JPH08153009A - Information processing method/device/system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a flexible inter-application cooperation system which can correspond to a complicated environment where constitution elements can dynamically fluctuate by providing a storage means storing information in which an application is allocated to a prescribed hierachy structure and a specification means specifying an application to be connected. CONSTITUTION: Personal computers 101-103 are connected by an 'Ethernet' cable 104, and they form one LAN, for example. Actually, another several work stations are connected. In an information system connecting the applications among the computers 101-103 so as to operate them, information in which the applications, which the respective computers 101-103 of the system possess, are allocated to the prescribed hierarchy structured is stored. The path of the prescribed hierarchy structure is used as identification information of the application for specifying the applications to be connected.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing method, apparatus and system capable of operating a plurality of applications in association with each other on one or a plurality of computers.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, window systems have been used on personal computers and workstations.
The spread of GUI (Graphical User Interface) is remarkable. Along with this, the applications provided to users are required to provide more complicated and various functions in a more sophisticated form than the applications in the programming environment before the GUI.

Rather than responding to such a demand by repeating the expansion of a single application,
By providing a cooperative operation mechanism between applications, it has been widely attempted to cope with various situations by making it possible to combine a plurality of relatively simple applications. A data exchange mechanism by interprocess communication is generally used as a basic mechanism for such cooperative operation between applications.

As a typical data exchange mechanism,
A socket (trademark) provided by the Unix operating system (trademark) and a port (trademark) provided by the Mach operating system (trademark) are used as a basic mechanism. There is also a system that provides an interface that is easier for application developers to use by adding an appropriate program to these basic mechanisms. Typical examples of such a system include Sun RPC (trademark) of Sun operating system (trademark) and ToolTalk (trademark) of Solaris operating system (trademark).

Groupware systems, which support cooperative work among users in a manner parallel to the above-mentioned phenomenon of sophistication of user environment, have been attracting attention.

[0006] This groupware system is computer software intended to support a collaborative work by a plurality of people, and particularly in recent years, great weight is put on the support of the collaborative work via a network.
A general groupware system provides video conferencing functions and co-authoring editors using video images,
It enables collaborative work and meetings with remote locations via a network. As an approach for realizing such groupware, it is conceivable to extend the above-mentioned user environment to an environment in which a plurality of computers are used. For that purpose, it is necessary to extend the basic mechanism for cooperative operation between applications to support the cooperative operation required by groupware.

[0007]

In order to extend the inter-application communication mechanism to a cooperative work environment between users, it is necessary to eliminate or relax the following restrictions. That is, the user environment, which is the work environment of each user, is configured and characterized by the application group that operates therein. Therefore, the realization of the collaborative work environment among the users is realized by the collaboration among the user environments, and by the collaboration among the applications constituting the user environment. Here, in order for an application to realize a cooperative operation with an application group of another user environment,
The application must know information about what kind of application group other user environment is composed of and what kind of role each plays.

For example, assuming a situation where an application a operating in the user environment A communicates with an application b operating in the user environment B, the application a knows that the communication partner is the application b. There must be.

However, in the groupware environment, the fact that the communication partner is the application b happens only at this point, and at another point, the application b may be operating in the user environment B ′. At another point, it may be necessary to communicate with the application c running in the user environment C.

As a general method of managing communication partners, a unique name is given to a process operating in a user or group environment. However, since it is the responsibility of the application developer to avoid duplication of names, it is difficult to handle the environment in which the composition of the application or user changes dynamically as described above. There is a problem.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and in a system including one or a plurality of computers, it is possible to cope with a complicated environment in which the constituent elements can dynamically change and is flexible. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing method, an apparatus, and a system that can provide an inter-application cooperation system.

Another object of the present invention is to handle application management in a complex environment where constituent elements can dynamically change with a high degree of abstraction in a system composed of one or a plurality of computers. It is an object of the present invention to provide a possible information processing method, device and system.

Another object of the present invention is to operate in a system composed of one or a plurality of computers without paying particular attention to a complicated environment in which constituent elements can dynamically change. An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing method, an apparatus, and a system that enable building an application.

[0014]

The information processing system of the present invention for achieving the above object has the following configuration. That is, it is an information processing system for operating an application in cooperation with one or a plurality of computers, and a storage unit for storing information in which an application owned by each computer of the system is assigned to a predetermined hierarchical structure. , Specifying means for specifying an application to be linked by using the path of the predetermined hierarchical structure as identification information of the application.

