JP2009059250A - Data processing apparatus and data processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve convenience when processing a structured document. <P>SOLUTION: In a slip design terminal apparatus 300, a schema setting part 332 acquires information indicating the element structure of the structured document described by a prescribed tag set. A layout setting part 334 generates definition data for displaying an editing user interface picture for a structured document file on the basis of element structure information by converting data included in the structured document file into data described by another tag set for edition. A data input function addition part 338, when the structured document has a repeatable element, adds a data input function for inputting at least part of a table format data applied from the external as a node value of a node present in the repeatable element or the lower position of the element to the definition data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a data processing technique, and more particularly, to a data processing apparatus and method for processing data described in a markup language.

  In recent years, with the spread of computers and the advancement of network technology, the exchange of electronic information via the network has become popular. As a result, many of the business processes that have been conventionally performed on a paper basis are being replaced by network-based processes.

  Even in companies, so-called knowledge management, which utilizes personal knowledge and information throughout the organization, has become an important management technique. Many companies have in-house database systems that store information from employees in electronic files. On the other hand, employees also access files stored in this in-house database via the network. As a result, the business efficiency of the entire organization is improved.

  Many of the files stored in this in-house database are created in a language called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). In recent years, there are many examples in which these files are created using a language called XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

  HTML is a language for describing web pages. In other words, HTML is a kind of markup language that defines how to display a document file. On the other hand, XML is a language having a function for defining a data structure of data included in a document file, rather than a language for directly describing a web page like HTML. . The document file created by XML is displayed as a web page by giving display layout information separately. That is, in an XML document, the data structure and its display layout can be handled separately. A language for generating a markup language, such as XML, is also called a meta language.

XML is attracting attention as a format suitable for sharing data with others via a network or the like, and an application for creating, displaying, and editing an XML document has been developed (see, for example, Patent Document 1). ). The XML document is created based on a vocabulary (tag set) defined by a document type definition or the like.
JP 2001-290804 A

  Normally, when creating a document file by XML, first, a data structure is defined, and further, a display layout thereof is defined. For this reason, a document file created by XML can define a plurality of display layouts even if the data has the same contents.

  The display layout of a document file created by XML is defined by a language for describing a style sheet such as XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language). Alternatively, there is a method of converting an XML document file into an HTML document file by a language called XSLT (XML Stylesheet Language Transform).

  A document file created by a meta language such as XML (hereinafter, a document file having a data structure created by such a meta language, especially called a “structured document file”) has an affinity with a database. There is a merit that is high. This is because the data included in the structured document file is structured and is easily adapted to processing such as data retrieval. However, on the other hand, generally, a process for creating a document file by using a meta language such as XML and defining its display layout requires a lot of specialized knowledge, and the user is forced to bear a great burden.

  In other words, a meta-language such as XML has the potential to handle data that should be handled by multiple application software in a unified scheme, but its difficulty of learning often makes this capability difficult. It is an impediment to making it work.

  The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and a main object thereof is to provide a technique for improving user convenience when creating a structured document.

  One embodiment of the present invention relates to a data processing apparatus. The data processing apparatus includes an element structure information acquisition unit that acquires information indicating an element structure of a structured document described in a predetermined tag set, and another tag set for editing data included in the structured document. A definition data generating unit that generates definition data for displaying the user interface screen for editing the structured document based on information indicating the element structure by converting the data into When the document has repeatable elements, the definition data has a data input function for inputting at least a part of tabular data given from the outside as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing under the element. And a data input function adding unit to be added.

  The data input function may determine a correspondence relationship between the column of the tabular data and the node by analyzing the header row when the tabular data includes a header row. The data input function compares a correspondence between the column of the tabular data and the node by comparing a character string indicating the content of the column of the tabular data described in the header row with the name of the node. A relationship may be determined.

  The definition data generation unit may have a function of setting an alias for the node, and the data input function includes a character string indicating a content of a column of the tabular data described in the header row, and The correspondence relationship between the column of the tabular data and the node may be determined by comparing the alias of the node.

  Another aspect of the present invention relates to a data processing apparatus. This data processing apparatus includes a processing unit that processes a structured document described by a predetermined tag set, and, when the structured document has repeatable elements, at least a part of tabular data given from the outside, And a data input unit for inputting as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing below the element.

  Yet another embodiment of the present invention relates to a data processing method. In this data processing method, a step of obtaining information indicating an element structure of a structured document described by a predetermined tag set, and data included in the structured document are described by another tag set for editing. Generating definition data for displaying a user interface screen for editing the structured document based on information indicating the element structure by converting the data into data; and an element that the structured document can repeat If it has, a step of adding to the definition data a data input function for inputting at least part of tabular data given from the outside as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing below the element, It is characterized by providing.

  It should be noted that any combination of the above-described constituent elements and a representation of the present invention converted between a method, an apparatus, a system, etc. are also effective as an aspect of the present invention.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the technique which improves the convenience of the user at the time of creating a structured document can be provided.

(Prerequisite technology)
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a document processing apparatus 20 according to the base technology. The document processing apparatus 20 processes a structured document in which data in the document is classified into a plurality of components having a hierarchical structure. In the base technology, an example of processing an XML document as an example of a structured document will be described. . The document processing apparatus 20 includes a main control unit 22, an editing unit 24, a DOM unit 30, a CSS unit 40, an HTML unit 50, an SVG unit 60, and a VC unit 80 which is an example of a conversion unit. In terms of hardware components, these configurations are realized by a CPU of a computer, a memory, a program loaded in the memory, and the like, but here, functional blocks realized by their cooperation are illustrated. Accordingly, those skilled in the art will understand that these functional blocks can be realized in various forms by hardware only, software only, or a combination thereof.

  The main control unit 22 provides a framework for loading plug-ins and executing commands. The editing unit 24 provides a framework for editing the XML document. The document display and editing functions in the document processing apparatus 20 are realized by plug-ins, and necessary plug-ins are loaded by the main control unit 22 or the editing unit 24 according to the type of the document. The main control unit 22 or the editing unit 24 refers to the name space of the XML document to be processed, determines which vocabulary the XML document is described in, and a display or editing plug corresponding to the vocabulary Load the in to display and edit. For example, the document processing apparatus 20 has a display system and an editing system as plug-ins for each vocabulary (tag set) such as an HTML unit 50 that displays and edits HTML documents and an SVG unit 60 that displays and edits SVG documents. The HTML unit 50 is loaded when editing an HTML document, and the SVG unit 60 is loaded when editing an SVG document. As will be described later, when a compound document including both HTML and SVG components is to be processed, both the HTML unit 50 and the SVG unit 60 are loaded.

  According to such a configuration, the user can select and install only necessary functions, and can add or delete functions as appropriate later, so that the storage area of a recording medium such as a hard disk for storing the program is effective. In addition, it is possible to prevent the memory from being wasted when executing the program. In addition, it has excellent function extensibility, and as a development entity, it is possible to handle new vocabularies in the form of plug-ins, making development easier, and as a user, adding plug-ins makes it easy and low-cost. Functions can be added.

  The editing unit 24 receives an editing instruction event from the user via the user interface, notifies the event to an appropriate plug-in, and performs processing such as event re-execution (redo) or execution cancellation (undo). Control.

  The DOM unit 30 includes a DOM providing unit 32, a DOM generation unit 34, and an output unit 36, and is a document object model (DOM) defined for providing an access method when handling an XML document as data. Realize functions that comply with. The DOM providing unit 32 is an implementation of DOM that satisfies the interface defined in the editing unit 24. The DOM generation unit 34 generates a DOM tree from the XML document. As will be described later, when the XML document to be processed is mapped to another vocabulary by the VC unit 80, the source tree corresponding to the mapping source XML document and the destination tree corresponding to the mapping destination XML document Is generated. The output unit 36 outputs the DOM tree as an XML document at the end of editing, for example.

  The CSS unit 40 includes a CSS analysis unit 42, a CSS providing unit 44, and a rendering unit 46, and provides a display function compliant with CSS. The CSS analysis unit 42 has a parser function of analyzing the CSS syntax. The CSS providing unit 44 is an implementation of a CSS object, and performs a CSS cascade process on the DOM tree. The rendering unit 46 is a CSS rendering engine, and is used to display a document described in a vocabulary such as HTML that is laid out using the CSS.

  The HTML unit 50 displays or edits a document described in HTML. The SVG unit 60 displays or edits a document described in SVG. These display / editing systems are realized in the form of plug-ins, and display units (Canvas) 56 and 66 for displaying documents, and control units (Editlet) 52 and 62 for transmitting and receiving events including editing instructions, respectively. Editing units (Zone) 54 and 64 that receive editing commands and edit the DOM. When the control unit 52 or 62 receives a DOM tree editing command from the outside, the editing unit 54 or 64 changes the DOM tree, and the display unit 56 or 66 updates the display. These have a configuration similar to a framework called MVC (Model-View-Controller). In general, the display units 56 and 66 are “View”, the control units 52 and 62 are “Controller”, and the editing unit. The entities 54 and 64 and DOM correspond to “Model”, respectively. The document processing apparatus 20 of the base technology enables not only editing the XML document in a tree display format but also editing according to each vocabulary. For example, the HTML unit 50 provides a user interface for editing an HTML document in a manner similar to a word processor, and the SVG unit 60 provides a user interface for editing an SVG document in a manner similar to an image drawing tool. To do.

  The VC unit 80 includes a mapping unit 82, a definition file acquisition unit 84, and a definition file generation unit 86. By mapping a document described in a certain vocabulary to another vocabulary, a display corresponding to the mapping destination vocabulary Provides a framework for displaying or editing a document with an editing plug-in. In the base technology, this function is called vocabulary connection (VC). The definition file acquisition unit 84 acquires a script file describing a mapping definition. This definition file describes the correspondence (connection) between nodes for each node. At this time, whether or not the element value and attribute value of each node can be edited may be designated. Also, an arithmetic expression using the element value or attribute value of the node may be described. These functions will be described in detail later. The mapping unit 82 refers to the script file acquired by the definition file acquisition unit 84, causes the DOM generation unit 34 to generate a destination tree, and manages the correspondence between the source tree and the destination tree. The definition file generator 86 provides a graphical user interface for the user to generate a definition file.

  When the VC unit 80 monitors the connection between the source tree and the destination tree and receives an editing instruction from the user via the user interface provided by the plug-in responsible for display, the VC unit 80 first selects the corresponding node of the source tree. change. When the DOM unit 30 issues a mutation event to the effect that the source tree has been changed, the VC unit 80 receives the mutation event, and the node changed to synchronize the destination tree with the change of the source tree. Change the destination tree node corresponding to. A plug-in for displaying / editing the destination tree, for example, the HTML unit 50, receives a mutation event indicating that the destination tree has been changed, and updates the display with reference to the changed destination tree. With such a configuration, even a document described in a local vocabulary used by a small number of users can be displayed by converting it to another major vocabulary, and an editing environment is provided. Is done.

  An operation for displaying or editing a document by the document processing apparatus 20 will be described. When the document processing apparatus 20 reads a document to be processed, the DOM generation unit 34 generates a DOM tree from the XML document. Further, the main control unit 22 or the editing unit 24 determines the vocabulary describing the document with reference to the name space. If a plug-in corresponding to the vocabulary is installed in the document processing apparatus 20, the plug-in is loaded to display / edit the document. If the plug-in is not installed, check whether the mapping definition file exists. When the definition file exists, the definition file acquisition unit 84 acquires the definition file, generates a destination tree according to the definition, and displays / edits the document by the plug-in corresponding to the mapping destination vocabulary. In the case of a compound document including a plurality of vocabularies, corresponding portions of the document are displayed / edited by plug-ins corresponding to the respective vocabularies, as will be described later. If the definition file does not exist, the document source or tree structure is displayed, and editing is performed on the display screen.

  FIG. 2 shows an example of an XML document to be processed. This XML document is used to manage student performance data. The component “score” which is the top node of the XML document has a plurality of component “students” provided for each student under the subordinate. The component “student” has an attribute value “name” and child elements “national language”, “mathematics”, “science”, and “society”. The attribute value “name” stores the name of the student. The constituent elements “Japanese language”, “Mathematics”, “Science”, and “Society” store the results of Japanese language, mathematics, science, and society, respectively. For example, a student whose name is “A” has a national language grade of “90”, a mathematics grade of “50”, a science grade of “75”, and a social grade of “60”. Hereinafter, the vocabulary (tag set) used in this document is referred to as a “results management vocabulary”.

  Since the document processing apparatus 20 of the base technology does not have a plug-in that supports display / editing of the grade management vocabulary, in order to display this document by a method other than source display and tree display, the VC function described above is used. Used. That is, it is necessary to prepare a definition file for mapping the grade management vocabulary to another vocabulary provided with a plug-in, such as HTML or SVG. A user interface for the user himself to create a definition file will be described later, and here, the description will proceed assuming that a definition file has already been prepared.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of mapping the XML document shown in FIG. 2 to a table described in HTML. In the example of FIG. 3, the “student” node of the grade management vocabulary is associated with a row (“TR” node) of a table (“TABLE” node) in HTML, and an attribute value “name” is assigned to the first column of each row. The second column contains the element values of the “National Language” node, the third column the element values of the “Mathematics” node, the fourth column the element values of the “Science” node, and the fifth column “Society”. The node element values are associated with each other. Thereby, the XML document shown in FIG. 2 can be displayed in an HTML table format. These attribute values and element values are specified to be editable, and the user can edit these values using the editing function of the HTML unit 50 on the HTML display screen. In the sixth column, an arithmetic expression for calculating a weighted average of national language, mathematics, science and social results is designated, and the average score of the students' results is displayed. In this way, by making it possible to specify an arithmetic expression in the definition file, more flexible display is possible and user convenience during editing can be improved. Note that the sixth column specifies that editing is not possible, and only the average score cannot be edited individually. As described above, by making it possible to specify whether or not editing can be performed in the mapping definition, it is possible to prevent an erroneous operation by the user.

