JP3769868B2 - Document management device - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a document management apparatus that stores and manages documents in units of pages, and more particularly to a user interface for a user to understand the page configuration of a document.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Document management apparatuses that store and manage document images in units of pages are known. Such a document management apparatus provides a user interface that allows the user to grasp the page configuration of the document. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-162084 discloses an apparatus that displays icons divided into cells corresponding to the number of pages of the document in association with the document name. In this apparatus, an image of a page corresponding to a cell can be called by an operation such as clicking on the cell with a mouse or the like.
[0003]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In the icon display of the above-mentioned conventional device, the number of pages of the document can be grasped by how many cells the icon is divided. However, the description content and size of each page or the horizontal placement / It is impossible to grasp the details of individual pages such as the orientation of pages such as portrait orientation. In the conventional apparatus described above, in order to know details of each page, an operation such as clicking a cell to display an image of the page is required, and the operation tends to be complicated.
[0004]
The present invention has been made to solve such problems. In the document management apparatus, a user interface that allows a user to intuitively understand the page configuration of a document, the contents of individual pages, and the like. An object is to provide a user interface display that is easy to view even for a document in which pages of different sizes and orientations are mixed.
[0005]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, a document management apparatus according to the present invention includes a page size acquisition unit that acquires the height and width of each page constituting a document, and a height of each page obtained by the page size acquisition unit. Section size determining means for determining the maximum height and width from the height and width data, and determining the section size per page in the display window based on these values, and a plurality of display windows for each section size. And a display control means for allocating and displaying page icons obtained by dividing the image of each page at a certain scale and assigning each page icon to each section in the page order.
[0006]
In this configuration, page icons are arranged and displayed according to the page order as a user interface. Each page icon is an image of the original page scaled down to the same scale, so you can know the size and orientation of each page (distinguish between horizontal and vertical) from the display of each page icon. You can grasp the content of the page to some extent. Also, in this configuration, since the partition size per page is determined based on the maximum height and width of each page constituting the document, the partition size is determined so that all pages of the document do not protrude. Can do. Then, by dividing the display window into such partition sizes and displaying one page icon for each partition, the page icons can be displayed in the display window without overlapping. Therefore, according to this configuration, it is possible to obtain a user interface display that allows the user to intuitively grasp the page configuration of the document and the contents of each page even for a document in which pages of different sizes and orientations are mixed.
[0007]
In a preferred aspect of the present invention, the display window width obtaining means for obtaining the width of the display window in a predetermined reference direction, and the ratio of the width and the width in the reference direction of the section, Partition column number calculating means for calculating the number of columns of partitions that can be accommodated in the width about the reference direction, and the display control means displays the page icons of each page in page order along the reference direction, Each time the page icons corresponding to the number of columns are displayed, a line feed is performed and the remaining pages are displayed.
[0008]
In this aspect, the number of sections that can be arranged along the reference direction in the display window is calculated, and page icons are displayed in this number per line along the reference direction. Therefore, even when the number of pages is large, there is no need to scroll the window in the reference direction, and the operation burden on the user can be reduced.
[0009]
Further, according to the present invention, the display control means divides the drawing of the page icon into two stages of drawing of the outer frame and drawing of the page contents, and accepts a user operation when the drawing of the outer frame is completed. It is possible to do this.
[0010]
In this aspect, before drawing a reduced image of a page that takes time, only the outer frame of the page icon is drawn, and the user's operation can be accepted when the outer frame has been drawn. According to this aspect, the user can perform an operation such as document editing without feeling stress because the user can perform an operation without waiting for the completion of drawing the page icon.
[0011]
The present invention also provides a computer for obtaining the maximum height from the page size acquisition means for acquiring the height and width of each page constituting the document, and the height and width data of each page obtained by the page size acquisition means. A partition size determining means for determining a maximum width and determining a size of a partition per page in the display window based on these values; dividing the display window into a plurality of partitions for each partition size; The present invention provides a computer-readable recording medium in which a program for causing a page icon, which is reduced at a predetermined scale, to function as display control means for allocating and displaying each page icon in accordance with the page order.