Further, preferably, the specifying means specifies the application by the application name of the application to be specified and the path of the predetermined hierarchical structure. This is because the hierarchical path is added to the application name, so that the application that should operate in that environment can be easily specified.

Further, preferably, the specifying means collectively specifies a plurality of applications by using a path indicating a hierarchy of the predetermined hierarchical structure. This is because it is possible to specify a plurality of applications in an abstract manner.

[0017]

According to the above configuration, in an information processing system in which one or a plurality of computers operate applications in cooperation with each other, information in which applications owned by each computer of the system are assigned to a predetermined hierarchical structure is stored. To be done. Then, in specifying the application, the path having the predetermined hierarchical structure is used as the identification information of the application to specify the application to be linked.

[0018]

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

<First Embodiment> FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining an outline of a cooperative groupware system according to a first embodiment. This groupware system allows multiple users to use multiple applications in each user environment,
A group collaborative work environment is provided by exchanging various data between these users and applications.

In FIG. 1, personal computers 101, 102 and 103 are connected by an Ethernet cable 104 to form one LAN. In practice, several more workstations are combined. Further, the present embodiment can be applied to a computer network centered on WAN. Furthermore, it can be applied to a LAN composed of FDDI, which is faster than the Ethernet cable.

In FIG. 1, each personal computer is shown.
(Hereinafter referred to as PC) is one user 105, 106,
Used by 107. Which PC each user uses is not fixed, and the user 105 uses the PC 1
It is also possible to use 02. Also, the user 105
It can be assumed that the PC uses both the PCs 101 and 102 at the same time.

On each PC, basic software DesktopMgr 108, 109 for managing the groupware system and providing services, and a group of applications (hereinafter referred to as tool processes or tools) using the services are operating. Here, DesktopMgr10
Reference numeral 8 and 109 are basic software that exists for each user, and manages the user environment including support for control of starting, stopping, and communication of tools operating in the user environment, and between the users or Manages the exchange of information throughout the network.

DesktopMgr itself is a deployment module 11
0, a tool management module 111, and a user information management module 112.

The expansion module 110 expands the tool designation made by the user into a form interpretable by DesktopMgr. This expansion is realized by replacing a character string representing a certain special expression with an actual tool name or the like, as is conventionally done by expanding a regular expression.

The tool management module 111 manages information about a group of tools such as whether or not the tools operating in the user environment are operating. Tool information is managed by this module using a hash table whose key is the name of the tool. Also, the tool management module 1
In 11, the tool is started based on the tool information. The invocation of the tool itself utilizes the mechanism of the operating system on which this system is running.

The user information management module 112 manages user information. The user information is managed by the user information management module 112 using a hash table having the user's name as a key. For each user environment
The communication port of DesktopMgr is also included in the user information,
Used to communicate with DesktopMgr that manages other user environments.

The group of tools operating in each user environment can use the services provided by the above DesktopMgrs 108 and 109 to perform cooperative operation with tools existing in other user environments.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the usage pattern of the groupware system configured as described above. Here, two users are collaborating on two PCs, and interfaces of some tools are displayed on the displays 201 and 202.

In FIG. 2, the database access tools 203 and 204 and the text editor tools 205 and 2 are used.
06, draw tools 207, 208 are used in each user environment. The above pair of tools formed between users displays the same information to each user. For example, text editor tools 205 and 206 are displaying the same document. However, the text editor tools 205 and 206 are not necessarily the same tool, and even if the same sentence is displayed, the display method may be different. In this groupware system, any tool capable of processing the same information equally can be used according to the user's preference.

Next, a method of managing users and tools in the group collaborative work environment shown in FIG. 2 will be described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 3, it is assumed that there are three users A, B and C, and they are working on user environments 301, 302 and 303, respectively. In addition, users A, B, C
It is assumed that there is a work 304 jointly performed by the three people and a joint work 305 of users A and B that is in progress at the same time. The collaborative work 304, 305 can be regarded as a group environment that extends over the user environment.

