GB2369543A

GB2369543A - Visual content organisation system

Info

Publication number: GB2369543A
Application number: GB0028756A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Gurpal Singh Ghuman; Deepak Kaul; Naveen Saini; Mahua Choudhury; Sandeeep Singh Ghuman
Original assignee: Cevennes S A
Current assignee: Cevennes S A
Priority date: 2000-11-24
Filing date: 2000-11-24
Publication date: 2002-05-29
Also published as: GB0028756D0

Abstract

A system for organising the visual content for consistent global access. The system includes a communication link between the application server and the client; another one between the application server and the database server; a client browser on a client system; web page engine, communication engine, database client and a security engine on the application server and a user profile database on the database server. This user may initiate establishing the communication link by logging in through the client browser and the security engine residing on the application server may authenticate the user, read the user profile from the user profiles database and read set up the user's interface accordingly. The communication engine keeps sending messages to all the users using various modes of communication including a message scroller embedded in the web browser, e-mail and SMS.

Description

VISUAL CONTENT ORGANISATION SYSTEM

Field of the Invention This invention relates generally to computer networks such as the Internet, Intranets or other networks and more particularly to the display of information at a terminal from a variety of sources.

Description of the Background Art The typical computer user wants to use the computer as a tool without being bothered by the low level intricacies of computer systems. Whilst being highly complex, computers such as PCs are intended for use by people with very little, or even no, appreciation of how the computer is operating.

In the very early days of the Internet, considerable skill was required to configure terminals for Internet access and to encode and send documents via the Internet. The World Wide Web (www) simplified Internet use by making a Web Browser a"one stop shop"for the user. This scenario has been welcomed by users and software developers alike. The success of Web Browsers is partly because the browser GUI (Graphical User Interface) is fairly simple and easy to adapt to and the contents are, to a great extent, independent of the underlying hardware/software or the particular Web Browser. In the recent market, Web Browsers are dominated by Internet Explorer (IE), provided by Microsoft Corporation and Netscape Navigator (NN) provided by Netscape Corporation.

As the power of the Browser grows, users are faced with the problem of how to organize the various resources that the user wishes to access frequently in an easily managed manner. It is not particularly difficult to build a "workstation"type application using an Application Development tool, but such an application has to be

downloaded and installed to reside on the computer in which is it used. This process of downloading and installing applications runs contrary to the very spirit of the Internet. It is also time consuming and cumbersome and can be expensive if the provider chooses to charge for the application.

We have appreciated that a typical user wishes to have a single interface to all his/her resources, whether they are web based or local. Typically, such resources are data files, e-mail, web pages and all such resources that are accessible through URLs. This single interface should be accessible to the user for anywhere, (providing location transparency), should be customizable to a reasonable extent and should be easy to use. The user also requires security; the resources owned exclusively by the user or shared with a limited number of other users must be protected against unauthorised access, pilferage, misuse, manipulation or accidental damage by other users.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In its broadest form, the invention provides for the simultaneous display of content from a number of different sources at a user terminal. More specifically there is provided a system for displaying content from a plurality of sources at a user terminal comprising: an application server connectable to the user terminal for supplying data to the user terminal for display ; a database server for providing to the application server information regarding data to be displayed at the user terminal; and a user interface sent from the application server to the display terminal, the interface having a multiple pane window including a plurality of content view panes for displaying content from a plurality of sources.

The invention also provides a user interface for a system for displaying content from a plurality of sources at a user terminal, the content being provided from an

application server in accordance with information about the user provided form a database server, the user interface comprising a multiple pane window including a plurality of content view panes for displaying, simultaneously, content from a plurality of sources.