  4A and 4B show examples of definition files for mapping the XML document shown in FIG. 2 to the table shown in FIG. This definition file is described in a script language defined for the definition file. In the definition file, command definitions and display templates are described. In the example of FIGS. 4A and 4B, “add student” and “delete student” are defined as commands, respectively, an operation of inserting a node “student” into the source tree, An operation for deleting the node “student” is associated. As a template, it is described that headings such as “name” and “national language” are displayed on the first line of the table, and the contents of the node “student” are displayed on and after the second line. In the template that displays the contents of the node "Student", the term described as "text-of" means "editable" and the term described as "value-of" is "not editable" It means that. In the sixth column of the row displaying the contents of the node “Student”, the formula “(src: Japanese + src: Mathematics + src: Science + src: Society) div 4” is described. , Which means that the average of the student's grades is displayed.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of a screen in which the XML document described in the grade management vocabulary shown in FIG. 2 is mapped and displayed in HTML according to the correspondence shown in FIG. In each row of Table 90, from the left, the name of each student, national language grade, mathematics grade, science grade, social grade, and average score are displayed. The user can edit the XML document on this screen. For example, when the value of the second row and third column is changed to “70”, the element value of the source tree corresponding to this node, that is, the math grade of the student “B” is changed to “70”. At this time, the VC unit 80 changes the corresponding part of the destination tree so that the destination tree follows the source tree, and the HTML unit 50 updates the display based on the changed destination tree. Therefore, also in the table on the screen, the mathematics score of the student “B” is changed to “70”, and the average score is changed to “55”.

  On the screen shown in FIG. 5, commands “add student” and “delete student” are displayed in the menu as defined in the definition file shown in FIGS. When the user selects these commands, the node “student” is added or deleted in the source tree. As described above, the document processing apparatus 20 of the base technology can edit not only the element value of the component at the end of the hierarchical structure but also the hierarchical structure. Such a tree structure editing function may be provided to the user in the form of a command. Further, for example, a command for adding or deleting a table row may be associated with an operation for adding or deleting the node “student”. In addition, a command for embedding another vocabulary may be provided to the user. Using this table as an input template, new student grade data can be added in the form of hole filling. As described above, the VC function makes it possible to edit a document described in the grade management vocabulary while using the display / editing function of the HTML unit 50.

  FIG. 6 shows an example of a graphical user interface that the definition file generator 86 presents to the user in order for the user to generate a definition file. In the area 91 on the left side of the screen, the XML document that is the mapping source is displayed as a tree. An area 92 on the right side of the screen shows the screen layout of the XML document to be mapped. This screen layout can be edited by the HTML unit 50, and the user creates a screen layout for displaying a document in the area 92 on the right side of the screen. Then, for example, by using a pointing device such as a mouse, a node of the mapping source XML document displayed in the area 91 on the left side of the screen is dragged and dropped into the screen layout by HTML displayed in the area 92 on the right side of the screen. Thus, the connection between the mapping source node and the mapping destination node is designated. For example, when “mathematics” which is a child element of the element “student” is dropped on the first row and the third column of the table 90 of the HTML screen, the connection is made between the “math” node and the “TD” node in the third column. Is stretched. Each node can be designated for editing. An arithmetic expression can also be embedded in the display screen. When the editing of the screen is finished, the definition file generator 86 generates a definition file describing the screen layout and the connection between the nodes.

  Viewers and editors corresponding to major vocabularies such as XHTML, MathML, and SVG have already been developed, but viewers and editors corresponding to documents described in original vocabulary such as the document shown in FIG. 2 are developed. Is not realistic. However, if a definition file for mapping to other vocabularies is created as described above, the document described in the original vocabulary can be displayed using the VC function without developing a viewer or editor. Can be edited.

  FIG. 7 shows another example of the screen layout generated by the definition file generator 86. In the example of FIG. 7, a table 90 and a pie chart 93 are created on a screen for displaying an XML document described in the grade management vocabulary. This pie chart 93 is described in SVG. As will be described later, since the document processing apparatus 20 of the base technology can process a compound document including a plurality of vocabularies in one XML document, a table 90 described in HTML as in this example, and , A pie chart 93 written in SVG can be displayed on one screen.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of an XML document editing screen by the document processing apparatus 20. In the example of FIG. 8, one screen is divided into a plurality of parts, and XML documents to be processed are displayed in a plurality of different display formats in the respective areas. An area 94 displays the source of the document, an area 95 displays the tree structure of the document, and an area 96 displays a table described in HTML shown in FIG. . Documents can be edited on any of these screens. When the user edits on any of these screens, the source tree is changed, and the plug-in responsible for displaying each screen is changed to the source tree. Update the screen to reflect your changes. Specifically, as a listener for a mutation event that notifies a change in the source tree, a display unit of a plug-in responsible for displaying each editing screen is registered, and the source is generated by any plug-in or VC unit 80. When the tree is changed, all display units displaying the edit screen receive the issued mutation event and update the screen. At this time, if the plug-in is displaying by the VC function, the VC unit 80 changes the destination tree following the change of the source tree, and then refers to the changed destination tree to change the plug-in. The display unit updates the screen.

  For example, when the source display and tree display are realized by a dedicated plug-in, the source display plug-in and the tree display plug-in do not use the destination tree, but directly display the source tree. Do. In this case, when editing is performed on any of the screens, the source display plug-in and the tree display plug-in update the screen with reference to the changed source tree and are in charge of the screen of the region 96. The HTML unit 50 updates the screen by referring to the changed destination tree following the change of the source tree.

  The source display and tree display can also be realized using the VC function. In other words, the source and tree structure may be laid out in HTML, the XML document may be mapped to the HTML, and displayed by the HTML unit 50. In this case, three destination trees of a source format, a tree format, and a table format are generated. When editing is performed on any of the screens, the VC unit 80 changes the source tree, then changes each of the three destination trees in the source format, tree format, and table format, and the HTML unit 50 sets the destination tree. 3 screens are updated with reference to the nation tree.

  As described above, the convenience of the user can be improved by displaying the document in a plurality of display formats on one screen. For example, the user can display and edit the document in a visually easy-to-understand format using the table 90 or the like while grasping the hierarchical structure of the document by the source display or the tree display. In the above example, one screen is divided and screens in a plurality of display formats are simultaneously displayed. However, a screen in one display format may be displayed on one screen, and the display format may be switched according to a user instruction. . In this case, the main control unit 22 receives a display format switching request from the user, and instructs each plug-in to switch the display.

  FIG. 9 shows another example of an XML document edited by the document processing apparatus 20. In the XML document shown in FIG. 9, the XHTML document is embedded in the “foreignObject” tag of the SVG document, and further, the mathematical formula described in MathML is included in the XHTML document. In such a case, the editing unit 24 refers to the name space and distributes the drawing work to an appropriate display system. In the example of FIG. 9, the editing unit 24 first causes the SVG unit 60 to draw a rectangle, and then causes the HTML unit 50 to draw an XHTML document. Further, a mathematical expression is drawn in a MathML unit (not shown). Thus, a compound document including a plurality of vocabularies is appropriately displayed. The display result is shown in FIG.

  During document editing, the displayed menu may be switched according to the position of the cursor (carriage). That is, when the cursor exists in the area where the SVG document is displayed, the menu defined by the menu provided by the SVG unit 60 or the definition file for mapping the SVG document is displayed, and the cursor is displayed in the XHTML. When the document exists in the displayed area, a menu provided by the HTML unit 50 or a command defined in a definition file for mapping the XHTML document is displayed. Thereby, an appropriate user interface can be provided according to the editing position.

  If there is no appropriate plug-in or mapping definition file corresponding to a certain vocabulary in the compound document, the portion described by the vocabulary may be displayed in the source display or the tree display. Previously, when opening a compound document in which another document was embedded in one document, the contents could not be displayed unless an application that displayed the embedded document was installed. Even if there is no application for the purpose, the content can be grasped by displaying the XML document composed of the text data as a source or a tree. This is a characteristic unique to text-based documents such as XML.

  Another advantage of the data being described in the text base is that, for example, in a part described by a certain vocabulary in a compound document, data in a part described by another vocabulary in the same document can be referred to. Good. In addition, when a search is executed in a document, a character string embedded in a figure such as SVG can be a search target.

  A tag of another vocabulary may be used in a document described by a certain vocabulary. This XML document is not valid, but can be processed as a valid XML document if it is well-formed. In this case, the tag of another inserted vocabulary may be mapped by the definition file. For example, tags such as “important” and “most important” may be used in an XHTML document, and a portion surrounded by these tags may be highlighted, or may be sorted and displayed in order of importance. Good.

  When the document is edited by the user on the editing screen shown in FIG. 10, the plug-in or VC unit 80 in charge of the edited part changes the source tree. In the source tree, a listener for a mutation event can be registered for each node. Normally, a plug-in display unit or VC unit 80 corresponding to the vocabulary to which each node belongs is registered as a listener. When the source tree is changed, the DOM providing unit 32 traces from the changed node to a higher hierarchy, and if there is a registered listener, issues a mutation event to the listener. For example, in the document shown in FIG. 9, when a node below the <html> node is changed, a mutation event is notified to the HTML unit 50 registered as a listener in the <html> node, and the higher order node is also displayed. The mutation event is also notified to the SVG unit 60 registered as a listener in the <svg> node. At this time, the HTML unit 50 updates the display with reference to the changed source tree. The SVG unit 60 may ignore the mutation event because the node belonging to its own vocabulary has not been changed.

  Depending on the contents of editing, the overall layout may change as the display is updated by the HTML unit 50. In this case, the layout of the display area for each plug-in is updated by a configuration for managing the layout of the screen, for example, a plug-in responsible for displaying the top node. For example, when the display area by the HTML unit 50 becomes larger than before, the HTML unit 50 first draws a part that it is in charge of and determines the size of the display area. Then, the configuration managing the screen layout is notified of the size of the display area after the change, and the layout is requested to be updated. Upon receiving the notification, the configuration for managing the screen layout re-lays out the display area for each plug-in. In this way, the display of the edited part is appropriately updated, and the layout of the entire screen is updated.

  Next, a functional configuration for realizing the document processing apparatus 20 of the base technology will be described in more detail. In the following description, when describing a class name or the like, it will be described using alphabetic characters as they are.

A. Overview With the advent of the Internet, the number of documents processed and managed by users has increased almost exponentially. The web (World Wide Web) that forms the core of the Internet has become a big receiver of such document data. In addition to documents, the web provides information retrieval systems for such documents. These documents are usually written in a markup language. One simple and popular example of a markup language is HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Such documents further include links to other documents stored elsewhere on the web. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a more advanced and popular markup language. Simple browsers for accessing and browsing web documents have been developed in object-oriented programming languages such as Java.

  Documents written in a markup language are usually expressed in the form of a tree data structure in browsers and other applications. This structure corresponds to a tree resulting from parsing the document. DOM (Document Object Model) is a well-known tree-based data structure model used to represent and manipulate documents. DOM provides a standard set of objects for representing documents, including HTML and XML documents. DOM includes two basic components: a standard model of how objects representing components in a document are connected, and a standard interface for accessing and manipulating those objects.

  An application developer can support DOM as an interface to a unique data structure or API (Application Program Interface). On the other hand, application developers who create documents can use the DOM standard interface rather than the proprietary interface of their API. Thus, due to its ability to provide standards, DOM is effective in facilitating interoperability of documents in various environments, particularly the web. Several versions of DOM have been defined and are used by different programming environments and applications.

  A DOM tree is a hierarchical representation of a document based on the contents of the corresponding DOM. A DOM tree includes a “root” and one or more “nodes” that originate from the root. In some cases, the root represents the entire document. Intermediate nodes can represent elements such as a table and rows and columns in the table, for example. A “leaf” in a DOM tree usually represents data such as text or an image that cannot be further decomposed. Each node in the DOM tree may be associated with an attribute that describes the parameters of the element represented by the node, such as font, size, color, indentation, etc.

  HTML is a language generally used to create a document, but is a language for formatting and layout, not a language for data description. The node of the DOM tree that represents an HTML document is an element that is predefined as an HTML formatting tag. Normally, HTML does not provide functions for data detailing or data tagging / labeling. It is often difficult to formulate queries for data in HTML documents.

  The goal of network designers is to allow documents on the web to be queried and processed by software applications. Regardless of the display method, any hierarchically structured language can be queried and processed as such. A markup language such as XML (eXtensible Markup Language) can provide these features.