In this embodiment, this collaborative work (or group environment) is called a session, and the two collaborative works in FIG. 3 are session 304 and session 305, respectively.
I will call it. As is apparent from FIG. 3, it is possible for one user to participate in multiple sessions at the same time (user A and user B).

A tool group designated by the session is used for the actual work in each session. Reference numerals 306 and 307 in the figure represent tools used in the user environment 301 in the session 304.

FIG. 4 shows a participant in a session 1
It is a figure showing the appearance of the user environment of a user. FIG.
Then, the user environment 401 belongs to one session 402. In this session 401, 3 tools 4
03,404,405 are used for collaborative work. However, the tools 403 and 404 among them are formed by a collection of some small tools (called sub tools). The sub tool itself has the ability to function as a standalone tool. In FIG. 4, the tool 403 is composed of two sub tools, a tool 406 and a tool 407. Further, the tool 404 is composed of three sub tools, a tool 408, a tool 409, and a tool 410. In addition, sub tool Tool 4
08 itself is also composed of the sub tool 411.

In this embodiment, a tool configured as a group of a plurality of sub tools is called an integrated tool.
A tool that cannot be divided into sub tools (other than integrated tools) is called an element tool. Hereafter, the term tool is used when referring to the integrated tool and the element tool as a whole or when it is not necessary to distinguish them. Actually, the integrated tool is merely a virtual existence in management, and its function is realized by cooperation of the element tools.

In FIG. 4, tools 407, 411, 4
09, 410, and 405 are element tools, and the tool 40
3, 404, 406, and 408 represent integrated tools. The relationship among the session, user, and tool group in the user environment shown in FIG. 4 is summarized as the hierarchical structure shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the relationship between sessions / users / tools in the user environment shown in FIG.

Session 501 is the root of the hierarchical structure
Under that, there are users 502, 503, 504 participating in the session 501, and further under each user are tools such as 505, 506, 507. Of these tools, sub tools such as 508 and 509 are added to the integrated tool such as the tool 506, and the hierarchical structure continues until the element tool is finally reached. In this embodiment, the case where sessions are nested is prohibited, but the matters described here are also applicable to a system that allows nesting of sessions.

Explaining the relationship between FIG. 5 and FIG. 4, the session 501 corresponds to the session 402 of FIG. The user A 502 corresponds to the user environment 401. The tool A 505 corresponds to the tool A 403, the tool B 506 corresponds to the tool B 404, and the tool C 507 corresponds to the tool C 406.

In this embodiment, a namespace is formed on the basis of this hierarchical structure, and all tools under session management can be designated. That is, a path of a name obtained by tracing the hierarchical structure of FIG. 5 from a session is called a tool path, and this is used as a means for designating each tool.

The tool path in this embodiment is a character string in which the names of the respective layers of session name, user name, and tool name are connected by '&' as shown below. That is, & session name & user name & tool name & sub-tool name ... For example, the tool path representing the tool 509 in FIG. 5 is & session & user A & tool B & sub tool # 2. Here, the name of each hierarchy that is a component of the tool path such as session name, user name, tool name, etc. is called a node name. The node name must be unique in each hierarchy in order to use the tool path as an identifier for the tool.

In the tool path, by enumerating a plurality of node names in [and] separated by ",",
It is possible to specify multiple node names. For example,
"& Session & User A & Tool B & Sub Tool # 2" and "& Session & User B & Tool B & Sub Tool # 2" are put together, & Session & [User A, User B] & Tool B & Sub Tool # It can be written as 2.

Furthermore, it is possible to use several kinds of special expressions in node name designation. Special expressions allow abstract designation of node names. The special expressions will be described below.

First, in the hierarchy of session names, it is possible to specify-% current-% all-% none-% ignore. To explain the details of each special expression, if% current… “% current” is specified, it is interpreted as the session name to which the specified tool belongs at that time. % all… If you specify “% all”, it is interpreted as the names of all sessions that are running at that time. % none… Specify “% none” to indicate that you do not belong to a specific session. Some processes running in each user environment may be unrelated to the session. % ignore… “% ignore” expresses that the presence or absence of a session and its name can be ignored. Semantically [% all,%
Equivalent to specifying [none].

