JP2014021835A - Information processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To grasp a status of an external device in more detail without the need to select a tab and display a page of the tab.SOLUTION: Sheet remaining amount icons of an MP tray and paper cassettes 1 to 4 of an image forming apparatus are displayed on a tab 52, and remaining percentage amounts of sheets are displayed below the icons in text; toner remaining amount icons of toner containers of respective colors of CMYK are displayed on a tab 53, and remaining percentage amounts of the toner in the respective toner containers are displayed below the icons in text; and the icons and the remaining percentage amounts on the tabs are updated in response to a change in the status regardless as to whether or not the tabs are selected.

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus that displays in a status monitor window the contents of a state related to an external apparatus received via a communication unit.

  In Patent Document 1 below, settings such as “alarm settings” and “repetitive settings” are displayed on a tab as text, and an icon indicating an outline of the setting contents, such as an alarm enable icon or a repeat enable icon, is displayed on the tab. It is disclosed that when a plurality of tab pages exist by displaying, it is possible to grasp an outline of setting of each tab page without displaying each tab page.

JP 2001-75694 A

  However, it does not display a change in the status related to the external device, and since only the alarm enable and repeat enable can be seen from the tab icon, that is, the amount of tab display information is small. The frequency of displaying tab pages is relatively high.

  In view of such problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus capable of grasping the state of an external device in more detail without selecting a tab and displaying the tab page. It is in.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a processor, a communication unit, an input unit, a display unit, and a storage unit storing a program are provided, and the program is externally received by the processor via the communication unit. The status of the device is displayed in the status monitor window on the display screen of the display means. At this time, a tab is displayed for each status type in the status monitor window, and the input means or the default is displayed. In the information processing apparatus that displays the page of the tab selected in
The program for the processor
A plurality of icons are displayed on at least one of the tabs for each type, and attribute values corresponding to the icons are displayed inside, above, or below each of the plurality of icons to change the state. Accordingly, the icon and attribute value on the tab are updated regardless of the selection / non-selection of the tab.

  In a second aspect of the information processing apparatus according to the present invention, in the first aspect, each of the plurality of icons corresponds to different parts of the same type provided in the external device.

In a third aspect of the information processing apparatus according to the present invention, in the second aspect, the external device is an image forming device, and the different similar parts are a plurality of paper feed cassettes,
The attribute value of the state is a percentage of the remaining amount of paper in the corresponding paper feed cassette.

In a fourth aspect of the information processing apparatus according to the present invention, in the second aspect, the external device is an image forming device, and the different similar parts are toner containers of CMYK colors,
The attribute value of the state is a percentage of the remaining amount of toner in the corresponding toner container.

  According to the configuration of the first aspect, a plurality of icons are displayed on at least one of the tabs for each state type related to the external device, and the icons correspond to the icons inside, above or below each of the plurality of icons. The attribute value of the selected state is displayed, and the icon and attribute value on the tab are updated regardless of the selection / non-selection of the tab according to the change of the state. Even if it is not displayed, there is an effect that the state of the external device can be grasped in more detail.

  According to the configuration of the second aspect, each of the plurality of icons corresponds to the same kind of different parts provided in the external device, so even if a tab is not selected and the tab page is not displayed, There is an effect that the states of a plurality of similar parts can be grasped in more detail.

  According to the configuration of the third aspect, it is possible to easily grasp the percentage of the remaining amount of paper in a plurality of paper feed cassettes without selecting a tab and displaying the tab page. Play.

  According to the configuration of the fourth aspect, it is possible to easily grasp the percentage of the remaining amount of toner in the CMYK toner containers without selecting a tab and displaying the tab page. Play.

  Other objects, characteristic configurations and effects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description read in connection with the appended claims and the drawings.

1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an image forming system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. It is a schematic block diagram which shows the hardware constitutions of the client PC which comprises the system of FIG. It is a functional block diagram regarding the status monitor of the client PC. (A) And (B) is a schematic block diagram of the status window respectively displayed by a status monitor. (A) And (B) is a schematic block diagram of another status window, respectively. FIG. 4 is a schematic functional block diagram showing a configuration of a status monitor in FIG. 3. (A) is a schematic diagram of a data structure in the state storage unit in FIG. 6, and (B) is a schematic configuration diagram of a conversion table in FIG. It is a schematic flowchart which shows the process of the event process part in FIG. It is a schematic flowchart which shows the process of UI part in FIG.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an image forming system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

  In this system, a PC 10 used as an administrator computer and a print server (hereinafter referred to as a print server PC 10), N client PCs 10-10 to 1N as hosts, and an image forming apparatus 20 are connected via a network 30. Are combined. Two-way communication is possible between the print server PC 10 and the image forming apparatus 20 and between the print server PC 10 and each of the client PCs 10-1 to 10 -N.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram showing the hardware configuration of the client PC 10-1 that constitutes the system of FIG.