[0012]
The computer-readable recording medium on which the program is recorded includes a floppy disk, a CD-ROM (compact disk-read only memory), a hard disk, a ROM (read only memory), etc.・ Includes all information recording media that are recorded in the format. The program recorded on such a recording medium is loaded onto the main memory of the computer and executed by a CPU (Central Processing Unit) to achieve the above functions. Note that a form in which the above program is installed in a fixed disk device attached to a computer or loaded into a main memory and executed via a communication medium is also included in the aspect of the present invention.
[0013]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention (hereinafter referred to as embodiments) will be described with reference to the drawings.
[0014]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a user interface for document browsing / editing operations in the document management apparatus of this embodiment. In FIG. 1, in the list display window 10, page icons 14 representing each page of a document to be operated are arranged along an arrangement path A indicated by a one-dot chain line in the drawing according to the page order. This arrangement path is a repetitive Z-shaped path such as raster scanning used for television electron beam scanning and the like, and the page icon arrangement display method along such an arrangement path is called Z-order display. . Each page icon 14 includes a reduced image obtained by reducing an image of a corresponding page at a predetermined scale. In other words, the page icon 14 accurately reflects the actual page size and the page orientation such as landscape or portrait. Incidentally, in FIG. 1, eight pages of documents having different sizes and orientations are displayed. Each page icon 14 displays a page number 16 in addition to the above-described reduced image of the page. The page number 16 is displayed in order from the first page at a predetermined position such as the upper left corner of the page icon 14. The user can grasp at a glance how many pages each page icon 14 corresponds to by this display.
[0015]
In this embodiment, when performing the list display of the page icons 14 as shown in FIG.
The list display window 10 is virtually divided into a plurality of sections 12 of the same size, and one page icon 14 is assigned to each section 12 and displayed. This section 12 is only a virtual one, and it is not always necessary to actually create or display such a section. The size of the section 12 is determined based on the maximum width and maximum height of a plurality of pages constituting the document. In the present embodiment, values obtained by reducing the maximum width and the maximum height of the page with the scale of the page icon 14 with respect to the actual page size are set as the width and the height of the section 12, respectively. That is, the height of the section 12 is equal to the maximum height of the page icon 14, and the width of the section 12 is equal to the maximum width of the page icon 14. If the size of the section 12 is determined in this way, any page icon 14 will always fit in this section 12. Therefore, if page icons 14 are assigned to such sections 12 one by one and displayed, a plurality of page icons 14 having different sizes and orientations can be displayed in a list without overlapping each other.
[0016]
Further, in the present embodiment, by adjusting the number of page icons 14 displayed in the horizontal direction according to the width of the list display window 10, all pages can be displayed only by the vertical scroll operation. That is, from the width of the list display window 10 and the width of the section 12, the number of columns 12 in the horizontal direction in the list display window 10 is calculated, and the number of columns is calculated. Display. In the example of FIG. 1, for example, when the total number of pages of a document exceeds the number of pages that can be displayed in the list display window 10, a scroll bar is displayed at the right end portion of the list display window 10. By doing so, it is possible to display a hidden page icon.
[0017]
According to the present embodiment, the user can identify each page by displaying the page icon 14 in the list display window 10, and the user can perform an operation such as selecting a desired page only by this display. it can.
[0018]
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a main configuration of the document management apparatus according to the present embodiment for realizing the list display shown in FIG.
[0019]
In FIG. 2, the attribute information acquisition unit 20 receives the number of pages of a document to be displayed as a list from the document information management unit (not shown) that manages image data addresses, attribute information, and the like of each page of the document. Get attribute information of documents and pages such as size (width and height). Further, the attribute information acquisition unit 20 calculates the maximum width and the maximum height of the page from the acquired size data of each page. Then, the attribute information acquisition unit 20 acquires the width of the opened list display window 10 from the OS (operating system). From the width of the list display window 10 and the maximum page width obtained by the attribute information acquisition unit 20, the display column number calculation unit 40 determines how many columns 12 can be accommodated in the list display window 10 in the horizontal direction. Calculate the number of columns. The display control unit 30 includes information on the number of pages acquired by the attribute information acquisition unit 20, the size of each page, the maximum width / maximum height of the page, and the number of columns obtained by the display column number calculation unit 40. Based on the above, an image of each page icon 14 is generated and displayed on the display 60. At this time, a reduced image of the page constituting each page icon 14 is generated by the reduced image creation unit 50. The attribute information acquisition unit 20, the display control unit 30, the display column number calculation unit 40, and the reduced image creation unit 50 are realized in software by causing a computer to execute a program describing the functions described above, for example. can do.