Next, in the hierarchy of user names, it is possible to specify:% self,% all,% allbutself. Explaining the details of each special expression, if% self… “% self” is specified, it is interpreted as the name of the user who is using the user environment to which the specified tool belongs. % all ... If "% all" is specified, it is interpreted as all users who belong to the session specified immediately before. % allbutself… If you specify “% allbutself”, users who belong to the session specified immediately before will
Interpreted as all users except% self. Therefore,
[% self,% allbutself] has the same meaning as% all.

Finally, in the hierarchy of tool names, it is possible to specify-% self-% selfonly-% super-% parent-% all. Explaining the details of each special expression, if you specify "% self""%self", the tool name of the specified tool is supplemented. If the tool was actually a sub-tool of a tool,
The hierarchical structure after the user name of the tool is added as it is. % selfonly ... When "% selfonly" is specified, the tool name of the specified tool is supplemented. Even if the tool is a sub tool of a tool, the hierarchical relation of the tools is ignored. % super ... When "% super" is specified, the tool hierarchy up to one level above the tool itself in which the specification was made is supplemented. Therefore, specifying &% super &% selfonly is the same as specifying &% self. % parent ... If "% parent" is specified, the tool hierarchy specified by the tool path up to that point will be traced back one level up. % super ignores the path specified up to immediately before, while% parent has a meaning depending on the path specified up to immediately before. % all ... When "% all" is specified, all tools belonging to the tool hierarchy specified by the tool path up to that point will be specified.

By combining the above special expressions,
For example, the following tool path can be expressed.

Example 1. &% current &% all &% self This is the tool that specified this toolpath.
Represents a copy of the specified tool itself in all user environments of the session to which it belongs.
A "tool copy" is a tool that has the same tool path except for the user name. I often use exactly the same kind of tools, so
Call it a copy of the tool.

Example 2. &% current &% all &% super &% all The tool that specifies this toolpath represents all tools in the same hierarchy as the specified tool in all user environments of the session to which it belongs.

Example 3. &% none & User C &% super & Tool X This represents a tool with the tool name tool X that exists in the same hierarchy as the specified tool in the user environment of user C.

The tool path introduced as described above is used for controlling the tool in this embodiment. 6 and 7 are diagrams showing this state.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing how the tool is activated in association with the session activation. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the behavior of DesktopMgr at that time.

It is assumed that two users A 601 and B 602 are about to start collaborative work on the user environments 603 and 604, respectively. The start of collaborative work is done by launching a session that represents it. Here, it is assumed that the user A 601 starts a session.

User A 601 session activation request 60
5 is Deskto managing the user environment on the PC 603.
The pMgr 606 is notified. The DesktopMgr 606 that has received the session activation request 605 (step S801)
Whether the request was requested by the user, or another
Check if it was transferred from DesktopMgr
(Step S802). In this case, the session activation request 605 is issued by another DesktopM because it is requested by the user.
It is also transferred to gr (step S803). For information necessary to communicate with DesktopMgr in other user environment, use Deskto
It is managed by the user information management module 612 in the pMgr 606.

Thereafter, the DesktopMgr 606 checks from the tool information managed by the tool management module 613 whether the tool A609 used in the session has already been activated (step S804). If it has not been started yet, start tool A609 (step S8).
05).

On the other hand, in DesktopManager 607 which manages the user environment of user B 602, DesktopMgr 606
When the session activation request 608 transferred from the user B is received from the session activation request 608, the activation request is not directly issued by the user B 602. Therefore, steps S 802 to S 8
Go to 04 and immediately use Tool A in the session
610 is started (step S804, step S80
5).

Here, the tool A 609 is started by the following command. That is, launchTool "tool A""& session & user A & tool A". This is the command to launch tool A and name the launched process "& session & user A & tool A". The process of the tool A 609 activated in this way can be designated by a tool path of “& session & user A & tool A” thereafter.

When the DesktopManager 607 also receives the session activation request 608, it launches the tool A 610 by executing the command launchTool "tool A""& session & user B & tool A". The process of the activated tool A 610 can be designated by a tool path of "& session & user B & tool A" thereafter.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining the message delivery mechanism using the tool path in this embodiment. The figure shows the state in the middle of the joint work in the session activated in FIG. Further, FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing the behavior of DesktopMgr in this situation. In FIG. 7, it is assumed that the user A 601 issues the following message transfer command 705 to the DesktopMgr 606.