  Contrary to HTML, a well-known advantage of XML is that data designers can label data elements using “tags” that can be freely defined by the document designer. Such data elements can be structured hierarchically. Further, an XML document can include a document type definition that describes the tags used in the document and the “grammar” of their interrelationships. CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) or XSL (XML Style Language) is used to define the display method of the structured XML document. Additional information about DOM, HTML, XML, CSS, XSL and related language features can also be obtained from the web. (For example, http://www.w3.org/TR/)

  Xpath provides common syntax and semantics for specifying the location of parts of an XML document. An example of functionality is traversing (moving) a DOM tree corresponding to an XML document. It provides basic functionality for manipulating strings, numbers, and Boolean characters associated with various representations of XML documents. Xpath operates in an abstract / logical structure such as a DOM tree, rather than an apparent syntax of an XML document, for example, a grammar indicating what line or character when viewed as text. By using Xpath, a location can be specified through a hierarchical structure in the DOM tree of an XML document, for example. In addition to its use for addressing, Xpath is also designed to be used to test whether a node in a DOM tree matches a pattern. More details about XPath can be obtained at http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath.

  The known advantages and features of XML can handle documents written in a markup language (eg, XML) and provide an effective user-friendly interface for creating and modifying documents. What is needed is a document processing system.

Some of the system configurations described here are described using a well-known GUI (Graphical User Interface) paradigm called Model-View-Controller (MVC). The MVC paradigm divides an application or part of an application interface into three parts: a model, a view, and a controller. MVC was originally developed to assign traditional input, processing, and output roles to the GUI world.
[Input] → [Process] → [Output]
[Controller] → [Model] → [View]

  According to the MVC paradigm, external modeling, visual feedback to the user, and user input are handled separately by the model (M), view (V), and controller (C) objects. The controller acts to interpret input such as mouse and keyboard input from the user and map these user actions to commands sent to the model and / or view to effect the appropriate changes. The model acts to manage one or more data elements, responds to queries about its state, and responds to instructions to change the state. The view acts to manage a rectangular area of the display and has a function of presenting data to the user by a combination of graphics and text.

B. Overall Configuration of Document Processing System An embodiment of a document processing system will be clarified with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 11A shows a conventional configuration example of elements that function as a basis of a document processing system of the type described later. Configuration 10 includes a processor in the form of a CPU or microprocessor 11 connected to memory 12 by communication path 13. The memory 12 may be in the form of any ROM and / or RAM that is available now or in the future. The communication path 13 is typically provided as a bus. A user input device 14 such as a mouse, a keyboard, a voice recognition system, and an input / output interface 16 for the display device 15 (or other user interface) are also connected to a bus for communication between the processor 11 and the memory 12. This configuration may be a stand-alone, a networked form in which a plurality of terminals and one or more servers are connected, or may be configured by any known method. The present invention is not limited by the placement of these components, the centralized or distributed architecture, or the communication method of the various components.

  Further, the present system and the embodiments discussed herein are discussed as including several components and subcomponents that provide various functionalities. These components and subcomponents can be realized not only by a combination of hardware and software, but also by hardware alone or software alone to provide the noted functionality. Furthermore, the hardware, software, and combinations thereof can be realized by general-purpose computing devices, dedicated hardware, or combinations thereof. Accordingly, the configuration of a component or subcomponent includes a general purpose / dedicated computing device that executes specific software to provide the functionality of the component or subcomponent.

  FIG. 11B shows an overall block diagram of an example of a document processing system. A document is generated and edited in such a document processing system. These documents may be described in any language having a markup language feature, such as XML. Also, for convenience, specific component and subcomponent terms and titles have been created. However, these should not be construed to limit the scope of the general teachings of this disclosure.

  The document processing system can be regarded as having two basic configurations. The first configuration is an “execution environment” 101 that is an environment in which the document processing system operates. For example, the execution environment provides basic utilities and functions that support the system as well as the user during document processing and management. The second configuration is an “application” 102 composed of applications running in the execution environment. These applications include the document itself and various representations of the document.

1. Execution Environment A key component of the execution environment 101 is a ProgramInvoker (program invoker: program activation unit) 103. The ProgramInvoker 103 is a basic program that is accessed to start the document processing system. For example, when the user logs on to the document processing system and starts, the ProgramInvoker 103 is executed. For example, the ProgramInvoker 103 can read and execute a function added as a plug-in to the document processing system, start and execute an application, or read a property related to a document. The function of ProgramInvoker103 is not limited to these. When the user wants to launch an application that is intended to be executed in the execution environment, the ProgramInvoker 103 finds the application, launches it and executes the application.

  Some components such as a plug-in subsystem 104, a command subsystem 105, and a resource module 109 are attached to the ProgramInvoker 103. These configurations will be described in detail below.

a) Plug-in Subsystem The plug-in subsystem 104 is used as a highly flexible and efficient configuration for adding functionality to a document processing system. The plug-in subsystem 104 can also be used to modify or delete functions that exist in the document processing system. In addition, a wide variety of functions can be added or modified using the plug-in subsystem. For example, an Editlet (editlet) function that functions to support drawing of a document on the screen can be added. The Editlet plug-in also supports editing vocabularies that are added to the system.

  The plug-in subsystem 104 includes a Service Broker (service broker: service mediation unit) 1041. The Service Broker 1041 mediates services added to the document processing system by managing plug-ins added to the document processing system.

  Individual functions that achieve the desired functionality are added to the system in the form of a Service 1042. The types of Service 1042 that can be used are: Application service, ZoneFactory (zone factory: zone generator) Service, Editlet (editlet: editor) Service, CommandFactory (command factory: command generator) Service, ConnectXPath (Connect XPath) : XPath management unit) Service, CSSComputation (CSS computing: CSS calculation unit) Service, etc., but are not limited thereto. These Services and other configurations of the system and their relationship are detailed below for a better understanding of the document processing system.

  The relationship between the plug-in and Service is as follows. A plug-in is a unit that can include one or more ServiceProviders (service providers: service providing units). Each ServiceProvider has one or more classes of Service associated with it. For example, by using a single plug-in with the appropriate software application, one or more services can be added to the system, thereby adding corresponding functionality to the system.

b) Command Subsystem The command subsystem 105 is used to execute instructions in the form of commands related to document processing. A user can execute an operation on a document by executing a series of instructions. For example, a user edits an XML DOM tree corresponding to an XML document in the document processing system by issuing an instruction in the form of a command, and processes the XML document. These commands may be entered using keystrokes, mouse clicks, or other valid user interface actions. One or more instructions may be executed by one command. In this case, these instructions are wrapped (contained) into one command and executed successively. For example, assume that the user wants to replace an incorrect word with a correct word. In this case, the first instruction is to find the wrong word in the document, the second instruction is to delete the wrong word, and the third instruction is to insert the correct word It may be. These three instructions may be wrapped in one command.

  The command may have an associated function, for example, an “Undo” function which will be described in detail later. These functions may also be assigned to some base classes that are used to create objects.

  A key component of the command subsystem 105 is a CommandInvoker (command invoker: command activation unit) 1051 that selectively gives a command and executes it. Although only one CommandInvoker is shown in FIG. 11B, one or more CommandInvokers may be used and one or more commands may be executed simultaneously. The CommandInvoker 1051 holds functions and classes necessary for executing a command. In operation, a Command 1052 to be executed is loaded into a Queue 1053. CommandInvoker creates a command thread that runs continuously. If there is no Command already executed in CommandInvoker, Command1052 intended to be executed by CommandInvoker1051 is executed. If CommandInvoker is already executing a command, the new Command is stacked at the end of Queue 1053. However, each CommandInvoker 1051 executes only one Command at a time. If execution of the specified Command fails, the CommandInvoker 1051 executes exception processing.

  Command types executed by the CommandInvoker 1051 include, but are not limited to, an UndoableCommand (undoable command) 1054, an AsynchronousCommand (asynchronous command) 1055, and a VCCommand (VC command) 1056. The UndoableCommand 1054 is a command that can cancel the result of the command if the user desires it. Examples of UndoableCommands include cut, copy, and insert text. In operation, when a user selects a part of a document and applies a cut command to that part, use the UndoableCommand to make the cut part "not cut" if necessary. Can do.

  The VCCommand 1056 is stored in a vocabulary connection descriptor (VCD) script file. These are user-specified commands that can be defined by the programmer. The Command may be, for example, a more abstract command combination for adding an XML fragment, deleting an XML fragment, or setting an attribute. These commands are specifically focused on document editing.

  AsynchronousCommand 1055 is a command from the system, such as loading and saving of a document, and is executed asynchronously separately from UndoableCommand and VCCommand. AsynchronousCommand is not an UndoableCommand and cannot be undone.

c) Resources
Resource 109 is an object that provides several functions to various classes. For example, string resources, icons, and default key bindings are examples of resources used in the system.

2. Application Component The application component 102 which is the second main feature of the document processing system is executed in the execution environment 101. Application component 102 includes the actual document and various logical and physical representations of the document in the system. In addition, the application component 102 includes the configuration of the system used to manage documents. The application component 102 further includes a UserApplication (user application) 106, an application core 108, a user interface 107, and a CoreComponent (core component) 110.

a) User application
The UserApplication 106 is loaded on the system together with the ProgramInvoker 103. The UserApplication 106 is an adhesive that connects a document, various expressions of the document, and a user interface necessary for interacting with the document. For example, suppose a user wants to generate a set of documents that are part of a project. When these documents are loaded, an appropriate representation of the document is generated. The user interface function is added as part of the UserApplication 106. In other words, UserApplication 106 holds both a representation of the document that allows the user to interact with the document that forms part of the project, and various aspects of the document. Once the UserApplication 106 is created, the user can easily load the UserApplication 106 on the execution environment whenever the user wants to interact with a document that forms part of the project.

b) Core components
The CoreComponent 110 provides a method for sharing a document among a plurality of panes (panes). As detailed later, Pane displays the DOM tree and handles the physical layout of the screen. For example, a physical screen consists of a plurality of panes in the screen that depict individual pieces of information. Documents that are visible to the user from the screen can appear in one or more panes. Also, two different documents may appear on two different panes on the screen.

  As shown in FIG. 11C, the physical layout of the screen is also in the form of a tree. A Pane can be a RootPane (root pane) 1084 or a SubPane (subpane) 1085. The RootPane 1084 is a Pane corresponding to the root of the Pane tree, and the SubPane 1085 is an arbitrary Pane other than the RootPane 1084.

  CoreComponent 110 further provides fonts and serves as a source for multiple functional operations for documents, such as toolkits. An example of a task executed by the CoreComponent 110 is moving the mouse cursor between a plurality of panes. Another example of a task to be performed is to mark a part of a document in one Pane and copy it onto another Pane that contains a different document.

c) Application Core As described above, the application component 102 is composed of documents that are processed and managed by the system. This includes various logical and physical representations of documents within the system. The application core 108 is a configuration of the application component 102. Its function is to keep the actual document with all the data it contains. The application core 108 includes DocumentManager (document manager: document management unit) 1081 and Document (document: document) 1082 itself.

  Various aspects of DocumentManager 1081 are described in detail below. The DocumentManager 1081 manages the Document 1082. The DocumentManager 1081 is also connected to a RootPane 1084, a SubPane 1085, a ClipBoard (clipboard) utility 1087, and a SnapShot (snapshot) utility 1088. The ClipBoard utility 1087 provides a way to keep the portion of the document that the user has decided to add to the clipboard. For example, a user may want to cut a portion of a document and save it in a new document for later review. In such a case, the clipped part is added to ClipBoard.

  Next, the SnapShot utility 1088 will also be described. The SnapShot utility 1088 can store the current state of the application when the application shifts from one state to another state.

d) User Interface Another configuration of the application component 102 is a user interface 107 that provides a means for the user to physically interact with the system. For example, the user interface is used by a user to upload, delete, edit, and manage documents. The user interface includes a frame 1071, a menu bar 1072, a status bar 1073, and a URL bar 1074.

  The Frame 1071 is regarded as an active area of a physical screen as is generally known. MenuBar 1072 is a screen area that includes a menu that provides selection to the user. The StatusBar 1073 is a screen area that displays the execution state of the application. URLBar 1074 provides an area for entering a URL address for navigating the Internet.

C. Document Management and Related Data Structure FIG. 12 shows details of the DocumentManager 1081. This includes the data structure and organization used to represent the document within the document processing system. For clarity, the configuration described in this subsection is described using the MVC paradigm.

  The DocumentManager 1081 includes a DocumentContainer (document container: document container) 203 that holds and hosts all documents in the document processing system. A tool kit 201 attached to the DocumentManager 1081 provides various tools used by the DocumentManager 1081. For example, the DomService (DOM service) is a tool provided by the tool kit 201 to provide all functions necessary for generating, maintaining, and managing a DOM corresponding to a document. IOManager (input / output management unit), which is another tool provided by the tool kit 201, manages input to the system and output from the system. Similarly, a StreamHandler (stream handler) is a tool that handles document upload using a bitstream. These tools are not specifically shown in the figure and are not assigned a reference number, but form a component of the tool kit 201.

  According to the MVC paradigm representation, the model (M) includes a DOM tree model 202 of the document. As described above, all documents are represented as DOM trees in the document processing system. The document also forms part of the DocumentContainer 203.

1. DOM Model and Zone A DOM tree representing a document is a tree having a node 2021. A Zone (zone) 209, which is a subset of the DOM tree, includes a related area of one or more nodes in the DOM tree. For example, only a part of the document can be displayed on the screen, but this part of the visualized document is displayed using the Zone 209. The Zone is generated, handled, and processed using a plug-in called ZoneFactory (zone factory: zone generation unit) 205. Zone represents a part of DOM, but one or more “name spaces” may be used. As is well known, a namespace is a collection of names that are unique within a namespace. In other words, the same name does not exist in the namespace.