  In the client PC 10-1, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11 is connected via an interface 12 to a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory) 3, a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) 14, a network interface 15, an auxiliary storage device 16, an input device 17, and Coupled to display device 18. In FIG. 2, a plurality of types of interfaces are represented by one block 12 for simplification. Each of the client PCs 10-2 to 10-N is configured similarly to the client PC 10-1 as hardware.

  The PROM 13 is a flash memory, for example, and stores a basic input / output system (BIOS). The DRAM 14 is used as a main storage device. Network interface 15 is coupled to network 30. The auxiliary storage device 16 stores an OS (Operating System), various drivers, and applications for functioning as an administrator computer and a print server. This application includes a status monitor. The input device is, for example, a keyboard and a pointing device.

  The image forming apparatus 20 has a printing function, includes a print engine, a paper feeding unit, a conveyance unit, and a paper discharge unit, and converts PDL (page description language) data received from the print server PC 10 into bitmap data. The image is developed, the laser beam is modulated with this data to form an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum, this image is developed with toner, the toner image is transferred to a sheet, fixed, and discharged.

  FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram relating to the status monitor of the client PC 10-1. The client PC 10-1 in this figure is representative of the client PCs 10-2 to 1N, and each of the PCs 10-2 to 10-N is configured similarly to the PC 10-1. Hereinafter, a case where the OS is Windows (registered trademark) will be described.

  The application 40 converts the document data into print job data by calling a function in the OS GDI (Graphic Device Interface) library 41. At this time, the GDI function converts the GDI drawing data into PDL data that can be interpreted by the image forming apparatus 20 via the printer driver 42 and writes it into the spool file 43.

  When the application 40 calls the EndDoc function in the GDI library 41, the conversion process for one job is completed, and in response, the printer driver 42 generates a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) and spools it as a job ID. Write to the file 43, and supply the job ID to the notification service 44 to request event subscription registration. The notification service 44 is a resident program, operates in the background, and always accepts input.

  The notification service 44 transmits the job ID received from the printer driver 42 to the PC 10 via the network communication unit 46 and the network 30 together with the IP address of the client PC 10-1.

  Upon receiving the job ID and IP address, the print server PC 10 registers these as one record in the WS-Eventing event subscription table.

  On the other hand, when data writing to the spool file 43 is completed, the spooler 45 puts the identifier into a queue, and each time the identifier is taken out from the head of the queue, the spooler 45 sends the spool file via the network communication unit 46. Supply to PC10.

  The print server PC 10 spools the received spool file and sequentially transmits the spool file to the image forming apparatus 20.

  In response to this, the image forming apparatus 20 develops the received job data into a bitmap, supplies it to the print engine, controls the paper supply / discharge mechanism, forms an image on the paper, and discharges it.

  When an error occurs in the print engine, the paper feed / discharge mechanism, and other parts, or when the job processing state changes, the image forming apparatus 20 transmits the contents as a state change event of the own apparatus to the network 30. To the print server PC 10. The content of the event includes the status of the device or job, and further includes a job ID in the case of the job status.

  In the job state, the print server PC 10 reads a record including the job ID from the subscription table, uses the IP address included in the record as the address of the destination PC, and is registered in the subscription table in the device state. Each IP address is the address of the destination PC, and the contents of the event are transmitted to the notification service 44 of the client PC via the network 30.

  4 and 5 show a configuration example of the status window 50 displayed on the screen of the display device 18 by the status monitor 47. FIG.

  In order to display the status in the status window 50 for each status type related to the image forming apparatus 20, tabs 51 to 54 corresponding to each of these types are displayed as shown in FIG. One of these tabs is selected by operating the input device 17 or by default, and the details of the state are displayed on the tab page 55 of the selected tab.

