JPH08235193A - Data retrieval device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide the data retrieval device which speedily retrieves a desired part by using a retrieval history as time information on retrieval operation in the case where a user retrieves data. CONSTITUTION: The data retrieval device which retrieves desired data by reading data out of an information storage means and performs control has a control part 1 as a control means which stores the time information on retrieval time as the retrieval history so that the information is related with the retrieved data. Further, the data retrieved by the data retrieval device is plural image data, which are displayed according to the retrieval history. Namely, a selected part and its contents are displayed according to the retrieval history.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data retrieving apparatus for retrieving desired data by reading and controlling data stored in information storage means.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when data, for example, document data is edited by a data editing device, first, image data of this document data and an input date are stored in a storage device, and the data once taken in is read out, Edit this data. Further, the editing date can be stored in the recording device.

Further, when the data is edited using one of the data once stored in the storage device, the data group stored in the storage device is selected based on the input date or the edit date. Retrieve the desired data,
You can move on to the editing of this data.

FIG. 8 shows an example of a specific search operation for extracting the desired data.

In the above search operation, first, step S
At 10, the user turns on the power of the device to start the search operation.

In step S11, the user selects an arbitrary page based on the input date and the edit date. Here, proceeding to step S12, a list of pages before and after the selected page is displayed, for example, as shown in FIG. In step S13, the user determines whether the desired page appears on the page displayed on the screen 20.

Here, when the desired page does not exist,
Proceed to step S15, for example, page feed switch 2
By inputting 2 and 23 with a mouse or the like, step S12
Go to to display a list of pages that have moved forward and backward.
The operations of steps S13, S15, and S12 are repeated until the desired page appears.

If the desired page appears in step S1, the process proceeds to step S14 to enlarge and display this page, the process proceeds to step S16, the search operation is completed, and the user proceeds to edit the page. .

[0009]

By the way, in the case of editing the data that has been fetched once, it is desired that the place to be edited in this data be quickly searched.

However, when the data is edited by the conventional data editing apparatus, the above-mentioned method is used for searching the data. However, after the data to be searched is retrieved, the data is searched for at the part to be edited. In the above method, the operation of scrolling from the beginning or an arbitrary portion, for example, an arbitrary page in the case of document data, to find the portion to be edited is performed.

Therefore, when editing is performed between a plurality of locations or locations where absolute positions in the data are distant from each other, the number of page turning operations in step S15 of FIG. 8 may increase. In addition, most editing operations are performed with feedback, so if you want to search for a part that you edited a little while ago, you must perform a search operation that scrolls from the displayed part or any part. Since it does not happen, annoyance occurred.

[0012] Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and when a user searches for data,
An object of the present invention is to provide a data search device that can quickly search for a desired location by using a search history as time information of search work.

[0013]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a data retrieval apparatus for retrieving desired data by controlling readout of data stored in information storage means. It is provided with a control means for storing time information at the time of search as a search history in association with the retrieved data.

It is also possible that the retrieved data is a plurality of image data and the plurality of image data are displayed according to the retrieval history.

Further, the time information at the time of the search may be stored in the information storage means.

[0016]

According to the data retrieving apparatus of the present invention, time information is stored as a retrieval history when the desired data is retrieved by controlling the reading of the data relating to a document or an image stored in the information storage means. The user can search data according to this time information.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An example of the data search device of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

As shown in FIG. 1, the data retrieval device retrieves data stored in an information storage means such as a recording medium to control the data retrieval device to retrieve desired data. The control unit 1 is provided as a control means for storing time information at the time of search as a search history in association with the data.

Further, in the data retrieval device, the retrieved data is a plurality of image data, and the plurality of image data are displayed according to the retrieval history. That is, the location selected based on the search history and the content of the location are displayed.

Further, the time information at the time of the search may be stored in the information storage means. Further, the time information at the time of the search may be stored in another non-volatile memory or the like.

In FIG. 1, a control unit 1 and a main memory 2
The secondary storage device 3 is connected to the data bus 8 so that data can be exchanged bidirectionally between each component and the data bus 8. The display interface 4 and the printer interface 6 are connected from the data bus 8 to each component. Connected to the data bus 8 so that data can be sent to and from the scanner interface 5 and the keyboard / mouse interface 7 connected to the data bus 8 so that data can be sent from each component to the data bus 8. There is.