The message transfer command is forwardMessage "& session &% all & tool A""do-some
It is represented by "thing." This command means "forward the message" do-something "to tool A of all users belonging to the session".

When the DesktopMgr 606 receives the message transfer command 705 (step S901), the expansion module 613 develops the special path "% all" in the tool path "& session &% all &toolA" as the first argument. It is expanded to a specific user name (step S902). The expansion result in this example is "& session & user A & tool A""& session & user B & tool A".

After performing the above expansion, DesktopMgr 606 reconstructs the message transfer command based on the result (step S903). The command reconstructed here is forwardMessage "& session & user A & tool A""do-s
omething "forwardMessage"& session & user B & tool A "" do-s
omething ".

As described above, one command can be converted into a plurality of commands by expanding the tool path. Although DesktopMgr in this embodiment processes these commands in order, it is also possible to process them simultaneously.

The DesktopMgr 606 extracts one reconstructed command (step S904), extracts the session name and the user name of the tool path specified by the command, and the combination of the session and the user is the DesktopMgr 606 itself. It is confirmed whether it is under management (step S905).

The combination of session and user is Deskto
If it is not under the control of pMgr606 itself, the environment of the user specified by the tool path is managed from the user information managed by the user information management module 612.
Take out the communication port with sktopMgr (step S90
6) Then, the command is transferred to the DesktopMgr (step S907).

On the other hand, the designated tool is DesktopMgr60.
6 If it exists under the control of itself, the specified tool process is specified from the tool path (step S90).
8) The message is delivered (step S909).

The above processing is repeated until there are no commands (step S910). Note that step S90
6. In DesktopMgr (DesktopMgr 607 in this example) on the side to which the command is transferred by the processing of step S907, the above-described processing is performed similarly to the transfer source.

In the algorithm shown in FIG. 9, the DesktopMgr that first receives the request expands all the special expressions in the tool path. However, as another expansion procedure, the expansion in step S902 involves only the session name and the user name. It is also possible to realize the present embodiment by an algorithm that causes the DesktopMgr that manages each user environment to execute the expansion of the remaining tool names.

In the example of FIG. 7, since the tool path of the first command is related to the user environment of user A, the first command is processed by DesktopMgr 606 itself. The second command is DesktopM because the tool path is related to the user environment of user B.
It is transferred to gr607 and processed by DesktopMgr607.

When DesktopMgr 606 sends a message transfer command 608, "& session & user A & tool A"
The message "do-something" is transferred to the process 609 (that is, the tool A 609) specified by. Also, Deskto
Also in pMgr607, the message transfer command 708
Is received, "& session & user B & tool A"
The message "do-something" is transferred to the process 610 (that is, the tool A 610) specified by.

In FIG. 7, another tool A happens to be activated (tool A711), but the tool A711 specifies a tool path different from that of the tool A610 by the launch command launchTool described in FIG. Therefore, the message is not transferred to the tool A711.

In summary, this embodiment shows an example in which the present invention is applied to the inter-application communication mechanism in the groupware system. In this embodiment, a tool path utilizing a hierarchical structure of a session, a user environment, a tool, and a sub tool and a special expression on the tool path are introduced. In addition, we introduced DesktopMgr that controls the tool by using the tool path.

Further, in the present embodiment, the uniqueness of the tool instruction can be easily managed by using the hierarchical structure conforming to the session structure in the groupware system. Also, by introducing a special expression, it becomes possible to specify more abstractly when each tool specifies a communication partner. Therefore, it is possible to deal with a dynamic change in the work environment due to frequent user participation / leaving in the groupware system. In the first embodiment described above, a data structure for managing the hierarchical structure is not provided, and the hierarchical structure as shown in FIG. 5 is substantially managed by the character string representing the tool path. However, it goes without saying that the hierarchical structure as shown in FIG. 5 can be internally expressed and managed by another data structure.

<Embodiment 2> The application example of the present invention in the groupware system has been described in the above first embodiment, but the present invention is also applicable to an asynchronous data sharing system centered on a database. . Here, an embodiment of a multimedia data search system using a database will be described.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an outline of the multimedia data search system in the second embodiment. According to the figure, there is a database 1001 in which images and
Multimedia data such as voice 1002-1006
Is managed. A PC 1007 is connected to this database 1001 as a client and is used by a user 1008. In this figure, 1
Only one PC is a client of the database 1001, but in reality, a plurality of PCs or workstations can be clients. Further, the database 1001 itself may be distributed over the network 1009.