2. Relationship between Facet, Facet and Zone
Facet 2022 is another configuration within the model (M) portion of the MVC paradigm. Facet is used to edit Nodes in Zone. Facet 2022 organizes access to the DOM using procedures that can be performed without affecting the contents of the Zone itself. As described below, these procedures perform important and useful operations related to Node.

  Each Node has a corresponding Facet. Instead of directly manipulating the nodes in the DOM, the integrity of the DOM is protected by using Facet to perform the operations. If the operation is performed directly on Node, several plug-ins can change the DOM at the same time, resulting in inconsistencies.

  The DOM standard established by the W3C defines a standard interface for operating Nodes, but in reality there are operations specific to each vocabulary or Node, so these operations are prepared as APIs. It is convenient to keep it. In the document processing system, such an API peculiar to each Node is prepared as Facet and attached to each Node. This makes it possible to add a useful API while complying with the DOM standard. Also, instead of implementing a specific DOM for each vocabulary, by adding a specific API to the standard DOM implementation later, various vocabularies can be processed uniformly. A document in which a plurality of vocabularies are mixed in an arbitrary combination can be appropriately processed.

  A vocabulary is a set of tags (for example, XML tags) belonging to a name space. As described above, the namespace has a set of unique names (here, tags). A vocabulary appears as a subtree of a DOM tree that represents an XML document. This subtree contains Zone. In a particular example, tag set boundaries are defined by Zone. The Zone 209 is generated using a service called ZoneFactory 205. As described above, Zone 209 is an internal representation of a part of a DOM tree that represents a document. In order to provide access to a portion of such a document, a logical representation is required. This logical representation informs the computer how the document is logically represented on the screen. Canvas (canvas) 210 is a service that acts to provide a logical layout corresponding to Zone.

  On the other hand, the Pane 211 is a physical screen layout corresponding to the logical layout provided by the Canvas 210. In fact, the user sees only the rendering of the document with characters and images on the display screen. Therefore, the document must be drawn on the screen by the process of drawing characters and images on the screen. The document is drawn on the screen by the Canvas 210 based on the physical layout provided by the Pane 211.

  The Canvas 210 corresponding to the Zone 209 is generated using the Editlet 206. The DOM of the document is edited using Editlet 206 and Canvas 210. In order to maintain the integrity of the original document, Editlet 206 and Canvas 210 use Facets corresponding to one or more Nodes in Zone 209. These services do not directly operate Zone and Node in DOM. Facet is operated using Command 207.

  A user generally interacts with the screen by moving a cursor on the screen or typing a command. The Canvas 210 that provides a logical layout on the screen accepts this cursor operation. The Canvas 210 can cause Facet to execute the corresponding action. With this relationship, the cursor subsystem 204 functions as a controller (C) of the MVC paradigm with respect to the DocumentManager 1081. The Canvas 210 also has a task for handling events. For example, Canvas 210 handles events such as mouse clicks, focus moves, and similar actions triggered by the user.

3. Overview of the relationship between Zone, Facet, Canvas and Pane Documents in a document processing system can be viewed from at least four perspectives. That is, 1) a data structure used to hold the content and structure of the document in the document processing system, 2) means for editing the content of the document without affecting the integrity of the document, and 3) on the screen of the document Logical layout, 4) Physical layout on the document screen. Zone, Facet, Canvas, and Pane respectively represent components of the document processing system corresponding to the above-described four viewpoints.

4). Undo Subsystem As noted above, it is desirable to be able to undo any changes (eg, edits) to a document. For example, assume that the user performs an editing operation and then decides to cancel the change. With reference to FIG. 12, the undo subsystem 212 implements a revocable component of the document manager. The UndoManager (Undo Manager: Undo Manager) 2121 holds operations for all documents that may be canceled by the user.

  For example, assume that a user executes a command that replaces a word in a document with another word. After that, the user thinks again and decides to return to the original word. The undo subsystem 212 supports such an operation. The UndoManager 2121 holds the operation of such an UndoableEdit (Undoable Edit) 2122.

5). Cursor Subsystem As described above, the controller portion of the MVC may include a cursor subsystem 204. The cursor subsystem 204 receives input from the user. These inputs generally have the character of commands and / or editing operations. Thus, the cursor subsystem 204 can be thought of as the controller (C) portion of the MVC paradigm associated with DocumentManager 1081.

6). View As described above, the Canvas 210 represents a logical layout of a document to be presented on the screen. In the example of an XHTML document, Canvas 210 may include a box tree 208 that logically represents how the document looks on the screen. This box tree 208 will be included in the view (V) portion of the MVC paradigm associated with DocumentManager 1081.

D. Vocabulary connection An important feature of a document processing system is that an XML document can be handled by mapping it to another expression. When the mapped expression is edited, the editing is consistent with the original XML document. It is to provide an environment that is reflected while maintaining.

  A document described in a markup language, such as an XML document, is created based on a vocabulary defined by a document type definition. A vocabulary is a set of tags. Since a vocabulary may be arbitrarily defined, there can be an unlimited number of vocabularies. However, providing a dedicated processing / management environment for each of the many possible vocabularies is not practical. Vocabulary connection provides a way to solve this problem.

  For example, the document may be described in two or more markup languages. The document may be described in, for example, XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language), SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), MathML (Mathematical Markup Language), or other markup languages. In other words, the markup language may be regarded in the same way as a vocabulary or tag set in XML.

  The vocabulary is processed using a vocabulary plug-in. A document described by a vocabulary in which a plug-in cannot be used in the document processing system is displayed by mapping to a document of another vocabulary in which the plug-in can be used. With this feature, it is possible to appropriately display a vocabulary document for which no plug-in is prepared.

  A vocabulary connection includes the ability to acquire a definition file and map between two different vocabularies based on the acquired definition file. A document described in one vocabulary can be mapped to another vocabulary. In this way, the vocabulary connection enables a document to be displayed and edited by a display / edit plug-in corresponding to the vocabulary to which the document is mapped.

  As described above, each document is generally described in the document processing system as a DOM tree having a plurality of nodes. The “definition file” describes the correspondence between each node and other nodes. It is specified whether the element value and attribute value of each node can be edited. An arithmetic expression using the element value or attribute value of the node may be described.

  A destination DOM tree to which the definition file is applied is generated using the feature of mapping. In this way, the relationship between the source DOM tree and the destination DOM tree is constructed and maintained. The vocabulary connection monitors the correspondence between the source DOM tree and the destination DOM tree. When receiving an editing instruction from the user, the vocabulary connection changes the associated node of the source DOM tree. A “mutation event” is issued indicating that the source DOM tree has changed, and the destination DOM tree is changed accordingly.

  By using a vocabulary connection, a relatively minor vocabulary known only to a few users can be converted into another major vocabulary. Therefore, even a minor vocabulary used by a small number of users can appropriately display a document and provide a desirable editing environment.

  As described above, the vocabulary connection subsystem that is a part of the document processing system provides a function that enables a plurality of expressions of a document.

  FIG. 13 shows a vocabulary connection (VC) subsystem 300. The VC subsystem 300 provides a way to maintain the consistency of two alternative representations of the same document. For example, the two representations may be representations of the same document in two different vocabularies. As described above, one may be a source DOM tree and the other may be a destination DOM tree.

1. Vocabulary Connection Subsystem The functions of the vocabulary connection subsystem 300 are realized in a document processing system using a plug-in called VocabularyConnection301. For each Vocabulary 305 in which a document is represented, a corresponding plug-in is required. For example, when a part of a document is described in HTML and the rest is described in SVG, a vocabulary plug-in corresponding to HTML and SVG is required.

  The VocabularyConnection plug-in 301 generates an appropriate VCCanvas (vocabulary connection canvas) 310 for the Zone 209 or the Pane 211 corresponding to an appropriate Vocabulary 305 document. Using VocabularyConnection 301, changes to Zone 209 in the source DOM tree are communicated to the corresponding Zone in another DOM tree 306 by the conversion rule. The conversion rule is described in the form of a vocabulary connection descriptor (VCD). A corresponding VCManager (vocabulary connection manager) 302 is generated for each VCD file corresponding to the conversion between the source DOM and the destination DOM.

2. Connector
The connector 304 connects the source node of the source DOM tree and the destination node of the destination DOM tree. Connector 304 acts to see the modifications (changes) to the source node in the source DOM tree and the source document corresponding to the source node. Then, the node of the corresponding destination DOM tree is corrected. Connector 304 is the only object that can modify the destination DOM tree. For example, the user can make modifications only to the source document and the corresponding source DOM tree. Thereafter, the Connector 304 makes corresponding corrections to the destination DOM tree.

  Connector 304 is logically linked to form a tree structure. The tree formed by the connector 304 is called ConnectorTree (connector tree). The Connector 304 is generated by using a service called ConnectorFactory (connector factory: connector generation unit) 303. The ConnectorFactory 303 generates a Connector304 from the source document and links them to form a ConnectorTree. The VocabularyConnectionManager 302 holds a ConnectorFactory 303.

  As mentioned above, a vocabulary is a set of tags in a namespace. As shown, Vocabulary 305 is generated for a document by VocabularyConnection 301. This is done by parsing the document file and generating an appropriate VocabularyConnectionManager 302 for mapping between the source DOM and the destination DOM. Further, an appropriate relationship is created between the ConnectorFactory 303 that generates the Connector, the ZoneFactory 205 that generates the Zone 209, and the Editlet 206 that generates the Canvas corresponding to the node in the Zone. When a user disposes or deletes a document from the system, the corresponding VocabularyConnectionManager 302 is deleted.

  The Vocabulary 305 generates a VCCanvas 310. Further, the Connector 304 and the destination DOM tree 306 are generated correspondingly.

  Source DOM and Canvas correspond to model (M) and view (V), respectively. However, such an expression is meaningful only when the target vocabulary can be drawn on the screen. The rendering is performed by a vocabulary plug-in. Vocabulary plug-ins are provided for major vocabularies, eg, XHTML, SVG, MathML. The vocabulary plug-in is used in connection with the target vocabulary. These provide a way to map between vocabularies using vocabulary connection descriptors.

  Such mapping is only meaningful if the target vocabulary is mappable and the method depicted on the screen is predefined. Such a rendering method is a standard defined by an organization such as W3C, such as XHTML.

  VCCanvas is used when a vocabulary connection is required. In this case, since the source view cannot be directly generated, the source Canvas is not generated. In this case, VCCanvas is generated using ConnectorTree. This VCCanvas only handles event conversion and does not assist in rendering the document on the screen.

3. DestinationZone, Pane, and Canvas
As described above, the purpose of the vocabulary connection subsystem is to simultaneously generate and maintain two representations of the same document. The second representation is also in the form of a DOM tree, which has already been described as a destination DOM tree. To see the document in the second representation, DestinationZone, Canvas and Pane are needed.

  When VCCanvas is created, a corresponding DestinationPane 307 is created. Further, a related DestinationCanvas 308 and a corresponding BoxTree 309 are generated. Similarly, VCCanvas 310 is also associated with Pane 211 and Zone 209 for the source document.

  DestinationCanvas 308 provides a logical layout of the document in the second representation. In particular, DestinationCanvas 308 provides user interface functions such as cursors and selections to depict a document in the destination representation. Events that occur in the DestinationCanvas 308 are supplied to the Connector. The DestinationCanvas 308 notifies the Connector 304 of a mouse event, a keyboard event, a drag and drop event, and an event specific to the vocabulary of the destination (second) representation of the document.

4). Vocabulary Connection Command Subsystem As an element of the vocabulary connection (VC) subsystem 300, there is a vocabulary connection (VC) command subsystem 313. The vocabulary connection command subsystem 313 generates a VCCommand (vocabulary connection command) 315 that is used to execute an instruction related to the vocabulary connection subsystem 300. A VCCommand can be generated using the built-in CommandTemplate 318 and / or by generating commands from scratch using a script language in the script subsystem 314.

  Command templates include, for example, an “If” command template, a “When” command template, an “Insert” command template, and the like. These templates are used to create VCCommands.

5). XPath Subsystem The XPath subsystem 316 is an important configuration of the document processing system and supports the implementation of vocabulary connection. The Connector 304 generally includes xpath information. As described above, one of the tasks of vocabulary connection is to reflect a change in the source DOM tree in the destination DOM tree. The xpath information includes one or more xpath expressions that are used to determine a subset of the source DOM tree to be monitored for changes / modifications.

6). Overview of Source DOM Tree, Destination DOM Tree, and ConnectorTree The source DOM tree is a DOM tree or Zone that represents a document in a vocabulary before being converted to another vocabulary. A node in the source DOM tree is called a source node.

  On the other hand, the destination DOM tree is a DOM tree or Zone that represents the same document with different vocabularies after being converted by mapping, as described above in connection with the vocabulary connection. A node in the destination DOM tree is called a destination node.

  ConnectorTree is a hierarchical expression based on a Connector that represents a correspondence between a source node and a destination node. The Connector monitors the source node and modifications made to the source document and modifies the destination DOM tree. The Connector is the only object that is allowed to modify the destination DOM tree.

E. Event flow in a document processing system In practice, a program must respond to commands from the user. An event is a method for describing and executing a user action executed on a program. Many high-level languages, such as Java, rely on events that describe user actions. Traditionally, programs have had to actively gather information in order to understand user actions and execute them themselves. This means, for example, that after the program initializes itself, it enters a loop that repeatedly checks the user's actions to take appropriate action when the user takes action on the screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. To do. However, this process is cumbersome. In addition, it requires a program that consumes CPU cycles and loops while waiting for the user to do something.