The invention further provides a method of displaying content from a plurality of sources at a user terminal, comprising: providing at the user a user interface having a multiple pane window including a plurality of content view panes; storing at a database, logically remote from the user terminal, a set of preferred uniform resource locators (URLs) relating to content to be displayed in the content view panes ; sending the preferred URLs to the user terminal; selecting from a menu at the user interface a submenu for items from the URLs sent from the database for display; communicating the URLs of the submenu items to an application server; and serving displayable content from the submenu items URL by the application server to the user interface for display in the content view panes.

Preferred embodiments of the invention have many advantages. They enable a user to select a number of menus each having submenus of items. The interface can be customised to display, simultaneously, content provided from the URLs associated with these submenu items. The display can easily be varied by dragging a fresh URL from the submenu to a content view replica.

The customisation of the interface may be stored at a logically remote database which may supply the terminal with news and messages and which communicates via a database server at the application provider. The preferred embodiment enables user easily to view content from a number of sources and easily to change these sources. Moreover, the user is not required to run any applications at his terminal, the system being provided from the application server, preferably by applets. This has the advantage of being very easy to use and not requiring any installation overhead at the user.

The method embodying the invention establishes a communication link between the user and the application server. The method may preferably provide for access control through a Security Engine. The entry level for the user is a login interface, which may be backed up by a digital certificate on the client side for a higher security environment.

The user is provided with a user specific interface by a customisation engine at the application server. This may be achieved through user profiles which may be stored on the database server.

Preferably, the user interface is a multiple pane window that has the following hierarchy: a menu pane, which contains menu items, which themselves drop down to submenu items. These are dragable links to all the visual content the user requires to access. The user interface also has content view panes capable of displaying the visual content.

Menu panes also have a Content View Replica (CVR) which is a miniature of the content view panes and may optionally have a"new"bar, where the submenu items can be dragged to determine which content view pane will become the target for the URL associated with the submenu item.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating, schematically, a content organization system embodying the present invention; FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating schematically, details of the remote client of FIG. 1; FIG. 2a is a schematic graphic representation of the Browser Window; FIG. 3 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the application server of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the database server of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a process for visual content organization embodying the present invention; FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a process for online messaging embodying the present invention; FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a process for offline messaging embodying the present invention; FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating'the user's functionality in the context of embodiments of the present invention; and FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the process of permanently adding a customized link to User's Interface.

DESCRIPTION OF BEST MODE FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a visual content organization system 100, embodying the present invention.

The system 100 includes a network of computers, herein referred to as the Internet 130, connected to an application server 140 that is connected through a LAN (Local area Network) connection 180 to a database server 190. A remote client 110 is connected via the Internet 130 to the application server 140. The example to be described is given in the context of the Internet but it will be appreciated that the invention is applicable to any computer network.

The remote client 110 requires, in addition to its basic operating system, a web browser 120 which is configured for communicating with the Internet 130 and for reading and executing an applet to be a part of the system 100. Examples of suitable web browsers include Netscape Navigator web browser produced by Netscape Corporation, Internet Explorer produced by Microsoft Corporation, or JavaTM Developer Kit web browser produced by Sun Microsystems, Inc. It will be appreciated that apart from a web browser 120, there is no additional software required on

the client side to implement the embodiment of the invention. The embodiment is a web based solution.

The application server 140 includes a web page engine 150 such as the Apache Web Server (open source), Internet Information Server by Microsoft Corp or JavaTM Web Server by Sun Microsystems, Inc.; a database client 160 for connecting to the database server 195 over the LAN 180 ; a communication engine 170 that handles the messaging between the remote client 110 and the application server 140, and a security engine 175 which has the capability to handle Digital Certificates for secure transactions.

The database server 190 hosts any DBMS such as OracleTM from Oracle Corporation, DB2 UDB from IBM Corp or MS SQL Server from Microsoft Corp. A user profiles database 195 resides on the database server. It will be appreciated that the requirement on the server side architecture for a separate application server 140 and database server 190 is purely logical. Both may or may not reside physically on the same machine.