[0020]
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of the display control unit 30 in more detail. The display control unit 30 manages page icon display processing based on the drawing management table 304. In the drawing management table 304, a pointer to the reduced image, a flag indicating whether or not the page image has been changed, and the page width and height are registered for each page. The drawing control unit 302 refers to the drawing management table 304 and controls page icon drawing processing. The page frame / number drawing unit 306 draws the outer frame and page number of each page icon based on an instruction from the drawing control unit 302. Further, the page content drawing unit 308 draws a reduced image of the page in the outer frame of the page icon based on an instruction from the drawing control unit 302. The drawing result is displayed on the display 60.
[0021]
Here, since it takes a certain amount of time to create a reduced image of a page, in this embodiment, when drawing a page icon, only the outer frame and page number of the page icon are drawn first, and this drawing is completed. By enabling operations such as selection and movement of page icons and window scrolling at this stage, the waiting time of the user from the list display instruction until operation becomes possible is minimized. Then, after the drawing of the outer frame and page number is completed, when the CPU (central processing unit) of this apparatus is in an idle state (that is, an input waiting state), the reduced image creation unit 50 creates a reduced image at any time. This is drawn in the outer frame of the page that has already been drawn. In order to realize such reduced image creation processing, the display control unit 30 is provided with a reduction processing management unit 310. The reduction process management unit 310 includes a reduction wait management table 312 and an idle state detection unit 314. The reduction waiting management table 312 is a queue in which page numbers of pages for which reduced images have not been created are registered. The idle state detection unit 314 detects an idle state of the CPU from the OS (operating system) 70. When the reduction processing management unit 310 detects an idle state of the CPU, the reduction processing management unit 310 passes the top page number of the reduction waiting management table 312 to the drawing control unit 302. The drawing control unit 302 passes this page number to the reduced image creating unit 50 to request the creation of a reduced image, and passes the pointer of the created reduced image to the page content drawing unit 308 for drawing.
[0022]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the display control unit 30 in the document management apparatus of this embodiment. The processing routine shown in FIG. 4 is called not only when an instruction to display a list is input, but also when an event such as an editing process such as a window size change or page addition occurs on the list display, Executed.
[0023]
When an instruction to display a list of documents is input from the user, the display control unit 30 displays the total number of pages of the document, the maximum width and the maximum height of the document, and the window width of the list display window 10 from the attribute information acquisition unit 20. Is acquired (S10). The display control unit 30 creates a drawing management table 304 having fields for the acquired total number of pages. Further, the display control unit 30 obtains the size of the section 12 per page in the list display window 10 from the acquired maximum width and maximum height of the page, and stores this. Next, the display control unit 30 obtains the value of the number of page columns that can be displayed per line of the list display window 10 (that is, the number of partitions 12 that can be accommodated per line) from the display column number calculation unit 40. Obtain (S12). Then, the display control unit 30 initializes the value of the page number counter n to 1 (S14), and starts the page icon drawing process.
[0024]
The page icon drawing process can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, drawing is performed up to a place where drawing is possible without creating a reduced image of the page. When the first stage processing is completed, the user can operate the list display window 10. The second stage is a stage in which a reduced image is created for a page for which a reduced image has not been created. Hereinafter, the processing of each stage will be described in detail.