  In FIG. 4A, the tab 51 is selected, and the print information table 56 and the appearance image 57 of the image forming apparatus 20 are displayed on the tab page 55. In the print information table 56, the document name of the print job requested by the user to the image forming apparatus 20 via the client PC 10-1 and the print server PC 10 and the number of printed pages are displayed. On the left side of each document name, an icon indicating the status of the print job is displayed. The icon 56a indicates that printing is paused, the icon 56b indicates that printing is in progress, and the icon 56c indicates that the icon is waiting. The number of printed pages is displayed in the form of (currently printed pages) / (total number of printed pages). When the state of each print job changes (including the change of the print page), the event is notified from the image forming apparatus 20 to the notification service 44 of the client PC 10-1 via the print server PC10.

  The tab 51 displays an icon indicating the status of the print job and a print status bar 51a indicating the outline of the print job. When the color is green, the print status bar 51a indicates that any job is being printed. When the color is yellow, it indicates that there is no job being printed and the job is stopped or waiting. Indicates that printing has been stopped due to an error.

  The appearance image 57 indicates which printer is executing the print job.

  In FIG. 4B, the tab 52 is selected, and the sheet cassette information table 56A and the appearance image 57 are displayed on the tab page 55A. The paper cassette information table 56A displays the paper size, type, and remaining amount (%) for each paper cassette. There are multipurpose (MP) trays and cassettes 1 to 4 in the paper feed cassette. The remaining amount of paper is detected by a sensor (not shown) in the image forming apparatus 20, and every time the value changes by 25%, the event is notified from the image forming apparatus 20 via the print server PC10 to the notification service 44 of the client PC 10-1. Will be notified.

  Corresponding to the paper cassette information table 56A, the tab 52 displays the icons of the MP tray and the paper cassettes 1 to 4 in order from the left side to the right side. The remaining amount of paper is displayed in%.

  In FIG. 5A, the tab 53 is selected, and the toner information table 56B is displayed on the tab page 55B. In the toner information table 56B, the remaining amounts of toner of black (K), cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) are displayed in%. The remaining amount of toner is detected by a sensor (not shown) in the image forming apparatus 20, and every time the value changes by 25%, the event is notified from the image forming apparatus 20 via the print server PC10 to the notification service 44 of the client PC 10-1. Will be notified.

  The tab 53 displays icons corresponding to the respective toners of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and each icon displays the color of the toner and the level of the remaining amount as an image. The remaining toner value is displayed in%.

  In FIG. 5B, the tab 54 is selected, and the error of the apparatus and the content of the error handling method are displayed in text in the error display area 56C of the tab page 55C. In this example, the waste toner box is full or the waste toner box has not been detected by the printing system, and an instruction to replace or install the waste toner box is described. Each time an apparatus error occurs, the event is notified from the image forming apparatus 20 to the notification service 44 of the client PC 10-1 via the print server PC 10.

  An internal image 57A is further displayed on the tab page 55C. The internal image 57A shows the position of the waste toner box in the image forming apparatus 20. The types of the image forming apparatus 20 and the waste toner box are displayed above the internal image 57A.

  FIG. 6 is a schematic functional block diagram showing the configuration of the status monitor 47 in FIG.

  The status monitor 47 converts a status storage unit 60 that stores status information to be displayed in the status window 50, image data 61 to be displayed on tabs and tab pages 55 in the status window 50, and error codes into text. The conversion table 62 is provided.

  As shown in FIG. 7, the status storage unit 60 includes data 601 displayed in the print information table 56 in FIG. 4A, data 602 displayed in the paper feed cassette information table 56A in FIG. Data 603 to be displayed in the toner information table 56B of FIG. 5A and an error code 604 corresponding to the text to be displayed in the error display area 56C of FIG. 5B are included. FIG. 7B shows a schematic configuration of a conversion table 62 that converts this error code into text.

  The status monitor 47 further includes an event processing unit 63 and a UI (user interface) unit 64.

  FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart showing the processing of the event processing unit 63. This process is started in response to an event notification from the network communication unit 46 in FIG. In the following, the step identification codes in the figure are shown in parentheses.

  (S0) The content of the event includes an address (state identifier) in the state storage unit 60 and the content of the state (remaining amount%, error code, etc.). Update the content.

  (S1) The contents of the event are notified to the UI unit 64.

  FIG. 9 is a schematic flowchart showing processing of the UI unit 64. This process is started in response to the user operating the input device 17 to select a tab or in response to a notification from the event processing unit 63.

  (S10) When the tab is selected, the process proceeds to step S11, and when the notification is from the event processing unit 63, the process proceeds to step S13.