It will be further appreciated that the server side of the system may have additional servers for providing additional services such as data from a data vendor or news from a news vendor etc. Also, third party servers, which are connected to the system 100 through the Internet 130 may be included.

Lines 1 to 6 at the top of Figure 1 indicate data flows during operating of the system. Line 1 indicates that the remote client 110 user inputs a predetermined Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address for opening a web page managed by the web page engine 150 of the application server 140. As shown by line 2, this request causes the application server 140 to send a request to the database server 190 for the user profile data. Based on the user profile data received by the application server from the database server as shown by line 3, a response containing customization and authorization information is sent to the remote client 110 and its web browser 120 from the application server as shown

by line 4. The web browser then displays the user's interface customized for the user.

Thereafter, the remote client 110 may send other service requests to the application server 150, shown by line 5, which are serviced and the response sent as shown by line 6. An online messaging mechanism is a subset of these requests and implemented as a Comm applet downloaded as part of the customization information that sends periodic requests (and receives periodic responses) to a Comm servlet on the application server 140.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram illustrating details of the remote client 110, which includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 210 such as a Motorola Power PC microprocessor or an Intel Pentium microprocessor. An input device 220 such as a keyboard and mouse and an output device 230 such as a Cathode Ray Tube display are coupled via a signal bus 240 to CPU 210. A communication interface 250, a data storage device 260, such as Read Only Memory (ROM) and a magnetic disk, and a Random Access Memory (RAM) 270 are further connected via signal bus to CPU 210. The communication interface 250 is coupled to the Internet 130.

An operating system 280 includes a program for controlling processing by CPU 210, and is typically stored in data storage device 260 and loaded into RAM 270 for execution. Operating system 280 further includes a communication engine 282 for generating and transferring message packets to and from the Internet 130 via the communication interface 250. The communication engine 282 can also be used to configure the communications interface 250 with configuration data such as TCP protocol data and domain name server addresses etc. The operating system also includes a mail client 284 such as Microsoft Outlook Express or Eudora Pro which can be configured to receive the user's mail from the e-mail server residing on the application server 140 and a web browser 120. The web browser displays the user interface including the VCOS Tool Bar 288, VCOS

Task Bar 290, VCOS News Scroller 292 and VCOS Content Views 294 that together comprise the user's customized interface.

FIG. 2a is a schematic graphic representation of the User's interface displayed in the web browser 120. In addition to the web browser's tool bar 287 is a VCOS (Visual Content Organising System) tool bar 288 for managing all the links that are targeted to a new window or application rather than to one of the VCOS content views 296. A VCOS task bar 290 is used to manage all the windows opened through links of a menu bar 292 through, optionally, targeting them to a new window by the user. The menu bar 292 contains the menu items that can dynamically generate a submenu bar 292a containing submenu items. Also contained within the menu bar 292 is a content view replica (CVR) 292b. The CVR 292b is required to target the URLs associated with the submenu items to the correct view among the content views. This is achieved by dragging a submenu item, dropping it on one of the'boxes'on CVR 292b whereupon the corresponding content view is populated with the content from the URL associated with the submenu item. It may be noted that in addition to the'boxes'corresponding to the content views 296, the CVR 292b also has a new'box'297, which is used to target visual content to new browser windows. When such a window is created by the user, an icon is placed on the taskbar 290 which can be used to restore the window from a minimized state.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram illustrating details of the application server 140, which includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 310 such as a Motorola Power PC microprocessor or an Intel Pentium microprocessor. An input device 320 such as a keyboard and mouse and an output device 330 such as a Cathode Ray Tube display are coupled via a signal bus 340 to CPU 210. A communication interface 350, a data storage device 360, such as Read Only Memory (ROM) and a magnetic disk, and a Random Access Memory (RAM) 370 are further connected via signal bus to CPU 310. The

communication interface 350 is coupled to the Internet 130 and to the LAN 180.