Here, prior to the description of each component, the search operation by the data search device will be described with reference to FIG. Regarding the search work by the data search device, for example, a CRT is displayed on the display interface 4.
(Cathode-ray tube) A display device having a screen or an LCD (liquid crystal display) is connected, and display data based on the image data is displayed on this screen to perform a search operation. An example of performing will be described. Further, an example will be given in which the data searched by the user is document data and the page number being searched is "14".

In FIG. 2, in step S0, the power is turned on and the search operation is started.

In step S1, the user obtains a so-called key information such as a keyword associated with each document data, for example, a search history consisting of pages previously searched in the document data and time or time information at that time. Input is made through a keyboard / mouse interface 7 shown in FIG. Then, in step S2, as shown in FIG. 3, for example, a search history list 21 as a list of contents of pages selected based on the search history is displayed on the screen 20.
Displayed above. Specifically, in the search history list 21, the page numbers and contents of recently searched pages are displayed so that they can be understood. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the page numbers “1” and “ "12", "21", "37" and the contents of each page can be read. The search history is not limited to the form shown in FIG. 3, but may be a table showing the relationship between page numbers and search times, for example.

In step S3, the user inputs the page number of the page near the 14th page searched by the user, that is, the page number "12" in the example of FIG. This is because, as a property of human memory, in general, the context of contents is easier to remember and remember than page information such as page numbers, which are only numbers indicating absolute positions. By looking at the display content of the page of "," I remembered that there was a page where the desired search content was located near this page.
It is based on being able to narrow the search target near.

In step S4, the list of pages before and after the page number selected by the user in step S3, in this example, the list of pages before and after the page number "12" is 1 as shown in FIG. Displayed page by page.

In step S5, the user determines whether or not the target page exists while looking at the screen within the range displayed in the list of pages before and after the page number selected by the user in step S3. If the target page does not exist, step S7
Then, the page feed switches 22 and 23 are input with the mouse or the like. The operations of steps S4, S5, and S7 are repeated until the target page appears.

When it is confirmed that the target page has appeared, the process proceeds to step S6, and the user inputs somewhere on this page with a mouse or the like to display this page as shown in FIG. Can be enlarged and displayed. Then, the process proceeds to step S8, the time information when the enlarged page is displayed is added as a search history, and the process proceeds to step S9 to end the search operation.

In step S4, even if the display as shown in FIG. 4 is not displayed, the screen as shown in FIG. 5 can be displayed by directly inputting the page number with the keyboard. it can. Further, in FIG. 5, the user inputs the page feed switches 22 and 23 with the mouse to search the pages before and after the page enlarged. Further, when the retrieved page is enlarged and the document data of this page does not fit within the screen of one page,
A scroll bar 24 is provided, and the user can display a portion that does not fit on the screen by moving the scroll bar 24 with the mouse or the like.

By performing the data search based on the above steps, first, based on the list of the search history, the contents of these pages are displayed one by one or a plurality of pages in order from the page most recently accessed by the user. Display at the same time. here,
Since the user often relatively memorizes the contents recently searched and read, by selecting the page closest to the page where this contents is located from the recently accessed pages, The contents of the neighborhood are displayed. The user
By performing the page turning operation from this position, the page in which the desired content portion is located can be searched and this page can be enlarged and displayed.

Now, each component of the data retrieval apparatus shown in FIG. 1 will be described in consideration of the retrieval operation described above. It should be noted that step numbers corresponding to the operation of each component in the steps of the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 are shown in parentheses.

First, the control section 1 sends a control signal to the main memory 2 for fetching data, or
A control signal for reading the data stored in the main memory 2 is sent.

Further, when the control unit 1 reads the document data to be searched for the first time from the recording medium and takes in the document data, that is, at the time of data recording, as shown in FIG. 6, the image data of the document data is image data recording. The data is compressed by the unit 13 and sent to the secondary storage device 3. In addition, so-called key information that is added in association with the document data and that is used to search the document data page by page is input to the secondary storage device 3 via the search key addition unit 11 via the keyboard. Sent. Further, time data indicating the time when the key information is input from the internal timer or the like is converted into key information by the date key conversion unit 12 and sent to the secondary storage device 3 via the search key addition unit 11.

Further, the secondary storage device 3 stores the compressed image data and the key information.