On the PC 1007, three types of data viewers are activated and used to refer to the corresponding multimedia data. Image viewer 101
0 is the image data 1002 and 1 in the database 1001.
The video viewer 1011 is used to refer to the video data 1004 and 1006, and the document viewer 1012 is used to refer to the document data 1003. These correspondences are shown by the correspondences between the viewer and the background pattern (shaded) attached to the data in FIG.

FIG. 11 shows how this embodiment looks from the user's point of view. In FIG.
A user 1101 is working on the display 1102. This display 1102 is the PC 10 which is a client of the database shown in FIG.
07 display device.

Four windows 1103, 1104, 1105 and 1106 are displayed on the display 1102, and the corresponding multimedia data are displayed. The window 1103 provides a user interface of an application (database search application) for searching the database. In addition, windows 1104, 1105, and 1106 respectively provide a user interface of a viewer for still images, moving images, documents, and the like.

The database search application is window 11
A catalog 1107 of multimedia data managed by the database is displayed on 03. This catalog is composed of a list of data names that can be referenced from the database search application and the names of the data. Information such as data size and date of creation is also added to the catalog as some additional information. When the user selects an appropriate data icon from the catalog, the data is displayed on a viewer suitable for the data (1108, 1109, 1110).

In implementing such a multimedia data retrieval system as a distributed system accessible by various clients, it cannot be assumed that each client has exactly the same environment (that is, data viewer).

In FIG. 12, two users 1201
And 1202 access the database 1205 using the PCs 1203 and 1204, respectively. Both of them use the database search application 1206, 1207,
You are browsing the same catalog of data, but you are using a different data viewer to browse each data. In FIG. 12, three data viewers 1208, 1209, and 1210 are displayed in the environment of the user 1201.
The data in the catalog is referenced in, but user 12
In the 02 environment, two data viewers 1211, 12
It is possible to refer to the data in 12.

Next, an application example of the present invention for dealing with the situation shown in FIG. 12 will be described below.

First, the data viewer in each user environment is named based on the hierarchical structure of the catalog name, the user name, and the viewer name as in the first embodiment. The path expression derived as a result is called a viewer path and is expressed as follows. That is, & catalog name & user name & data viewer name & sub-data viewer name. As described above, also in the second embodiment, the first embodiment
The data viewer names are hierarchized in order to support the integration of the data viewer tools described above.

Next, a special expression in the path notation will be introduced. In the second embodiment, special expressions of catalog name and user name are introduced. The special expression for each layer will be described in detail below.

First, in the hierarchy of catalog names: •% all can be specified. If "% all" is specified, it will be interpreted as the names of all catalogs existing in the database.

Also, what can be specified in the hierarchy of user names is: •% ignore •% group. Each special expression is explained below.% Ignore… When "% ignore" is specified, the user name is ignored. % group ... "% group" is used as% group (group name). In this case, the name in parentheses is interpreted as the name of the group. Here the group is defined as a list of user names.

In this embodiment, this viewer path is used as data viewer designation information for each data in the database 1205. The viewer path is added to each data in the database 1205, and the database 12
It is managed by 05. The viewer for general data is specified as &% all &% ignore & data viewer name.

Here, DesktopMgr is introduced as a server for managing the correspondence between the viewer path and the actual viewer. There is one DesktopMgr for each user environment. This has the same name as DesktopMgr in Example 1,
Since the roles are similar, it is possible to integrate these two types of DesktopMgr.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing the state of the data reference processing in the second embodiment using the viewer path and DesktopMgr. Further, FIG. 14 is the center of this processing.
It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of DesktopMgr.

FIG. 13 shows processing in a situation where the user 1301 has designated the icon 1303 in the database search application 1302 and requested data reference. The operation on the display by the user 1301 is notified to the main body 1305 of the database search application as an event 1304. The database search application 1305 interprets the event 1304, and the icon 1
When it is detected that 303 is specified, DesktopMgr13
In 08, a request to deliver the display request for the data 1307, which is the body of the icon 1303, to an appropriate viewer is issued.