[0025]
First, the drawing control unit 302 compares the page number counter n with the page number of the last page, and determines whether or not the first stage processing has been completed up to the last page (S16). If the determination result is No, it is next checked whether or not the size data (width and height) of the nth page is set in the drawing management table 304 (S18). When the size data has been set, the drawing control unit 302 passes the size data and the page number n to the page frame / number drawing unit 306 to draw the outer frame and page number of the page icon 14 ( S22). At this time, the page frame / number drawing unit 306 calculates the coordinates of the display origin of the page icon 14 from the data of the page number n, the size of the section 12, and the number of display columns per line, and displays the coordinates. Draw as the origin. For example, in FIG. 1, the upper left corner of the page icon 14 is the display origin. If the size data of the nth page has not been set, the drawing control unit 302 inquires the attribute information acquisition unit 20 about the size data of this page, and displays the obtained width and height data in the drawing management table. 304 is set (S20), and this data is transferred to the page frame / number drawing unit 306 to perform drawing (S22).
[0026]
When the drawing of the outer frame and page number of the page icon is completed, the drawing control unit 302 next checks whether or not the pointer to the reduced image is registered in the drawing management table 304 for the nth page (S24). If registered, a flag indicating whether or not there is a change is further checked (S26). If there is no change, the pointer of the reduced image of the nth page is read from the drawing management table 304, and this is read to the page content drawing unit 308. Then, the reduced image of the page is drawn within the outer frame of the page icon of the nth page (S28). On the other hand, if the pointer to the reduced image is not registered in the drawing management table 304, or if the flag indicating whether there is a change indicates that there is a change even though it is registered, the page reduced image of the nth page is displayed. The page number n is added to the end of the reduction wait management table 312 without drawing. Therefore, for a page in which the reduced image is not registered or a page whose content has been changed, a page icon including only the outer frame and the page number is displayed in this first stage process. When step S28 or S30 is completed, 1 is added to the page number counter n (S32), and the process returns to step S16. In this way, the above processing is repeated up to the last page registered in the drawing management table 304.
[0027]
In this way, in the first stage processing, the page icon outer frame and page number are drawn for all pages registered in the drawing management table 304, and if possible, the page icon outside the page icon is drawn. A reduced image of the page is drawn in the frame. The reduced image of the page is drawn in this first stage only when the reduced image of the page is already registered in the drawing management table 304. In this case, since it is only necessary to draw a reduced image that has already been created, the necessary processing time is extremely short, and drawing can be done without waiting for the user.
[0028]
When a list display instruction is input to the document management apparatus and the processing routine of FIG. 4 is first called, reduced images have not been created for any page, so all pages are registered in the reduction waiting management table 312. Once the list display is completed, a new page is added to the document, and when the processing routine of FIG. 4 is called, a reduced image has already been created except for the added page. Only the additional page is registered in the reduction waiting management table 312 in S30. In addition, when the contents are changed to a part of the displayed page after the list display is completed, a flag indicating whether or not the drawing management table 304 is changed is set to “changed”. As a result, in the process of FIG. 4, the reduced image drawing process is not performed for the changed page, and the page is registered in the reduction waiting management table 312 in S30.
[0029]
When it is detected in step S16 that the page number counter n has exceeded the last page, the first stage processing is completed. In the present embodiment, when the first stage is completed, user operations such as scroll operation of the list display window and selection operation for the page icon can be accepted. In the first stage described above, only processing with extremely short processing time, such as drawing of the outer frame and drawing of the already created reduced image, is performed, and thus the time required so far is extremely short. In this embodiment, the user's operation can be accepted at the stage where the overall image of the page configuration of the document is roughly displayed as described above, so that the user does not feel the waiting time. After that, in the next second stage, a reduced image is created for a page on which a reduced image has not been drawn, using idle time for processing such as waiting for an operation input.