An operating system 380 includes a program for controlling processing by CPU 310, and is typically stored in data storage device 360 and loaded into RAM 370 for execution. The operating system 380 further includes a web page engine 150, a database client 160, a communication engine 170 and a security engine 175. The web page engine includes an HTTPD Engine 382 for serving web pages, a servlet/JSP Engine for dynamically generating web pages, applets for downloading and other web components such as ejb components, ActiveX components, ASP components, graphic components etc. The database client 160 is required for interfacing with the database server. The communication engine 170 can be used to configure the communications interface 350 with configuration data such as TCP protocol data and domain name server addresses etc. The security engine 175 allows the application server to become a secure server.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating the details of a database server 190, which includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 410 such as a Motorola Power PC microprocessor or an Intel Pentium microprocessor. An input device 420 such as a keyboard and mouse and an output device 430 such as a Cathode Ray Tube display are coupled via a signal bus 440 to CPU 410. A communication interface 450, a data storage device 460, such as Read Only Memory (ROM) and a magnetic disk, and a Random Access Memory (RAM) 470 are further connected via signal bus to CPU 410. The communication interface 450 is coupled to the LAN 180.

An operating system 480 includes a program for controlling processing by CPU 410, and is typically stored in data storage device 460 and loaded into RAM 470 for execution. Operating system 480 further includes a database instance 485, which further includes database connections 490 and the user profiles database 195. User profiles database contains the data related to user preferences 494

such as favourite URLs, default screen settings etc ; user privileges 496 related to the level of access to be allowed to the user and the user login details such as login ID and password.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the process for visual content organization 500 embodying the present invention. The process begins with step 510 by the web browser 120 using a URL to open a communication link from the remote client 110 to the web page engine 150 of the application server 140. Upon opening the communication link, the client is prompted for login (step 520) and the user supplies the login information which in turn is sent to the application server 140. The decision 525 by the security engine first checks the login request for authenticity, prompting for re-login in case of a failure. In the event of a successful login, step 530 generates a request to the database server for the appropriate user profile from the user profiles database 195. Upon receipt of the required particulars, the user is authorized for the correct level of access in accordance with the user privileges 496 on the user profiles database 195 and the user interface is customized for the user in accordance with the user preferences 494 on the user profiles database 195 (step 540). In step 550, a scroller applet is downloaded to the client and in step 560 the online messaging mechanism is initiated.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating the details of steps 550 and 560 in the flowchart 500. In step 610, the Comm applet is downloaded to the web browser 120 of the remote client 110 from the application server 140. In step 620, the Comm applet gets activated and establishes contact with the Comm servlet on the application server 140. In. step 630, Comm servlet sends a request to the database server 190 for any new entries (news/messages) in respect of the user. In step 640, the list of entries along with the associated URLs pointing to the source of the entry is retrieved from the database server 190 and in step 650, the list is sent to the

Comm applet. The Comm applet then refreshes it's own view and starts scrolling the newly retrieved list as clickable links with the associated URLs. At this point, if the user chooses to click at any of the links, the associated URL is targeted to a new window. The whole process is repeated by the applet sending a request to the servlet periodically.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating the details of an offline messaging process, which has not been discussed earlier. The process begins with step 710 where a new message entry is received at the application server 140. It may be noted that the entry could potentially be generated at the application server 110 itself. In step 720, the entry is evaluated and the correct priority is accordingly assigned to the entry. If it is a high priority entry, a high impact, and more expensive, mode of communication is assigned whereas for more trivial messages, a low impact and cheap mode of messaging is assigned (step 730). In step 740, the messaging mechanism is finally processed.