  Many languages solve these problems by adopting different paradigms. One of them is event-driven programming, which is the basis of all modern window systems. In this paradigm, all user actions belong to a set of abstract events called “events”. Events describe specific user actions in sufficient detail. Rather than actively collecting events generated by the user, the system notifies the program when events to be monitored occur. Programs that handle user interaction in this way are said to be "event driven".

  This is often handled using an “Event” class that captures the basic characteristics of events generated by all users.

  The document processing system defines and uses its own events and how to handle these events. Several types of events are used. For example, a mouse event is an event that occurs from a user's mouse action. User actions including the mouse are passed to the mouse event by the Canvas 210. Thus, Canvas is at the forefront of interaction by system users. If necessary, the frontmost Canvas passes the content related to the event to the child.

  In contrast, a keystroke event flows from Canvas 210. Keystroke events have immediate focus. That is, it relates to work at any moment. The keystroke event input on the Canvas 210 is passed to its parent. Keystrokes are handled by different events that can handle string insertion. The event that handles the insertion of a character string occurs when a character is inserted using the keyboard. Other “events” include, for example, other events handled in the same manner as drag events, drop events, and mouse events.

1. Handling events outside the vocabulary connection Events are passed using the event thread. When Canvas 210 receives an event, it changes its state. If necessary, Command 1052 is posted to CommandQueue 1053 by Canvas 210.

2. Handling events in vocabulary connections
Using the VocabularyConnection plug-in 301, an XHTMLCanvas 1106, which is an example of DestinationCanvas, receives events that occur, such as mouse events, keyboard events, drag-and-drop events, and vocabulary-specific events. These events are notified to the connector 304. More specifically, as illustrated in FIG. 21B, the event flow in the VocabularyConnection plug-in 301 passes through the SourcePane 1103, the VCCanvas 1104, the DestinationPane 1105, the DestinationCanvas 1106, which is an example of the DestinationCanvas, the destination DOM tree, and the ConnectorTree.

F. Relationship between ProgramInvoker and ProgramInvoker and other components
The relationship between the ProgramInvoker 103 and other configurations is shown in more detail in FIG. The ProgramInvoker 103 is a basic program in the execution environment that is executed to start the document processing system. As illustrated in FIG. 11B and FIG. 11C, the UserApplication 106, the Service Broker 1041, the Command Invoker 1051, and the Resource 109 are all connected to the Program Invoker 103. As described above, the application 102 is a component that is executed in the execution environment. Similarly, the Service Broker 1041 manages plug-ins that add various functions to the system. On the other hand, CommandInvoker 1051 executes instructions provided by the user and holds classes and functions used to execute commands.

1. Plug-ins and services
The ServiceBroker 1041 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. As described above, the Service Broker 1041 manages plug-ins (and related services) that add various functions to the system. Service 1042 is the lowest layer to which features can be added or changed in the document processing system. “Service” consists of two parts, ServiceCategory 401 and ServiceProvider 402. As illustrated in FIG. 14C, one ServiceCategory 401 can have a plurality of related ServiceProviders 402. Each ServiceProvider acts to execute part or all of a specific ServiceCategory. On the other hand, ServiceCategory 401 defines the type of Service.

  The Service 1) “Spot Color Service” that provides a specific spot color to the document processing system, 2) “Application Service” that is an application executed by the document processing system, and 3) Provides necessary spot colors throughout the document processing system. It can be classified into three types of “environmental services”.

  An example of Service is shown in FIG. The Application Service Category is an example of a ServiceProvider supported by a system utility. Similarly, Editlet 206 is a Category, and HTMLEditlet and SVGEditlet are corresponding ServiceProviders. The ZoneFactory 205 is another Category of Service, and has a corresponding ServiceProvider (not shown).

  A plug-in has already been described as adding functionality to a document processing system, but may be considered a unit of several ServiceProviders 402 and their associated classes. Each plug-in has a dependency and a ServiceCategory 401 described in the declaration file.

2. Relationship between ProgramInvoker and Application FIG. 14E shows further details regarding the relationship between ProgramInvoker 103 and UserApplication 106. Necessary documents and data are loaded from the storage. All necessary plug-ins are loaded on the Service Broker 1041. The Service Broker 1041 holds and manages all plug-ins. Plug-ins can be physically added to the system and their functionality can be loaded from storage. When the content of the plug-in is loaded, the Service Broker 1041 defines the corresponding plug-in. Subsequently, the corresponding UserApplication 106 is generated, loaded into the execution environment 101, and attached to the ProgramInvoker 103.

G. Relationship between Application Service and Environment FIG. 15A shows further details about the configuration of the application service loaded on the ProgramInvoker 103. A CommandInvoker 1051 that is a component of the command subsystem 105 activates or executes the Command 1052 in the ProgramInvoker 103. Command 1052 is a command used to process a document such as XML and edit the corresponding XML LDO tree in the document processing system. The CommandInvoker 1051 holds classes and functions necessary for executing the Command 1052.

  ServiceBroker1041 is also executed in ProgramInvoker103. The UserApplication 106 is connected to the user interface 107 and the CoreComponent 110. CoreComponent 110 provides a method for sharing documents among all panes. CoreComponent 110 also provides fonts and serves as a toolkit for Pane.

  FIG. 15B shows the relationship among Frame 1071, MenuBar 1072, and StatusBar 1073.

H. Application Core FIG. 16 (a) provides further explanation of the application core 108 that holds all documents and parts of documents and data belonging to the documents. The CoreComponent 110 is attached to the DocumentManager 1081 that manages the document 1082. The DocumentManager 1081 is the owner of all documents 1082 stored in the memory associated with the document processing system.

  DocumentManager 1081 is also connected to RootPane 1084 to facilitate the display of the document on the screen. The functions of ClipBoard 1087, SnapShot 1088, Drag & Drop 601 and Overlay 602 are also attached to CoreComponent 110.

  The SnapShot 1088 is used to restore the application state. When the user activates SnapShot 1088, the current state of the application is detected and stored. Thereafter, when the state of the application changes to another state, the contents of the stored state are saved. SnapShot 1088 is illustrated in FIG. In operation, when an application moves from one URL to another, SnapShot 1088 stores the previous state in order to be able to seamlessly execute a previous operation and a subsequent operation.

I. Document Configuration in DocumentManager FIG. 17A shows further explanation of DocumentManager1081 and how a document is configured and held in DocumentManager. As shown in FIG. 11B, the DocumentManager 1081 manages the document 1082. In the example shown in FIG. 17A, one of the plurality of documents is a RootDocument (root document) 701, and the remaining document is a SubDocument (subdocument) 702. The DocumentManager 1081 is connected to the RootDocument 701, and the RootDocument 701 is connected to all the SubDocuments 702.

  As shown in FIGS. 12 and 17A, the DocumentManager 1081 is coupled to a DocumentContainer 203 that is an object that manages all the documents 1082. Tools that form part of a tool kit 201 (eg, XML tool kit) including the DOMService 703 and the IOManager 704 are also supplied to the DocumentManager 1081. Referring to FIG. 17A again, the DOM Service 703 generates a DOM tree based on a document managed by the DocumentManager 1081. Each Document 705 is managed by the corresponding DocumentContainer 203 regardless of whether it is a RootDocument 701 or a SubDocument 702.

  FIG. 17B shows a state in which the documents AE are arranged hierarchically. Document A is a RootDocument. Document BD is a SubDocument of document A. Document E is a SubDocument of Document D. The left side of FIG. 17B shows an example in which the same document hierarchy is displayed on the screen. Document A, which is a RootDocument, is displayed as a basic frame. Document BD, which is a SubDocument of document A, is displayed as a subframe in basic frame A. Document E, which is a SubDocument of document D, is displayed on the screen as a subframe of subframe D.

  Referring to FIG. 17A again, an UndoManager (undo manager: undo manager) 706 and an UndoWrapper (undo wrapper) 707 are generated for each DocumentContainer 203. UndoManager 706 and UndoWrapper 707 are used to execute a cancelable command. By using this feature, changes made to the document using the editing operation can be undone. The change of SubDocument has a close relationship with RootDocument. The undo operation takes into account changes that affect other documents in the hierarchy, and for example, consistency is maintained between all documents in a chained hierarchy as shown in FIG. 17 (b). Guarantee.

  The UndoWrapper 707 wraps the undo objects related to the SubDocument in the DocumentContainer 203 and combines them with the undo object related to the RootDocument. The UndoWrapper 707 executes collection of undo objects that can be used by the UndoableEditAcceptor (Undoable Edit Acceptor: Undoable Edit Accepting Unit) 709.

  UndoManager 706 and UndoWrapper 707 are connected to UndoableEditAcceptor 709 and UndoableEditSource (Undoable Edit Source) 708. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, Document 705 may be UndoableEditSource 708 or the source of an editable edit object.

J. et al. Undo Command and Undo Framework FIGS. 18 (a) and 18 (b) provide further details about the undo framework and undo commands. As shown in FIG. 18A, the UndoCommand 801, RedoCommand 802, and UndoableEditCommand 803 are commands that can be loaded on the CommandInvoker 1051 as shown in FIG. 11B, and are executed in order. UndoableEditCommand 803 is further attached to UndoableEditSource 708 and UndoableEditAcceptor 709. “Foo” EditCommand 804 and “bar” EditCommand 805 are examples of UndoableEditCommand.

1. Execution of UndoableEditCommand FIG. 18B shows execution of UndoableEditCommand. First, assume that the user edits Document 705 using an edit command. In the first step S 1, an UndoableEditAcceptor 709 is attached to the UndoableEditSource 708 that is a DOM tree of Document 705. In the second step S2, Document 705 is edited using the DOM API based on the command issued by the user. In a third step S3, the mutation event listener is notified that a change has been made. That is, in this step, a listener that monitors all changes in the DOM tree detects an editing operation. In the fourth step S4, UndoableEdit is stored as an object of UndoManager 706. In the fifth step S5, the UndoableEditAcceptor 709 is detached from the UndoableEditSource 708. The UndoableEditSource 708 may be the Document 705 itself.

K. Procedures for loading documents into the system The above subsections have described the various components and subcomponents of the system. The following describes the methodology for using these components. FIG. 19A shows an outline of how a document is loaded into the document processing system. Each step is detailed in connection with a particular example in FIGS.

  In brief, the document processing system generates a DOM from a binary data stream composed of data included in a document. ApexNode (apex node: vertex node) is generated for a part of the document that is the target of attention and belongs to Zone. Subsequently, the corresponding Pane is identified. The identified Pane generates a Zone and a Canvas from the ApexNode and the physical screen surface. The Zone then creates Facets for each node and provides the information needed for them. Canvas generates a data structure for rendering a node from a DOM tree.

  More specifically, documents are loaded from storage 901. A DOM tree 902 of the document is generated. A corresponding DocumentContainer 903 for holding the document is generated. DocumentContainer 903 is attached to DocumentManager 904. The DOM tree includes a root node and sometimes a plurality of secondary nodes.

  In general, such documents include both text and graphics. Thus, a DOM tree may have, for example, an SVG subtree as well as an XHTML subtree. The XHTML subtree has an XHTML ApexNode 905. Similarly, the SVG subtree has an ApexNode 906 of SVG.

  In step 1, ApexNode 906 is attached to Pane 907 which is the logical layout of the screen. In step 2, Pane 907 requests a ZoneFactory for ApexNode 906 from CoreComponent which is PaneOwner (pane owner: owner of pane) 908. In step 3, PaneOwner 908 returns a ZoneFactory and an Editlet that is a CanvasFactory for ApexNode 906.

  In step 4, Pane 907 generates Zone 909. Zone 909 is attached to Pane 907. In Step 5, Zone909 generates Facet for each node and attaches to the corresponding node. In step 6, Pane 907 generates Canvas 910. Canvas 910 is attached to Pane 907. The Canvas 910 includes various commands. In step 7, the canvas 910 builds a data structure for rendering the document on the screen. For XHTML, this includes a box tree structure.

1. Zone MVC
FIG. 19B shows an outline of the configuration of the Zone using the MVC paradigm. In this case, since Zone and Facet are inputs related to the document, the model (M) includes Zone and Facet. Since the canvas and the data structure for rendering the document on the screen are outputs that the user sees on the screen, the view (V) corresponds to the Canvas and the data structure. Since Command executes control operations on the document and its various relationships, the control (C) includes the Command included in the Canvas.

L. Document Representation An example of a document and various representations thereof will be described below with reference to FIG. The document used in this example includes both text and images. Text is represented using XHTML and images are represented using SVG. FIG. 20 shows in detail the MVC representation of the relationship between the document components and the corresponding objects. In this example, Document 1001 is attached to DocumentContainer 1002 that holds Document 1001. A document is represented by a DOM tree 1003. The DOM tree includes an ApexNode 1004.

  ApexNode is represented by a black circle. Nodes that are not vertices are represented by white circles. A Facet used to edit a node is represented by a triangle and is attached to the corresponding node. Since the document has text and images, the DOM tree of this document includes an XHTML portion and an SVG portion. ApexNode 1004 is the top node of the XHTML subtree. This is attached to the XHTMLPane 1005, which is the top pane for physical representation of the XHTML portion of the document. ApexNode 1004 is also attached to XHTMLZone 1006 that is a part of the DOM tree of the document.