[0030]
In the second stage, the drawing control unit 302 first requests the page number of the page waiting for reduction from the reduction processing management unit 310 (S34). Upon receiving this request, the reduction processing management unit 310 performs the processing shown in FIG. That is, the reduction process management unit 310 monitors the processing state of the OS 70 by the idle state detection unit 314 (S50), and when the idle state is detected, the page number of the first record of the reduction wait management table 312 is indicated to the drawing control unit 302. Returning (S52), this head record is deleted from the reduction waiting management table 312 (S54). If there is no page number in the reduction waiting management table 312, the reduction processing management unit 310 returns a code indicating that there is no reduction waiting page to the drawing control unit 302. When the drawing control unit 302 obtains a response from the reduction processing management unit 310 (S36), the drawing control unit 302 determines whether the response result is a page number or a code indicating that there is no reduction waiting page (S38). . If the response is a page number, the drawing control unit 302 passes the page number to the reduced image creation unit 50 and requests creation of a reduced image (S40). The reduced image creation unit 50 obtains the address of the image data of the page corresponding to the page number from a document information management unit (not shown), and subsamples the image data of this page at a predetermined ratio. create. The drawing control unit 302 sets a pointer to the generated reduced image in the page number column of the drawing management table 304 (S42), and further passes this pointer and page number to the page content drawing unit 308 to set the page icon. A reduced image of the page is drawn inside (S44). When the above process is completed for one page, the process returns to S34 and the same process is repeated. In this manner, when the creation and drawing of the reduced image is completed for all the unprocessed pages, the reduction waiting management table 312 becomes empty, the determination result in S38 is No, and the series of processes ends.
[0031]
The processing procedure of this embodiment has been described above according to FIG. The processing procedure in FIG. 4 is called and executed when an event accompanied by a display change occurs as described above. For example, when the window width of the list display window 10 is changed while the list of page icons is already displayed, the number of columns that can be displayed per line is recalculated in S12, and the calculation result The layout of the page icons is changed to a layout that does not require horizontal scrolling. In this case, since there is no change in the reduced image itself of each page, the process of the first stage in FIG. 4 completes the drawing of the reduced image.
[0032]
In addition, when a page having a size larger than an existing page is newly added while the list is being displayed, the size of the section per page (that is, the maximum width and the maximum height of the page) in S10. ) Is changed, and the number of display columns per row is recalculated in S12. Then, page icons are drawn with this number of display columns per line, and the added page is displayed in an arrangement that does not overlap with other pages so that it does not overlap with other pages. In this case, for pages other than the additional page, drawing of the reduced image is completed in the first stage of FIG. 4, and the reduced image is created only for the additional page in the process of the second stage.
[0033]
As described above, according to the present embodiment, since the size of a section per page in the list display window is determined based on the size of each page constituting the document, a plurality of pages having different sizes and orientations are determined. The reduced images (page icons) can be displayed in a list without overlapping each other. The user can grasp the size and orientation of each page or a rough content from the list display of the page icons, and can identify each page to a considerable extent only by this list display. In the present embodiment, the number of pages (number of display columns) to be displayed per line is adjusted based on the width of the section per page and the width of the list display window, and all pages can be displayed only by the vertical scroll operation. I did it. Thereby, the operation burden on the user is reduced.
[0034]
In the present embodiment, the list display processing procedure (see FIG. 4) includes a first stage for performing a time-saving process such as drawing an outer frame of a page icon or drawing a reduced page image already created, and a reduced page image. This is divided into the second stage involving creation of the user, and when the first stage processing is completed, the user's operation can be accepted, so that the user can perform the next operation with almost no waiting time after performing a certain operation. It becomes possible. For example, when an instruction is given to display a list of documents with many pages such as several tens of pages, the user wants to insert a cover page into the document. In this case, if the user's operation cannot be input until the drawing of the reduced image is completed for all pages, the user must wait for a considerable time. On the other hand, in this embodiment, operation input is possible at the stage where drawing of the outer frame of the page icon or the like is completed, so that the user can input an instruction to insert a cover without waiting.
[0035]
In the above embodiment, the page icons 14 are arranged at the upper left in the section 12, but the position of the page icon 14 in the section 12 is not limited to this.
