to the specific form or forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.
This is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/602,818 filed Jun. 23, 2000.
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| 4503499 | Mason et al. | Mar 1985 | A |
| 5299123 | Wang | Mar 1994 | A |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20050267917 A1 | Dec 2005 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 09602818 | Jun 2000 | US |
| Child | 11174265 | US |