Further, when the control unit 1 reads out the search history once stored in the secondary storage device 3, as shown in FIG. 7, the user obtains the key information associated with the document data to be searched. Input from the keyboard or mouse or the like (step S1), this key information is sent to the key search unit 16, this key information is searched, and a control signal for designating this document data to the secondary storage device 3. Will be sent. Also, the image data reading unit 1
At 7, the compressed image data sent from the secondary storage device 3 is expanded according to the control signal and sent to the main memory 2 through the data bus 8. Further, the time data indicating the time when the key information is input from the internal timer or the like is converted into the key information by the date key conversion unit 15 and sent to the secondary storage device 3 through the search key addition unit 11, It is added to the search history and the search time is updated.

Further, at the time of searching the read document data, the user can input the target page from the search history list on the screen as shown in FIG. 4 with the mouse (step S4), or input the target page number. When directly input with the keyboard or the mouse, this key information is sent to the key retrieval unit 16 and a control signal for designating a target page is sent to the secondary storage device 3. Further, similarly to the above, the image data reading section 17 decompresses the compressed image data sent from the secondary storage device 3 according to the control signal, and sends it to the main memory 2 through the data bus 8.
At this time, the time data indicating the time when the key information is input from the internal timer or the like is converted into key information by the date key conversion unit 15 and sent to the secondary storage device 3 via the search key addition unit 11. Is added to the search history and the search time is updated.

In response to a control signal from the control unit 1, the main memory 2 inputs image data input from an image input device or the like via the data bus 8 via the scanner interface 5, or input from a recording medium or the like via the data bus 8. Captured image data, document data, etc. are stored. Further, at the time of reading the memory data, necessary data is taken out according to a control signal from the control unit 1 and is output to, for example, the display interface 4 or the printer interface 6 through the data bus 8.

2 and the description of the operation of the control unit 1 has been made with reference to an example of retrieving document data, the present invention is not limited to this, and is also applicable to the case of retrieving the above-mentioned input image data or image data.

At the time of data recording, the secondary storage device 3 stores the search key sent from the search key adding section 11 and the compressed image data sent from the image data recording section 13, as shown in FIG. Remember. Further, at the time of data retrieval, as shown in FIG.
The compressed image data is sent to the image data reading unit 17 according to the control signal sent from the search key addition unit 1 and the search key indicating the time at this time is sent.
Sent from 4.

The data fetched from the secondary storage device 3 is sent to the display interface 4 and can be displayed on the display device such as the CRT or LCD, and also sent to the printer interface 6 to be sent to the printer or the like. Can be printed on. Alternatively, the data may be transferred to another data processing device through the data bus 8 via a communication line, for example.

With the above configuration, the user can display the most recently accessed location based on the search history, for example, the content of the page in the case of document data, one page at a time or a plurality of pages at the same time when performing data search. By doing so, it is possible to narrow down the search target on this screen and improve the operability, and at the same time, it is possible to reduce the time and annoyance required for the search operation.

In the description of the search operation, the case of performing the search operation of the document data is taken as an example, but other forms of data such as image data can be handled in the same mode as each of the above modes. Although an example of searching data in page units has been described, the present invention is also applicable to a case where a search is performed in another data section, for example, each section divided into blocks.

Further, the search key adding unit 11 shown in FIGS.
14, the date key conversion units 12 and 15, the image data recording unit 13, the key retrieval unit 16, and the image data reading unit 17 are provided inside the control unit 1, but the present invention is not limited to this. May be provided inside the secondary storage device 3, for example.

[0044]

As described above, according to the data search apparatus of the present invention, when the data related to, for example, a document or image stored in the information storage means is read out and controlled to search for desired data. Since time information is stored as a search history and the user can perform data search according to this time information, operability is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of a data search device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the data search device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a search history list obtained when operating the data search device.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a list of places before and after a place being searched for as an explanation of a search operation.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an enlarged view of a searched page.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an operation during storage of the data search device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an operation at the time of reading by the data search device.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a conventional data search operation method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Control Part 2 Main Memory 3 Secondary Storage Device 11, 14 Search Key Addition Part 12, 15 Date Key Conversion Part 13 Image Data Recording Part 16 Key Search Part 17 Image Data Read Part

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A data retrieval apparatus for retrieving desired data by controlling reading of data stored in an information storage means, which stores time information at the time of retrieval as a retrieval history in association with the retrieved data. A data retrieving apparatus comprising a control means for 2. The data search device according to claim 1, wherein the searched data are a plurality of image data, and the plurality of image data are displayed according to the search history. 3. The data search device according to claim 1, wherein the time information at the time of the search is stored in the information storage means.