With the preceding discussion, the User Interface functionality may now be understood from the following discussion referring to FIG. 8. The User, while logged in, can access any URLs by dragging the relevant submenu item from the submenu bar 292 to the CVR 292b (step 810). The submenu item may be dropped to either one of the replicated content views 296 of the CVR 292b (step 820) or to the new 'box'297 of the CVR 292b (step 830). If step 820 is followed, the system responds by displaying the contents in the relevant content view in one of the content view windows 296 (step 840). If step 830 is followed, in addition to displaying the contents in the new browser window 297, the system responds by placing a restore icon in the VCOS task bar 290 (step 850). The restore icon is useful in a multi windows environment because with too many windows open, the User can confuse between the VCOS windows and other windows.

Also, when the User switches to full screen mode, the windows task bar may not be available for restoring the minimized VCOS windows. By following this process of

displaying relevant information on screen, the user eventually has VCOS content views 296 populated and this state can be saved by clicking on a save settings icon on the VCOS toolbar 288 (step 860). The system then saves the User's preferred settings as part of the user preferences 494 on the user profiles database 195.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the process of customizing links 900. To add a customized link to the user interface permanently, the user drags an add to favourites submenu item and drops it on any of the VCOS CVR'boxes' (step 910) to display the add favourites page (step 920).

Then the user types in the URL and the name with which it is to be identified (step 930) and clicks on the OK button (step 940). It may be noted that the user can be given various options at this stage to browse for his/her favourite Internet or Intranet URL and then just typing in the name. In step 950, the system responds by adding the name as a submenu item to the favourites menu item and saving the URL and the name as part of the user preferences 494 on the user profiles database 195.

Thus, it will be appreciated that the embodiment described provides a user with a visual interface within which web content can be organised for easy access and display. The system is entirely server based requiring no software to be loaded at the client apart from a standard commercially available web browser. The embodiment enables the user to see a number of web pages simultaneously without having to size pages and arrange them carefully on screen which is very time consuming. The content of any of the display windows can easily be changed, further enhancing the usefulness of the system to users.

Whilst the embodiment has been described with particular reference to web browsers, it will be appreciated that it has broader applications and is also useful for viewing material on Intranets and other network systems. It is the applicants intention that the scope of the invention is limited only by the claims appended hereto.