  (S11) The tab shape is changed so that it can be seen which tab is selected. For example, when the tab 51 is selected as shown in FIG. 4 (A), the border line between the tab 51 and the tab page 55 is removed, and the height of the tab 51 is set higher than that of the non-selected tab. In addition, the shape of the tab selected so far is changed to a non-selected shape.

  (S12) The tab page corresponding to the selected tab is displayed based on the corresponding data in the state storage unit 60, and the contents of the corresponding image file (including the icon file) in the image data 61 are displayed. . If the corresponding data in the state storage unit 60 is a code, the conversion table 62 is referred to and converted into text is displayed on the tab page. This completes the process of FIG.

  (S13) If the content of the event relates to the display content of the tab, the tab display is updated regardless of selection / non-selection.

  (S14, S15) If the content of the event is that of the tab page being displayed, the corresponding content is updated. At this time, if the content of the event is related to the display of the icon, the icon is updated using the image data 61. In this update, for example, the event is associated with the icon by including the address of the event in the name of the icon file. If an error code is included in the event, the conversion table 62 is referred to convert it into text, and the corresponding part in the tab page is updated.

  According to the first embodiment, a plurality of icons are displayed on the tab for each state type related to the image forming apparatus 20, and an image is displayed inside each of the plurality of icons, and a text is displayed below each of the plurality of icons. The attribute value of the state corresponding to the icon is displayed, and the icon and attribute value on the tab are updated regardless of the selection / non-selection of the tab according to the change of the state. Thus, there is an effect that the state of the image forming apparatus 20 can be grasped in more detail without displaying the tab page.

  In particular, in FIG. 4B, it is possible to easily grasp the percentage of the remaining amount of paper in the MP tray and the paper feed cassettes 1 to 4 without selecting the tab 52 and displaying the tab page. There is an effect.

  Further, in FIG. 5A, it is possible to easily grasp the percentage of the remaining amount of toner in the CMYK toner containers without selecting the tab 53 and displaying the tab page. Play.

  In the above, preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described. However, the present invention includes various modifications, and other configurations that realize the functions of the respective components described in the above embodiments are used. However, other configurations that would be conceived by those skilled in the art from these configurations or functions are also included in the present invention.

  For example, in FIG. 1, the image forming apparatus 20 may be locally coupled to the print server PC 10 or the client PC 10-1.

10 Print server PC
10-1 Client PC
11 CPU
12 Interface 13 PROM
14 DRAM
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 15 Network interface 16 Auxiliary storage device 17 Input device 18 Display device 20 Image forming device 30 Network 40 Application 41 GDI library 42 Printer driver 45 Spooler 43 Spool file 44 Notification service 46 Network communication part 47 Status monitor 50 Status window 51-54 Tab 51a Print status bar 54a Normal mark 54b Warning mark 55, 55A to 55C Tab page 56 Print information table 56A Paper cassette information table 56B Toner information table 56C Error display area 56a to 56c Icon 57 Appearance image 57A Internal image 60 Status storage unit 601 604 Data 61 Image data 62 Conversion table 63 Event processing unit 64 UI unit

Claims (5)

A processor, a communication unit, an input unit, a display unit, and a storage unit storing a program are provided, and the program displays to the processor the contents of the status regarding the external device received via the communication unit. In the status monitor window on the display screen of the means, a tab is displayed for each type of the state in the status monitor window, and the tab page selected by the input means or by default In an information processing apparatus for displaying
The program for the processor
A plurality of icons are displayed on at least one of the tabs for each type, and attribute values corresponding to the icons are displayed inside, above, or below each of the plurality of icons to change the state. Depending on the selection, the icon and attribute value on the tab are updated regardless of the selection / non-selection of the tab.
An information processing apparatus characterized by that. Each of the plurality of icons that displays a tab for each type of the state on at least one of the plurality of icons corresponds to different parts of the same type provided in the external device.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1. The external device is an image forming apparatus, and the different similar parts are a plurality of paper feed cassettes,
The attribute value of the state is a percentage of the remaining amount of paper in the corresponding paper feed cassette.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 2. The external apparatus is an image forming apparatus, and the different similar parts are toner containers of CMYK colors,
The attribute value of the state is a percentage of the remaining amount of toner in the corresponding toner container.
The information processing apparatus according to claim 2. The tab for each type includes a tab related to the paper feed cassette according to claim 3 and a tab related to the toner container according to claim 4.
An information processing apparatus characterized by that.

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