  Facet corresponding to Node 1004 is also attached to XHTMLZone 1006. XHTMLZone1006 is attached to XHTMLPane1005. XHTMLEditlet generates XHTMLCanvas1007 which is a logical expression of a document. XHTMLCanvas1007 is attached to XHTMLPane1005. XHTMLCanvas1007 generates BoxTree1009 for the XHTML component of Document1001. Various commands 1008 necessary for holding and rendering the XHTML portion of the document are also added to the XHTMLCanvas 1007.

  Similarly, ApexNode 1010 of the SVG subtree of the document is attached to SVGZone 1011 that is a part of the DOM tree of Document 1001 that represents the SVG component of the document. ApexNode 1010 is attached to SVGPane 1013 which is the uppermost Pane in the physical representation of the SVG portion of the document. An SVGCanvas 1012 representing a logical representation of the SVG portion of the document is generated by SVGEditlet and attached to SVGPane 1013. Data structures and commands for rendering the SVG portion of the document on the screen are attached to the SVGCanvas. For example, the data structure may include circles, lines, rectangles, etc. as shown.

  A part of the expression of the document example described in relation to FIG. 20 will be further described using the above-described MVC paradigm in relation to FIG. FIG. 21A shows a simplified MV relationship in the XHTML component of the document 1001. The model is XHTMLZone 1101 for the XHTML component of Document1001. The XHTMLZone tree contains several Nodes and their corresponding Facets. The corresponding XHTMLZone and Pane are part of the model (M) part of the MVC paradigm. The view (V) portion of the MVC paradigm is the corresponding XHTML Canvas 1102 and BoxTree of the XHTML component of Document 1001. The XHTML portion of the document is rendered on the screen using Canvas and the command contained in it. Events such as keyboard and mouse input proceed in the reverse direction as shown.

  SourcePane has a further function, namely the role as a holder of DOM. FIG. 21B provides a vocabulary connection for the component of Document 1001 shown in FIG. A SourcePane 1103 that functions as a DOM holder includes a source DOM tree of a document. ConnectorTree is generated by ConnectorFactory and generates DestinationPane 1105 that also functions as a destination DOM holder. The DestinationPane 1105 is laid out as an XHTMLDestinationCanvas 1106 in the form of a box tree.

M.M. Relationship between Plug-in Subsystem, Vocabulary Connection, and Connector FIGS. 22 (a)-(c) show further details related to the plug-in subsystem, vocabulary connection, and Connector, respectively. The plug-in subsystem is used to add or exchange functions to the document processing system. The plug-in subsystem includes a Service Broker 1041. A ZoneFactoryService 1201 attached to the ServiceBroker 1041 generates a Zone for a part of the document. EditletService 1202 is also attached to ServiceBroker1041. EditletService 1202 generates a Canvas corresponding to the Node in the Zone.

  Examples of ZoneFactory are XHTMLZoneFactory 1211 and SVGZoneFactory 1212 that generate XHTMLZone and SVGZone, respectively. As described above in connection with the example document, the text component of the document may be represented by generating XHTMLZone, and the image may be represented using SVGZone. Examples of EditletService include XHTMLEditlet 1221 and SVGEditlet 1222.

  FIG. 22 (b) shows further details related to the vocabulary connection. As described above, the vocabulary connection is an important feature of the document processing system, and enables consistent representation and display of documents in two different ways. The VCManager 302 that holds the ConnectorFactory 303 is a part of the vocabulary connection subsystem. ConnectorFactory303 produces | generates Connector304 of a document. As described above, the Connector monitors the nodes in the source DOM and modifies the nodes in the destination DOM in order to maintain consistency between the two representations.

  Template 317 represents conversion rules for several nodes. A vocabulary connection descriptor (VCD) file is a list of Templates that represent a number of rules that transform an element or set of elements that satisfy a particular path or rule into another element. Template 317 and CommandTemplate 318 are all attached to VCManager 302. VCManager is an object that manages all sections in a VCD file. One VCManager object is generated for one VCD file.

  FIG. 22 (c) provides further details related to the Connector. The ConnectorFactory 303 generates a Connector from the source document. ConnectorFactory303 is attached to Vocabulary, Template, and ElementTemplate, and generates VocabularyConnector, TemplateConnector, and ElementConnector, respectively.

  The VCManager 302 holds a ConnectorFactory 303. To generate a Vocabulary, the corresponding VCD file is read. Thus, ConnectorFactory 303 is generated. The ConnectorFactory 303 is related to a ZoneFactory that generates a Zone and an Editlet that generates a Canvas.

  Next, EditletService of the target vocabulary generates VCCanvas. VCCanvas also creates an ApexNode Connector in the source DOM tree or Zone. Child connectors are recursively created as needed. ConnectorTree is generated by a set of templates in the VCD file.

  A template is a set of rules for converting a markup language element into another element. For example, each template is matched to a source DOM tree or Zone. If it matches properly, a vertex connector is created. For example, the template “A / * / D” matches all branches that start at node A and end at node D, regardless of what nodes are in between. Similarly, “// B” matches all “B” nodes from the root.

N. Example of VCD file related to ConnectorTree An example that explains processing related to a specific document will be continued. A document titled “MySampleXML” with a document title is loaded into the document processing system. FIG. 23 shows an example of a VCD script using VCManager and ConnectorFactoryTree for the “MySampleXML” file. The vocabulary section and template section in the script file and the corresponding components in VCManager are shown. In the tag “vcd: vocabulary”, the attribute “match” is “sample: root”, “label” is “MySampleXML”, and “call-template” is “sample template”.

  In this example, Vocabulary includes a vertex element as “sample: root” in the VCManager of “MySampleXML”. The corresponding UI label is “MySampleXML”. In the template section, the tag is “vcd: template” and the name is “sample: template”.

O. Detailed Example of How Files are Loaded into the System FIGS. 24-28 show a detailed description of loading the document “MySampleXML”. In step 1 shown in FIG. 24A, a document is loaded from the storage 1405. The DOMService generates a DocumentContainer 1401 corresponding to the DOM tree and DocumentManager 1406. The DocumentContainer 1401 is attached to the DocumentManager 1406. The document includes XHTML and MySampleXML subtrees. The XHTML ApexNode 1403 is the top node of the XHTML to which the tag “xhtml: html” is attached. ApexNode 1404 of “MySampleXML” is the top node of “MySampleXML” with the tag “sample: root” attached.

  In Step 2 shown in FIG. 24B, the RootPane generates XHTMLZone, Facet, and Canvas of the document. Pane1407, XHTMLZone1408, XHTMLCanvas1409, and BoxTree1410 are produced | generated corresponding to ApexNode1403.

  In step 3 shown in FIG. 24C, a tag “sample: root” that XHTMLZone does not know is found, and a SubPane is generated from the region of XHTMLCanvas.

  In Step 4 shown in FIG. 25, the SubPane can handle “sample: root” and obtain a ZoneFactory that can generate an appropriate Zone. This ZoneFactory is in a Vocabulary that can execute ZoneFactory. It contains the contents of the “MySampleXML” VocabularySection.

  In step 5 shown in FIG. 26, the Vocabulary corresponding to “MySampleXML” generates a DefaultZone 1601. A corresponding Editlet is generated, and a SubPane 1501 is provided to generate a corresponding Canvas. Editlet generates VCCanvas. And it calls TemplateSection. ConnectorFactoryTree is also included. ConnectorFactoryTree generates all the connectors that become ConnectorTree.

  In Step 6 shown in FIG. 27, each Connector generates a destination DOM object. Some of the connectors contain xpath information. The xpath information includes one or more xpath expressions that are used to determine a subset of the source DOM tree that needs to be monitored for changes / modifications.

  In step 7 shown in FIG. 28, the vocabulary creates a DestinationPane of the destination DOM tree from the source DOM pane. This is done based on SourcePane. The ApexNode of the destination tree is attached to the DestinationPane and the corresponding Zone. The DestinationPane is provided with its own Editlet that creates a DestinationCanvas and builds a data structure and commands for rendering the document in the destination format.

  FIG. 29A shows a flow when an event occurs on a node that does not have a corresponding source node and exists only in the destination tree. Events acquired by Canvas, such as mouse events and keyboard events, pass through the destination tree and are transmitted to the ElementTemplateConnector. Since ElementTemplateConnector does not have a corresponding source node, the transmitted event is not an editing operation on the source node. If the transmitted event matches the command described in CommandTemplate, ElementTemplateConnector executes the action corresponding to it. If there is no matching command, ElementTemplateConnector ignores the transmitted event.

  FIG. 29B shows a flow when an event occurs on the node of the destination tree associated with the source node by TextOfConnector. The TextOfConnector acquires a text node from a node specified by the XPath of the source DOM tree, and maps it to a node of the destination DOM tree. Events acquired by Canvas, such as mouse events and keyboard events, pass through the destination tree and are transmitted to TextOfConnector. The TextOfConnector maps the transmitted event to the editing command of the corresponding source node and loads it in the Queue 1053. An edit command is a set of DOM API calls executed via Facet. When the queued command is executed, the source node is edited. When the source node is edited, a mutation event is issued, and the change of the source node is notified to the TextOfConnector registered as a listener. TextOfConnector reconstructs the destination tree so that the change of the source node is reflected in the corresponding destination node. At this time, if the template containing TextOfConnector includes a control statement such as “for each” or “for loop”, the ConnectorFactory re-evaluates this control statement and rebuilds the TextOfConnector. Will be rebuilt.

(Example)
FIG. 30 is a hardware configuration diagram of the form management system in the present embodiment.
In this form management system 302, the data input person inputs various data according to the form input form designed by the form setter. In the present embodiment, in a business organization such as a company, a form for an employee as a data input person to order a member necessary for business will be described as a theme.

In the form management system 302, a form data management server 308, a form input terminal device 304, and a form design terminal device 300 are connected via a LAN 306.
The form setter designs an electronic form input form in the form design terminal device 300. Data defining the contents of the input form (hereinafter referred to as “form data”) is uploaded from the form design terminal device 300 to the form data management server 308. The form data here is an XML document file in which a data structure of an input form (hereinafter referred to as “schema”) and a display layout are defined. This is, for example, a file corresponding to the “definition file” described in the base technology.

The employee who becomes the data input person downloads the form data stored in the form data management server 308 to the form input terminal device 304. An input form for inputting a form is displayed on the screen of the form input terminal device 304 in accordance with the defined display layout. The data input person inputs various data related to the member to be ordered through this input form. For example, it is information for identifying itself as an orderer, information on ordering members, and the like. The data thus input is stored as an XML document file according to the defined schema. An XML document file (hereinafter also referred to as “input data file”) as described with reference to FIG. 2 is generated as a product.
It can be said that the form input terminal device 304 is realized by the document processing device 20 in the base technology. Based on the definition file which is form data, data editing is mainly executed by the VC unit 80.

  The input data file is transmitted from the form input terminal device 304 to the form data management server 308. The form data management server 308 holds an input data file for each form. In other words, the form data management server 308 accumulates data for each form. The input data is acquired through the “type” of the input form created by the form setter, and the input data is structured according to the schema.

Since the input data is structured according to the schema defined in the form data, the form data management server 308 can easily execute data processing such as search of input data and statistics. This is also an advantage of XML that can define a schema. In addition, a data entry person can input data according to a preset display layout, so that the creation of a form is facilitated.
In order to improve the convenience of such a form management system 302, it is necessary for the form setter to easily create a form input form. In other words, a user interface is required to easily design the display layout and schema in form data.
Hereinafter, the edit processing of form data, particularly, form data will be described in detail.

The present embodiment will be described as a form in which the form setter creates form data locally in the form design terminal device 300 and the form data after creation is uploaded to the form data management server 308.
In addition, the form setter may access the form data of the form data management server 308, particularly the schema, via the web browser of the form design terminal device 300. In other words, the form setter may edit the form data managed centrally in the form data management server 308 by sending an edit command to the form data management server 308 via the LAN 306.
Similarly, the data input person may access the form data of the form data management server 308 via the web browser of the form input terminal device 304. At this time, an input data file may be generated in the form data management server 308 by the data input person transmitting the input data via the LAN 306.

FIG. 31 is a functional block diagram of the form design terminal device.
Each block shown here can be realized in hardware by an element such as a CPU of a computer or a mechanical device, and in software it is realized by a computer program or the like. Draw functional blocks. Therefore, those skilled in the art will understand that these functional blocks can be realized in various forms by a combination of hardware and software.
Here, functions to be exhibited by each block will be mainly described, and specific actions thereof will be described with reference to FIG.

The form design terminal device 300 includes a user interface processing unit 310, a communication unit 320, a data processing unit 330, and a form data holding unit 340.
The user interface processing unit 310 is responsible for general user interface processing for the form setter. The communication unit 320 is in charge of communication processing with the form data management server 308 regarding uploading of form data and the like. The form data holding unit 340 holds the created form data. The data processing unit 330 executes data processing for editing form data in response to an operation input by the form setter. The data processing unit 330 integrally controls the user interface processing unit 310, the communication unit 320, and the form data holding unit 340.
The main function of the data processing unit 330 is realized by the definition file generation unit 86 described in the base technology.

The user interface processing unit 310 includes a screen display unit 312 and an operation detection unit 314.
The screen display unit 312 displays a design screen for editing the input form. In the present embodiment, the design screen is displayed in a so-called web browser mode. The operation detection unit 314 detects an operation input for editing via an input device such as a mouse or a keyboard by the form setter.