Claims

CLAIMS 1. A system for displaying content from a plurality of sources at a user terminal comprising: an application server connectable to the user terminal for supplying data to the user terminal for display ; a database server for providing to the application server information regarding data to be displayed at the user terminal; and a user interface sent from the application server to the display terminal, the interface having a multiple pane window including a plurality of content view panes for displaying content from a plurality of sources.
2. A system according to claim 1, wherein the multiple pane window of the user interface includes a menu pane having a plurality of menu items each of which drop down to submenus, the submenu items comprising links to the visual content for display.
3. A system according to claim 2, wherein the visual content displayed in the multiple pane window comprises a sub-set of the sub-menu items.
4. A system according to claim 2 or 3 wherein the menu pane further comprises a content view replica comprising a miniature view of the content view panes.
5. A system according to claim 4, wherein the content view replica is provided on a separate bar from the menu pane, whereby submenu items may be dragged to the content view replica to determine the visual content displayed at the content view panel.
6. A system according to claims 2, 3, 4 or 5, wherein the submenu items each have an associated uniform resource locator (URL) which determines the source of the visual content displayed in the content view panels.
7. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the application server is connectable to the user terminal via a communications link.
8. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the application server is connectable to the database server via a communications link.
9. A system according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the communications link comprises the Internet.
10. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the application server comprises a database client for interfacing with the database server.
11. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the application server comprises a security engine for controlling access to the application server by users.
12. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the application server comprises a web page engine for supplying web pages to the user for display in the content view panes.
13. A system according to any of claims 1 to 12, wherein the information stored at the database server comprises a user profile including a plurality of preferences selected by the user.
14. A system according to claim 13, wherein the user preferences include favourite URLs.
15. A system according to claim 13 or 14 wherein the user preferences include default screen settings.
16. A system according to claims 13,14 or 15, wherein the user preferences include user privileges including permitted access levels.
17. A system according to claim 13,14, 15, or 16, wherein the user preferences include one or more passwords.
18. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the application server includes an online messaging mechanism for sending messages between the applications server and the user terminal.
19. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the messaging mechanism includes an applet downloaded from the application server to the user terminal, and a servlet at the application server, the servlet retrieving data from the database server and sending to the applet for display at the user terminal.
20. A system according to claim 19, wherein the data retrieved by the servlet comprises news and/or message data.
21. A system according to claim 12, wherein the web page engine comprises a web page server, and a servlet engine for dynamically generating web pages and components associated with web pages.
22. A user interface for a system for displaying content from a plurality of sources at a user terminal, the content being provided for an application server in accordance with information about the user provided from a database server, the user interface comprising a multiple pane window including a plurality of content view panes for displaying, simultaneously, content from a plurality of sources.
23. A user interface according to claim 22, wherein the multiple pane window comprises a menu pane having a number of menu items which can dynamically generate a submenu having submenu items.
24. A user interface according to claim 22, wherein the multiple pane window further comprises a tool bar.
25. A user interface according to claim 22,23 or 24 wherein the interface runs within a browser.
26. A user interface according to claim 25, wherein the browser is a world wide web browser.
27. A user interface according to any of claims 23 to 27, wherein the multiple pane window further comprises a content view replica providing a miniature view of the content view panes, the content view replica having a plurality of panes corresponding to the content view panes.
28. A user interface according to claim 27, wherein the content view replica includes an additional window for targeting visual content to a new browser window, and wherein the taskbar includes an icon relating to the new browser window for restoring the new browser window.
29. A user interface according to claim 27 or 27, wherein the content view replica targets uniform resource locators (URLs) associated with submenu item to the required content view panel.
30. A user interface according to any of claims 27 to 29, wherein the content view replica is associated with a given submenu, the interface comprising a plurality of content view replicas.
31. A user interface according to any of claim 22 to 30, wherein the submenu comprises a list of favourite web sites.
32. A user interface according to any of claims 22 to 31, wherein at least some of the menu items and submenu items are provided from a remote database at the database server.
33. A user interface according to claim 32, wherein the at least some menu items and submenu items are provided by installing an applet received from the application server.
34. A user interface according to claim 33, wherein the applet includes a list of links and associated URL's, the links being available to the user to access, whereupon the associated URL is targeted to a new window.
35. A method of displaying content from a plurality of sources at a user terminal, comprising: providing at the user a user interface having a multiple pane window including a plurality of content view panes; storing at a database, logically remote from the user terminal, a set of preferred uniform resource locators (URLs) relating to content to be displayed in the content view panes; sending the preferred URLs to the user terminal; selecting from a menu at the user interface a submenu of items from the URLs sent from the database for display ; communicating the URLs of the submenu items to an application server. ; and serving displayable content from the submenu items URL by the application server to the user interface for display in the content view panes.
36. A method according to claim 35, comprising providing at the user interface a content view replica comprising a miniature of the content view panes, and selecting the content of the content view panes by dragging URLs from the submenu items to panes of the content view replica.
37. A method according to claim 36, wherein the content view replica comprises a further pane, comprising displaying content in a new window when a URL is dragged to the further pane of the content view replica.
38. A computer program product, which, when run on a computer, provides a user interface according to any of claims 22 to 34.
39. A computer program which, when run on a computer, provides a user interface according to any of claims 22 to 34.
40. A system for displaying content from a plurality of sources, substantially as herein described with reference to figures 1 to 9 of the accompanying drawings.
41. A user interface for displaying at a computer terminal content from a plurality of sources, substantially as herein described with reference to figures 1 to 9 of the accompanying drawings.
42. A user interface for displaying within a web browser content from a plurality of sources, substantially as herein described with reference to figures 1 to 9 of the accompanying drawings.
43. A method of displaying content from a plurality of sources, substantially as herein described with reference to figures 1 to 9 of the accompanying drawings.