When DesktopMgr 1308 receives this request (step S1401), it retrieves the viewer path added to the data 1307 from the database 1306 (step S1402). DesktopMgr1308
Next, it is checked whether the data viewer corresponding to the viewer path has already been started (step S140).
3) If it has not been started or is in an unusable state, the data viewer is started (step S1404). FIG.
In 3, the data viewer 1309 is started. On the other hand, if the data viewer 1309 has already been started and the data can be displayed, the data 1307 is displayed.
The display request 1310 is delivered to the data viewer 1309 (step S1405). Data viewer 130
By executing the requested display request by No. 9, it becomes possible to refer to the data as requested by the user.

As described above, the second embodiment is an embodiment of the present invention in the multimedia data search system which allows customization for each client. In this embodiment, a viewer path that uses a hierarchical structure of a catalog, a user environment, a viewer, and a sub viewer and a special expression on the viewer path are introduced. In addition, DesktopM that controls the viewer using the viewer path
introduced gr.

As described above, according to the second embodiment, it is possible to specify the data viewer suitable for each user environment at various levels in the hierarchy on the viewer path. For example, by restricting the user name of the viewer path, it is possible to perform control such that only a specific user can reference or partial reference is possible. Also, because DesktopMgr takes over the management of the viewer in the user environment, it is possible to reduce the cost of developing and installing a database search application and various data viewers.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to a case where it is achieved by supplying a program that causes a system or an apparatus to execute the processing defined by the present invention.

[0095]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a system composed of a plurality of computers, a flexible inter-application cooperation system capable of coping with a complicated environment in which constituent elements can dynamically change. Can be provided.

Further, according to the present invention, it is possible to handle application management in a complicated environment in which the constituent elements can dynamically change with a high degree of abstraction. According to the present invention, It is possible to build an application that operates in the environment without paying particular attention to the complicated environment in which the constituent elements may change.

[0097]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an outline of a cooperative groupware system according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a usage pattern of a groupware system.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a management system for users and tools in a group collaborative work environment as shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a state of a user environment of one user participating in a session.

FIG. 5 shows a session / in the user environment shown in FIG.
It is a figure showing the relationship of a user / tool group.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing how a tool is started up when a session is started up.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a message delivery mechanism using a tool path according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of DesktopMgr when a session is activated.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of DesktopMgr when delivering a message.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an outline of a multimedia data search system according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a display example in the second embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing access states to a database by two users.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating a state of data reference processing according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart showing the operation of DesktopMgr in the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101, 102, 103 Personal computer 104 Network cable 105, 106, 107 User 108, 109 DesktopMgr 110 Deployment module 111 Tool management module 112 User information management module

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. An information processing system for operating an application in cooperation with one or a plurality of computers, wherein information in which an application owned by each computer of the system is assigned to a predetermined hierarchical structure is stored. An information processing system comprising: a storage unit; and a specifying unit that specifies an application to be linked by using the path having the predetermined hierarchical structure as identification information of the application. 2. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the specifying unit specifies an application by an application name of an application to be specified and a path of the predetermined hierarchical structure. 3. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the specifying unit collectively specifies a plurality of applications using a path indicating a hierarchy of the predetermined hierarchical structure. 4. The specifying means generates information for specifying an application by combining a path indicating a hierarchy with an application name of each application positioned in the hierarchy, and using this information, a plurality of applications are generated. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein: 5. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined hierarchical structure has a root in a collaborative work environment in the information processing system. 6. The information processing system according to claim 1, further comprising delivery means for delivering a command to the application identified by the identification means. 7. The information processing system according to claim 6, further comprising a starting means for starting the application when the application to which the command is delivered by the delivering means is not operating. 8. An information processing apparatus capable of operating an application in cooperation with each other, wherein an application owned by a system configured in the information processing apparatus in cooperation with another computer is predetermined. An information processing apparatus, comprising: a storage unit that stores information assigned to a hierarchical structure; and a specifying unit that specifies an application to be linked by using a path of the predetermined hierarchical structure as application identification information. 9. An information processing method for operating applications in cooperation with each other, wherein an application owned by a system configured in the information processing apparatus in cooperation with another computer has a predetermined hierarchical structure. An information processing method comprising: a storage step of storing the information assigned to the above; and a specifying step of specifying an application to be linked by using the path of the predetermined hierarchical structure as identification information of the application.