The data processing unit 330 includes a schema setting unit 332, a layout setting unit 334, and a property setting unit 336.
As will be shown later, items for inputting data by the data input person are set in the form input form. The layout setting unit 334 sets the input form display layout. Information regarding the display layout is stored in the form data holding unit 340 by the layout setting unit 334 as part of the form data. The form input form is displayed to the data input person in accordance with the display layout information.

  Data input to each item of the input form is structured according to a predetermined data structure. Although this is also illustrated later, the form setter also sets a schema for sorting the input data. The schema setting unit 332 sets a schema for this input data. Information regarding the set schema is also stored in the form data holding unit 340 by the schema setting unit 332 as part of the form data. According to this schema information, the data input by the data input person is structured. It can be said that the schema corresponds to an XML tag structure.

  In addition, various properties regarding the format of input data and the like are set in each item. The property setting unit 336 also stores information on the property for this item in the form data holding unit 340 as part of the form data. In accordance with the property information, a rule regarding input data of each item is set.

Here, the flow about form data creation is summarized.
When the communication unit 320 downloads the form data template from the form data management server 308, the communication unit 320 stores the form data template in the form data holding unit 340. Note that the form design terminal device 300 may create form data from the beginning. The form setter causes the user interface processing unit 310 to display a screen for editing the display layout and schema of the form data. The data processing unit 330 changes the content of the form data in response to an input from the form setter. The changed form data is stored in the form data holding unit 340. The communication unit 320 uploads the form data stored in the form data holding unit 340 to the form data management server 308 in accordance with an instruction from the form setter. Thus, the created form input form is provided to the data input person.

FIG. 32 is a diagram showing a form form design screen for the form setter to edit the input form in the form design terminal device.
The screen display unit 312 of the form design terminal device 300 displays a screen for editing the input form in the form shown in the form form design screen 350. The form form design screen 350 is divided into a layout editing area 360 and a schema editing area 400. The layout editing area 360 is an area for editing the display layout of the input form. The schema editing area 400 is an area for editing a schema of input data, that is, a tag structure.

  This form is for entering a member to be ordered by a data input person. As will be described with reference to FIG. 35, the form input form is displayed on the form input terminal device 304 in the display layout shown in the layout editing area 360.

First, the layout editing area 360 will be described.
The employee information column 370 is a column for entering information for identifying an employee.
The employee information column 370 includes four input items: an employee ID column 372, an employee name column 374, an employee affiliation column 376, and an employee photo column 378.
The employee ID column 372 is an item for selecting an employee ID. The employee ID column 372 is formed by a combo box, and the data input person selects a desired employee ID from a list of employee IDs displayed when the combo box is pulled down. The employee name column 374 is an item for displaying the name of the employee. The employee affiliation column 376 is an item indicating the department to which the employee belongs. The employee photo column 378 is an item indicating an employee's face photo.

The order member information column 380 is a column for entering information for specifying a member to be ordered.
The order member information column 380 includes five items: a member name column 382, a member description column 384, a member unit price column 386, a member order quantity column 388, and a member subtotal column 390.
The member name column 382 is an item for entering the name of a member to be ordered. The member explanation column 384 is an item for entering an explanation regarding the contents of the ordering member. The member unit price column 386 indicates the unit price of the member, and the member order quantity column 388 indicates the order quantity of the member. The member subtotal column 390 shows a subtotal value obtained by multiplying the unit price in the member unit price column 386 and the order quantity in the member order quantity column 388. As described above, the member subtotal column 390 is an item whose value should be calculated based on the input data in the member unit price column 386 and the member order quantity column 388. This is the same as the “value-of” item that is not editable for calculating the average score of the students described with reference to FIG.

  In the ordering member information column 380, a row can be added according to the type of the member to be ordered. The ordering member information column 380 is assigned a command for executing such additional line deletion. The total order amount column 392 indicates the total amount when various members are ordered in this form. The remarks column 394 is an item for allowing the data input person to enter remarks regarding ordering.

  Among these items, there are editable items for allowing a data input person to input data, and non-editable items for displaying a calculation result executed using the input data as a variable. In any case, data in various formats is acquired through these items. The schema editing area 400 is an area for editing a schema for structuring and managing the data thus obtained.

In the schema editing area 400, “Person” is an XML tag corresponding to the employee information column 370 of the layout editing area 360. As the employee information column 370 has four items, “Person” also has four tags “ID”, “Name”, “Post”, and “Snapshot”. These correspond to the employee ID column 372, the employee name column 374, the employee affiliation column 376, and the employee photo column 378, respectively.
The “Item” tag corresponds to the order member information column 380. Five tags “Name”, “Description”, “ItemCost”, “Quantity”, and “SubTotal” under “Item” are a member name column 382, a member description column 384, and a member unit price column in the ordering member information column 380. 386, a member order quantity column 388, and a member subtotal column 390, respectively.
The “TotalCost” tag corresponds to the total order amount column 392, and the “Notice” tag corresponds to the remarks column 394.

The form setter defines a tag in the schema editing area 400. By dragging and dropping the tag into the layout editing area 360, an item corresponding to the layout editing area 360 can be created. At this time, the layout setting unit 334 sets the graphics of the item corresponding to the tag in the layout editing area 360. Also, for example, a tag display form such as a combo box or a text box can be set on the form form design screen 350.
Such a correspondence between the display layout and the schema is exactly the same as the method of assigning the constituent elements included in the data structure of the grade data shown in FIG. 2 to the tabular template shown in FIG. On the form form design screen 350, the form setter can create form data via a GUI (Graphical User Interface) without directly editing the XML source file or definition file. In other words, tag definition, structuring, and display layout can be created on the same screen via the GUI.

FIG. 33 is an example of a screen diagram for setting a tag constraint condition.
The constraint condition setting screen 430 is a screen for setting a constraint condition for the “Person: Snapshot” tag. The main conditions include the following various conditions.
1. Input format conditions These are conditions related to the format of data input to editable items. For example, a condition regarding a data input format such as whether the input data is a character string type or an integer type is applicable.
2. Input range condition A condition for designating a range allowed as input data in an editable item or an uneditable item.
3. Data processing condition A condition indicating the processing content to be executed in order to calculate the input data of an item. Moreover, the process performed using the input data in another item as a variable may be sufficient.
4). Error processing conditions These are conditions for indicating the processing contents to be executed when input data violates input format conditions or input data range conditions.
5). Input authority condition This is a condition for specifying a data input person having authority to input data.

On the constraint condition setting screen 430, a constraint condition for the employee photo column 378 is set. The data in the input guide field 432 is a message to be displayed as a tool tip (ToolTip) when the cursor is placed on the employee photo field 378. The data position column 434 indicates the location of employee face photo data to be displayed in the employee photo column 378. In this embodiment, data relating to employees such as employee ID, name, affiliation, and facial photo are stored in the database of the form data management server 308. Here, the position where the face photograph data is located in the database is shown. The display name column 436 indicates the item name “photo” displayed in the employee photo column 378.
When the OK button 456 is turned on, the property setting unit 336 validates the setting. When the cancel button 458 is turned on, the setting is not validated and the screen returns to the form form design screen 350.

FIG. 34 is another example of a screen diagram for setting a constraint condition for a tag.
The constraint condition setting screen 440 is a screen for setting a constraint condition for the “TotalCost” tag.
The item column 442 indicates a tag for which a constraint condition is set. The condition column 444 indicates an input range condition, and the variable column 446 indicates a variable for specifying the range. Here, an input range condition is set in which “TotalCost”, that is, the numerical value input to the total order amount column 392 must be 30000 (yen) or less. When this input range condition is violated, the message shown in the message field 448 is displayed. The message field 448 here corresponds to an error processing condition. The function column 450 shows an arithmetic expression for calculating the input data of this item. Here, the input data of the item indicated as “Item: SubTotal”, that is, the total value of the subtotal of the ordering member is set as the value to be input to the total order amount column 392. In other words, it can be said that the function column 450 indicates data processing conditions among the constraint conditions.
In addition, depending on the item, a column for designating an input authority condition for specifying a data input person who should be given an authority to input data may be provided.

FIG. 35 is a diagram showing a form input form for a data input person to input data in the form input terminal device.
The communication unit 320 of the form design terminal device 300 uploads the created form data to the form data management server 308. The form input terminal device 304 displays a form input screen 460 according to the display layout in the form data.

This will be described in comparison with FIG. The employee information column 470 corresponds to the employee information column 370 of the layout editing area 360. The employee ID column 462, the employee name column 464, the employee affiliation column 466, and the employee photo column 468 correspond to the employee ID column 372, the employee name column 374, the employee affiliation column 376, and the employee photo column 378 in the layout editing area 360.
The data input person selects his / her employee ID from the employee ID list displayed in a pull-down manner in the employee ID column 462. Thus, the “Person: ID” tag corresponding to the employee ID column 462 holds the selected employee ID as corresponding data. Here, for the “Person: Name” tag corresponding to the employee name column 464, a data processing condition is set such that when the employee ID is input, the corresponding employee name is displayed. When the input of the employee ID is detected, the form input terminal device 304 acquires the employee name corresponding to the employee ID from the employee database of the form data management server 308 and stores it as input data of the “Person: Name” tag. . Thus, when the data input person inputs the employee ID, the employee name is automatically displayed in the employee name column 464. The same applies to the employee affiliation column 466 and the employee photo column 468. In other words, the employee name, affiliation and face photo data are automatically displayed on the input form simply by the data input person inputting the employee ID.

The ordering member information column 480 corresponds to the ordering member information column 380 in the layout editing area 360. The member name column 482, the member description column 484, the member unit price column 486, the member order quantity column 488, and the member subtotal column 490 are a member name column 382, a member description column 384, a member unit price column 386, and a member order amount in the layout editing area 360. This corresponds to the column 388 and the member subtotal column 390.
The data input person enters the order member name in the member name column 482 and the member description in the member description column 484. When the unit price is entered in the member unit price column 486 and the quantity is entered in the member order quantity column 488, the subtotal is automatically displayed in the member subtotal column 490.
In the “Item: SubTotal” tag corresponding to the member subtotal column 490, data processing conditions are set so that the product of the unit price in the member unit price column 486 and the amount in the member order quantity column 488 becomes input data. The form input terminal device 304 calculates the input value in the member subtotal column 490 by executing the calculation set in the member subtotal column 490 using the input values in the member unit price column 486 and the member order quantity column 488 as variables. Thus, the subtotal value is displayed in the member subtotal column 490.
The delete row button 494 is a button for deleting a row in the ordering member information column 480, and the add row button 492 is a button for adding a row in the ordering member information column 480. Commands for adding and deleting such lines are added to the “Item” tag. This is the same as the command for “add student” and “delete student” shown in the definition file of FIG.

In the total order amount column 495, the total value of the amounts in the member subtotal column 490 is displayed. This is as already described in relation to the function column 450 of FIG. Here, since the error processing condition set for the total order amount column 495, that is, the condition that “the total amount is within 30000 yen” is violated, the message shown in the message column 448 is displayed as the annotation 498. Yes. The remarks column 496 corresponds to the remarks column 394 in the layout editing area 360.
In this way, various data are acquired from the data input person in accordance with the schema designed by the form setting person.

FIG. 36 is an example of a screen for displaying a list of constraint conditions in the form design terminal device.
The form setter can set constraint conditions for a plurality of items on the form form design screen 350. However, when many items are included in the input form, it is considered difficult to know what constraint condition is set for which item.
In order to solve such a problem, the form design terminal device 300 has a function of displaying a list of constraint conditions.

  The display condition setting area 502 is an area for setting conditions to be displayed as a list among the constraint conditions. In the same figure, the input range condition and the error processing condition related to the input range condition are subject to list display as a “list of input rules”. When the operation detection unit 314 receives such an instruction input from the form setter, the property setting unit 336 detects, from the form data holding unit 340, a tag in which a constraint condition according to the instruction is set. As shown in the input rule list screen 500, the screen display unit 312 displays a list in which items are associated with constraint conditions. That is, the list is displayed in a list display area 504 of the input rule list screen 500.

  Further, when an input authority condition is specified, a constraint condition corresponding to the data input person may be displayed. For example, for a certain item, when the restriction conditions for the data input person of employee IDs “0100” to “0200” and the restriction condition by the data input person of employee IDs “0201” to “0300” differ, These plural types of constraint conditions may be displayed side by side in the list display area 504. For example, it is assumed that the member order amount approved in the section manager class is different from the member order amount approved in the section manager class. In such a case, a constraint condition may be set according to the data input person.

FIG. 37 is another example of a screen for displaying a list of constraint conditions in the form design terminal device.
Here, the display condition setting area 502 shows information for specifying a position where data is stored in the form management system 302.
In addition, a list may be displayed from various viewpoints such as an input format condition and an input authority condition. Note that the form setter can also set constraint conditions for each tag on the input rule list screen 500 and the data rule list screen 510.

  The example of designing a form input form has been described above. A technique for efficiently processing data in a table format or a list format using the form design terminal device 300 according to the present embodiment will be further described.

  FIG. 38 shows an example of the configuration of a form design terminal device. The form design terminal device 300 shown in FIG. 38 further includes a data input function adding unit 338 in addition to the configuration of the form design terminal device 300 shown in FIG. Other configurations and operations are the same as those of the form design terminal device 300 shown in FIG.