[0036]
In the above embodiment, the page icons are basically arranged so as not to overlap each other in consideration of the user's visibility. However, in actual use, a document may include a page having a significantly different size compared to others, such as an extremely wide page. In such a case, if you adhere to the principle of not overlapping page icons, the section per page is set wider for exceptional pages, and the number of page icons that can be displayed in the window is reduced. It can also be considered. Therefore, in order to avoid this, for example, a method of allowing an overlap mode and allowing the user to specify this mode, or a method of predetermining the maximum size of an allowed partition can be considered. When overlapping of page icons is recognized in this way, the overlapping page icons are displayed so as to be shifted from each other, thereby making it easier to grasp the size of each page. For example, in FIG. 6, the second page is horizontally long and protrudes into the section of the third page. In this case, if the page icon of the third page is displayed in the upper left corner of the section 12 as usual, the right end of the second page is completely hidden and the size of the second page cannot be grasped. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, by displaying the third page shifted from the normal position, a part of the right end of the second page is displayed, so the page size can be grasped. It becomes. In this case, for example, it is determined whether or not the page icon of the page protrudes from the section based on a comparison between the page size and the section size. According to (Rule), the direction in which the page icon protrudes is specified. Then, the page in the protruding direction is specified, and the page icon of this page may be displayed shifted from the predetermined position according to the arrangement rule.
[0037]
In the above embodiment, page icons are arranged and displayed in the Z order from left to right in the horizontal direction. However, the arrangement direction of the page icons is not limited to this, and may be arranged in the Z order in the vertical direction, for example.
[0038]
The document management apparatus according to this embodiment is, for example, a document database search interface that manages documents in units of pages, or a user interface of a printer server that manages print target images in units of pages and provides an editing function for these images. Can be used.
[0039]
The document management apparatus described above can be realized, for example, by causing a computer to execute a program describing the functions or processing procedures described above. In this case, the program is supplied through the form of a recording medium such as a floppy disk or a CD-ROM or a communication line, and can be executed by installing it in a fixed disk device attached to the computer, for example.
[0040]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a user interface display that makes it easy for the user to intuitively understand the page configuration of each document and the contents of each page, even for a document having pages of different sizes and orientations. Can do. Further, according to the present invention, even when the number of pages is large, it is not necessary to scroll the window in the reference direction in which the page icons are arranged, and the operation burden on the user can be reduced. Further, according to the present invention, the user can perform an operation without feeling stressed by enabling the user to input an operation when the drawing of the outer frame of the page icon is completed.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a display example of a user interface screen of a document management apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a main configuration of a document management apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a detailed configuration of a display control unit.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure according to the embodiment.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure of a reduction processing management unit.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a display example when page icons overlap each other.
[Explanation of symbols]
10 list display window, 12 sections, 14 page icons, 16 page numbers, 20 attribute information acquisition unit, 30 display control unit, 40 display column number calculation unit, 50 reduced image creation unit, 60 display, 70 OS (operating system), 302 drawing control unit, 304 drawing management table, 306 page frame / number drawing unit, 308 page content drawing unit, 310 reduction processing management unit, 312 reduction waiting management table, 314 idle state detection unit.

Claims (4)

Page size acquisition means for acquiring the height and width of each page constituting the document;
Partition size determination for determining the maximum height and maximum width from the height and width data of each page obtained by the page size acquisition means, and determining the size of the partition per page in the display window based on these values Means,
Display control means for dividing the display window into a plurality of sections for each section size, and displaying a page icon obtained by reducing the image of each page at a constant scale by assigning each one to each section according to the page order;
A document management apparatus comprising: The document management apparatus according to claim 1.
Display window width acquisition means for acquiring the width of the display window with respect to a predetermined reference direction;
From the ratio of this width and the width of the partition in the reference direction, a partition column number calculating means for calculating the number of columns of partitions that can be accommodated in the width of the display window in the reference direction;
The display control means displays the page icons of each page in the page order along the reference direction, and displays the remaining pages with a line feed every time the page icons for the number of columns are displayed. A document management apparatus characterized by that. The document management apparatus according to claim 1 or 2,
The display control means performs the drawing of the page icon in two stages of drawing of the outer frame and drawing of the contents of the page, and accepts a user operation when the drawing of the outer frame is completed. Document management device. Computer
Page size acquisition means for acquiring the height and width of each page constituting the document;
Partition size determination for determining the maximum height and maximum width from the height and width data of each page obtained by the page size acquisition means, and determining the size of the partition per page in the display window based on these values means,
Display control means for dividing the display window into a plurality of sections for each section size, and displaying page icons obtained by reducing the image of each page at a certain scale by assigning each one to each section according to the page order;
A computer-readable recording medium in which a program for functioning as a computer is recorded.

Images