  The data input function adding unit 338 adds a function for inputting tabular data from the outside to the input form definition file generated by the data processing unit 330. The tabular data may be given in a format such as TSV (Tab Separated Values) or CSV (Comma Separated Values), or may be given by a data export function such as spreadsheet software or database software, It may be given by using a function such as drag & drop or copy & paste from spreadsheet software or database software, or may be given from an external device by a communication protocol such as HTTP. The data input function added by the data input function adding unit 338 is applied to data defined as repeatable by the property setting unit 336 among the data input by the input form. In other words, this data input function, when tabular data is given from the outside to the input form, each element of the given tabular data is defined as an element that can be repeated, or a subordinate of that element Input as element data. By adding such a function, it is possible to dramatically improve the convenience when inputting data into the input form.

  FIG. 39 shows functional blocks of the data input unit added to the input form. The data input unit 3090 includes an input data acquisition unit 3092, a header analysis unit 3094, and a data setting unit 3096. The input data acquisition unit 3092 acquires tabular input data from spreadsheet software, database software, a clipboard, or the like. The header analysis unit 3094 analyzes the acquired input data and determines which column data is set to which node of the input form. The data setting unit 3096 sets data in the node determined by the header analysis unit 3094.

  If there is a header row in the acquired tabular data, the header analysis unit 3094 analyzes the contents of the header row to determine the correspondence between the column of the tabular data and the node of the input form. For example, if there is a row describing the contents of the data in each column in the first row of tabular data, the character string is compared with the element name or attribute name of the node of the input form, and there is a match or similar If there is, associate them. Not only the first line of the acquired tabular data but, for example, when text data exists in any line, the line may be analyzed as a header line. At this time, synonyms and translated words may be acquired with reference to a dictionary and further compared. In addition, the property setting unit 336 of the form design terminal device 300 sets a character string that may be described as a header of the tabular data for an element or attribute below the repeated element of the input form. It may be left. For example, a common name may be set for each element or attribute, and the common name may be compared with header information of tabular data. The header analysis unit 3094 may present the acquired tabular data to the user through a dialog or the like, and may accept designation of the correspondence between the tabular data column and the input form node from the user. As described above, according to the data input unit 3090 of this embodiment, the correspondence between each column of tabular data and elements or attributes for which data is to be set is determined automatically or by user designation. Even if the arrangement order of the columns of the tabular data and the arrangement order of the nodes of the input form do not match, the data can be input appropriately. An element or attribute for setting data may be designated by a location path.

  The data setting unit 3096 sets the acquired data in the input form according to the correspondence determined by the header analysis unit 3094. At this time, if already input data exists, they may be overwritten, or data may be inserted by adding a new repetitive element.

  FIG. 40 shows a form form design screen for the form setter to edit the input form in the form design terminal device. In the schema definition area on the right side of the screen, the components of the “Grades” vocabulary are defined. In the “Grade” vocabulary, the “Grade” element, which is the root element, has a “Student” element in the lower level, and the “Student” element is subordinate to “National language”, “Mathematics”, “Science”, “Society” Each element.

  FIG. 41 shows a dialog screen for setting the properties of the “student” element. When the “Repetition” column is checked as the property of the “Student” element and the minimum number and maximum number of repetitions are specified, the “Student” element is set as the repetition element.

  FIG. 42 shows a dialog screen for setting the layout of the input form of data included in the lower part of the “student” element. When the “student” element displayed in the schema definition area is dragged and dropped in the layout area, a dialog screen for automatically laying out the input form of the “student” element is presented. Here, an input form for inputting data included in the lower level of the “student” element in a table format is generated.

  FIG. 43 shows an automatically laid out “Student” element input form. A tabular input form for inputting element values of each element of “National language”, “Mathematics”, “Science”, and “Society” included under the “Student” element is generated. At the top of the table, the element name of each element is displayed as a header.

  Here, when the setting of the input form is completed, the data processing unit 330 displays a screen of the input form and generates definition data that provides a function of saving the received input data as a document. The data input function adding unit 338 adds a data input unit 3090 having a function of inputting tabular data to the input form to the definition data.

  FIG. 44 shows a form form input screen for inputting data to the input form in the form input terminal device. When the “Gradebook” template is selected in the template area on the left side of the screen, the definition data generated as described above is called and the gradebook input form screen is presented.

  FIG. 45 shows the source of a document edited by the form input terminal device. In FIG. 44, when the template of “scorebook” is selected, the template shown in FIG. 45 is called. When data is input to each cell on the form form input screen of FIG. 44, the data is written as the element value of the corresponding element.

  FIG. 46 shows a screen on which the data of the score table is input in the spreadsheet software. The data input unit 3090 provides a function of copying these data to the input form of the form input terminal device. The user selects data to be input, and copies the data to the input form of the form input terminal device by operations such as copy and paste, drag and drop.

  FIG. 47 shows a dialog screen for pasting copied data. When “Paste tab delimiter value” is selected in the context menu presented by right-clicking the mouse, the data delimited by the tab copied to the clipboard is pasted to the node below the repeated element. At this time, even if the cursor position is at a position other than the input form of the repeated element, data is pasted to the repeated element.

  FIG. 48 shows a dialog screen for setting how to paste tab delimiter values. As the pasting method, it is possible to select whether to insert the new data while leaving the already input data, or to overwrite the already input data. In addition, as a method of handling blank data, it is possible to select whether there is no data or an empty character string is input. In addition, it is possible to select whether to paste the data of each column in that order, or to compare and paste the header line of the tab delimiter value with the schema information. At this time, it is possible to select which of the element name and the common name has priority.

  FIG. 49 shows a screen on which the data shown in FIG. 46 is pasted. The header analysis unit 3094 includes “name”, “national language”, “mathematics”, “science”, “society” character strings entered in the header line, and element names of elements below the “student” element. , "National language" column data to "National language" element, "Mathematics" column data to "Mathematics" element, "Science" column data to "Science" element, "Society" Corresponding data in each column to the “Society” element. The data setting unit 3096 inputs each data to each of the elements associated with the header analysis unit 3094.

  FIG. 50 shows the source of a document to which data is pasted. There are two “Student” elements, and pasted data is set for each of the “National Language”, “Mathematics”, “Science”, and “Society” subordinate to each “Student” element. ing.

  FIG. 51 shows another example of a screen on which gradebook data is input in spreadsheet software. In FIG. 51, columns are provided in the order of “name”, “science”, “society”, “mathematics”, and “national language”.

  FIG. 52 shows a screen on which the data shown in FIG. 50 is pasted. The header analysis unit 3094 appropriately associates each column of data to be pasted with the node to which the data is pasted. Therefore, the data in the column “National language” is stored in the “National language” element, and the column “Mathematics” is displayed in the “Mathematics” element. Data in the column “Mathematics”, data in the column “Science” in the “Science” element, and data in the column “Society” are input in the “Society” element, respectively.

  The present invention has been described based on the embodiments. This embodiment is an exemplification, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to combinations of the respective constituent elements and processing processes, and such modifications are also within the scope of the present invention. is there.

  In the embodiment, an example of processing an XML document has been described. However, the document processing apparatus 20 according to the present embodiment can similarly process a document described in another markup language such as SGML or HTML. is there.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the document processing apparatus which concerns on a base technology. It is a figure which shows the example of the XML document edited by the document processing apparatus. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example in which the XML document shown in FIG. 2 is mapped to a table described in HTML. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a definition file for mapping the XML document shown in FIG. 2 to the table shown in FIG. 3. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a definition file for mapping the XML document shown in FIG. 2 to the table shown in FIG. 3. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a screen on which the XML document shown in FIG. 2 is mapped and displayed in HTML according to the correspondence shown in FIG. 3. It is a figure which shows the example of the graphical user interface which a definition file production | generation part presents to a user in order that a user may produce | generate a definition file. It is a figure which shows the other example of the screen layout produced | generated by the definition file production | generation part. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an XML document editing screen by the document processing apparatus. FIG. It is a figure which shows the other example of the XML document edited by the document processing apparatus. It is a figure which shows the example of the screen which displayed the document shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows the basic composition of a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the block diagram of the whole document processing system. It is a figure which shows the block diagram of the whole document processing system. It is a figure which shows the detail of a document management part. It is a figure which shows the detail of a vocabulary connection subsystem. It is a figure which shows the detail of the relationship between a program starting part and another structure. It is a figure which shows the detail of the structure of the application service loaded by the program starting part. It is a figure which shows the detail of a core component. It is a figure which shows the detail of a document management part. It is a figure which shows the details of an undo framework and an undo command. It is a figure which shows a mode that a document is loaded in a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the example of a document and its expression. It is a figure which shows the relationship between a model and a controller. It is a figure which shows the detail of a plug-in subsystem, a vocabulary connection, and a connector. It is a figure which shows the example of a VCD file. It is a figure which shows the procedure which loads a compound document in a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the procedure which loads a compound document in a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the procedure which loads a compound document in a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the procedure which loads a compound document in a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the procedure which loads a compound document in a document processing system. It is a figure which shows the flow of a command. It is a hardware block diagram of the form management system in a present Example. It is a functional block diagram of a form design terminal device. It is a figure which shows the form form design screen for a form setting person to edit an input form in a form design terminal device. It is an example of the screen figure for setting the constraint conditions of a tag. It is another example of the screen figure for setting the constraint conditions of a tag. It is a figure which shows the form input screen for a data input person to input data in a form input terminal device. It is an example of a screen for displaying a list of constraint conditions in the form design terminal device. It is another example of a screen for displaying a list of constraint conditions in the form design terminal device. It is a figure which shows the example of a structure of a form design terminal device. It is a figure which shows the functional block of the data input part added to an input form. It is a figure which shows the form form design screen for a form setting person to edit an input form in a form design terminal device. It is a figure which shows the dialog screen for setting the property of a "student" element. It is a figure which shows the dialog screen for setting the layout of the input form of the data contained under the "student" element. It is a figure which shows the input form of the "student" element laid out automatically. It is a figure which shows the form form input screen for inputting data into an input form in a form input terminal device. It is a figure which shows the source | sauce of the document edited by the form input terminal device. It is a figure which shows the screen into which the data of the gradebook was input in the spreadsheet software. It is a figure which shows the dialog screen for pasting the copied data. It is a figure which shows the dialog screen for setting how to paste a tab delimiter value. It is a figure which shows the screen which affixed the data shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows the source | sauce of the document where data was affixed. It is a figure which shows another example of the screen into which the data of the score table was input in the spreadsheet software. It is a figure which shows the screen which affixed the data shown in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

  20 document processing apparatus, 22 main control unit, 24 editing unit, 30 DOM unit, 32 DOM providing unit, 34 DOM generating unit, 36 output unit, 40 CSS unit, 42 CSS analyzing unit, 44 CSS providing unit, 46 rendering unit, 50 HTML unit, 52, 62 control unit, 54, 64 editing unit, 56, 66 display unit, 60 SVG unit, 80 VC unit, 82 mapping unit, 84 definition file acquisition unit, 86 definition file generation unit, 300 form design terminal Device, 302 form management system, 304 form input terminal device, 308 form data management server, 310 user interface processing unit, 312 screen display unit, 314 operation detection unit, 320 communication unit, 330 data processing unit, 332 schema setting unit, 334 Layau Setting part, 336 Property setting part, 340 Form data holding part, 350 Form form design screen, 360 Layout editing area, 400 Schema editing area, 430 Restriction condition setting screen, 440 Restriction condition setting screen, 460 Form input screen, 500 Input rules List screen, 502 display condition setting area, 504 list display area, 510 data rule list screen.

Claims (7)

An element structure information acquisition unit for acquiring information indicating an element structure of a structured document described in a predetermined tag set;
By converting the data included in the structured document into data described by another tag set for editing, definition data for displaying the editing user interface screen of the structured document is converted into the element structure. A definition data generation unit that generates based on information indicating
When the structured document has repeatable elements, a data input function for inputting at least a part of tabular data given from the outside as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing below the element is provided. A data input function adding unit to be added to the definition data;
A data processing apparatus comprising:   The data input function determines a correspondence relationship between a column of the tabular data and the node by analyzing the header row when the tabular data includes a header row. Item 4. The data processing device according to Item 1.   The data input function compares the character string indicating the content of the column of the tabular data described in the header row with the name of the node, and thereby the column of the tabular data and the node The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a correspondence relationship is determined. The definition data generation unit has a function of setting an alias for the node;
The data input function compares the character string indicating the contents of the column of the tabular data described in the header row with the alias of the node, and thereby the column of the tabular data and the node 4. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a correspondence relationship is determined. A processing unit for processing a structured document described by a predetermined tag set;
When the structured document has repeatable elements, a data input unit for inputting at least a part of tabular data given from the outside as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing under the element; ,
A data processing apparatus comprising: Obtaining information indicating an element structure of a structured document described by a predetermined tag set;
By converting the data included in the structured document into data described by another tag set for editing, definition data for displaying the editing user interface screen of the structured document is converted into the element structure. Generating based on information indicating
When the structured document has repeatable elements, a data input function for inputting at least a part of tabular data given from the outside as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing below the element is provided. Adding to the definition data;
A data processing method comprising: A function for obtaining information indicating an element structure of a structured document described in a predetermined tag set;
By converting the data included in the structured document into data described by another tag set for editing, definition data for displaying the editing user interface screen of the structured document is converted into the element structure. A function to generate based on information indicating
When the structured document has repeatable elements, a data input function for inputting at least a part of tabular data given from the outside as a node value of the repeatable element or a node existing below the element is provided. A function to be added to the definition data;
A program comprising: