KR100265745B1 - Method for providing hot link in home network - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for supplying a hot link of a home network is provided to display icons of every device connected with the home network for hot linking, separately from a device page displayed on a web browser screen, so that a user can promptly access a desiring device. CONSTITUTION: A home network is connected with server devices having web servers, and with at least one client device controlling the server devices using a built-in web browser. A device page showing representative icons of the devices connected with the home network on a web browser screen of the client device is displayed, and the icons are displayed. If a user selects one of the displayed icons, a web page of a corresponding device is linked regardless of presently displayed contents on the web browser screen, for display.

Description

How to provide hot link in home network {Method for providing hot link in home network}

The present invention relates to a home network, and more particularly, to a method of providing a hot link in a home network based on a web browser.

Recently, various digital devices such as digital TV (DTV), digital video camera (DVC), digital versatile disk player (DVDP), digital set-top box have been introduced, and home network construction of these devices has been introduced. For this purpose, the IEEE 1394 standard, which has been approved by the IEEE Committee as a digital network interface, is drawing attention. In general, all home appliances provide a method for allowing a user to operate various functions provided by the home appliance. A representative method is a method using an operation button and a remote controller.

In devices that meet the IEEE1394 standard, control commands are used to control devices. The most representative control command is A / V Control Command and Transaction Set (AV / C CTS). This method defines a hexadecimal code for each function of the device. For example, the play command for the VCR is defined as "OxC8" in hexadecimal. Currently, in IEEE1394 TA, standardization of all control commands for each device group (eg, VCR group, disk group, camera group, etc.) is in progress.

In the digitalized home network system using the IEEE 1394 network, control between devices will be performed by configuring one device as a control device and a plurality of devices as control devices as target devices. This type of home network system has the following problems. First, one device to be a control device must have all the instruction sets for each target device, thus bringing considerable software and hardware burden. Secondly, the control device does not know commands other than those provided at the time of product release, and thus does not have a control method for the new target device. Third, it is not easy to provide a graphical user interface (GUI). In other words, the unified GUI form that can be applied to all kinds of devices is inherently difficult to define, and there is a limit in defining the product type.

As a method for solving such a problem, a method has been sought to remove various spatial restrictions in operating various devices and to effectively display various information by employing a web server in devices employing IEEE1394. In this case, an IEEE1394 device having a display device such as a DTV or a PC may have a built-in web browser to generate a device page so that it is easier to control the IEEE1394 device having a web server. In this case, to access another device after the user accesses one device connected to the home network using the device page, the user needs to access another device after manipulating to return to the device page which is the initial screen. Therefore, in addition to the device page, there should be a processing method that allows a user to access a desired device more quickly.

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to display a hot link and display icons of all devices connected to the home network, apart from the device page displayed on the web browser screen, so that the user can access the desired device more quickly. To provide a hot link of the method.

1 is a diagram schematically showing a home network using an IEEE 1394 bus to which the present invention is applied.

2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a protocol stack of a device operating as a web server.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a method for providing a hot link according to the present invention.

4 (a) and 4 (b) are diagrams illustrating screens of a client device according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a diagram illustrating a screen of a client device according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

In order to achieve the above object, a method of providing a hot link in a home network according to the present invention is connected to a plurality of server devices having a web server and at least one client device controlling the server devices through an embedded web browser. (A) displaying icons respectively representing all devices connected to the home network on a web browser screen of the client device; (b) displaying icons separately from the display result of the previous step; And (c) if the user selects one of the separately displayed icons, linking and displaying the web page of the device immediately regardless of the current display content of the web browser screen.

Hereinafter, a method of providing a hot link in a home network according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

First, the protocol stack of a device incorporating a web server and a digital home network environment composed of IEEE1394 devices will be briefly described to help understand the present invention.

1 is a diagram schematically showing a home network using an IEEE 1394 bus to which the present invention is applied.

Referring to FIG. 1, a DTV 102, a DVCR 104, a DVDP 106, a DVC 108, a camcorder 110, and the like are connected through an IEEE 1394 bus to form a home network system. Here, the DTV 102 (or another device including a display device such as a PC) has a built-in web browser and operates as a client device, and the DVCR 104, DVDP 106, and DVC 108 ) Has a built-in web server and acts as a server device.

2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a protocol stack of a device operating as a web server. Each device shown in FIG. 1 operates like a web server on the Internet. At this time, IEEE 1394 is used as a network interface. Above the IEEE 1394 is the TCP / IP layer. And every device acts as a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server, or web server, and has an HTML Document Hiearchy that describes its functionality. The user may use the web browser embedded in the client device to call up each home page from the devices in which the web server is embedded to control the corresponding device.

However, in the protocol stack environment having the structure as shown in FIG. 2, a server device having a web browser brings one web server device into its web browser and controls the server device serving as the web server.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the client device DTV 102 has a built-in web browser to display easy information for controlling the server devices DVCR 104, DVDP 106, DVC 108, and the like. Create a page. The user can simply access the DVCR 110, the DVDP 112, and the DVC 114 by using the web page of the DTV 102, specifically the device page displayed on the web browser screen. The device page displays icons representing each device connected to the home network. For example, when a user selects a DVCR icon, DTV 102 accesses DVCR 104 to retrieve a web page linked through the icon. At this time, if the user uses the DVCR 104 and then uses the DVDP 106, the user needs to select the DVDP icon after manipulating to return to the device page of the DTV 102, which is the initial screen.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a method for providing a hot link according to the present invention.

The client device, e.g., DTV 102, controls a plurality of server devices, e.g., DVCR 104, DVDP 106, etc., having a web server connected to a browser-based home network via a web browser. On the web browser screen of the DTV 102, information is provided to the user for easy access to all devices connected to the home network, and the device page shows icons representing each of the devices. Referring to FIG. 3, first, a device page displaying icons representing respective devices connected to a home network is displayed on a web browser screen of a client device (step 302). Here, the icons displayed on the device page are icons for all devices connected to the home network or some of the devices that the user wants to display.

In addition, icons are displayed separately from the display result in operation 302 so that a user may directly access a desired device regardless of the content currently displayed on the web browser screen, that is, provide a hot link (304). step). When the user selects an icon of one device through the device page displayed on the web browser screen, the web page of the selected device is displayed on the web browser screen. In this case, the user may perform a desired operation of the selected device.

If the user selects one of the icons displayed separately in step 304, the web page of the device is directly linked and displayed regardless of the current display content of the web browser screen (step 306). That is, when the user wants to access another device from the device that is currently operated, the user does not have to redisplay the device page, which is the initial screen, on the web browser screen.

In step 304, a method according to an exemplary embodiment of displaying icons separately from the display result in step 302 is to display icons separately on some screens on the web browser screen itself. Here, the servo devices provided with the web server should include the information of the icons to be displayed on the web browser screen in each web page. That is, separate icons for hot link are all supported by a plurality of server devices with a web server, and separate icons are still displayed on the screen by the currently accessed servo device even if the web browser screen changes. Each web page is then dynamically upgraded upon bus reset of the home network. That is, the server devices identify all devices connected to the home network upon bus reset of the home network.

According to another preferred embodiment of displaying icons separately from the web browser screen, the method is to display the icons on the background screen of the client device separately from the web browser screen. That is, the information of the icons is supported by the client device. Here, upon bus reset of the home network, the client device checks all devices connected to the home network and dynamically upgrades the icons to be displayed on the background screen.

4 (a) and 4 (b) are diagrams illustrating screens of a client device according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4 (a), a web browser screen 410 is shown on a display screen 400 of a DTV operating as a client device, and icons of a plurality of server devices connected to a home network according to the device page ( 412,414,416 ...) are shown. Here, according to the hot link providing method of the present invention, icons 422, 424, 426 ... are displayed on some screens 420 in the web browser screen 410 itself. If the user selects the DVCR icon 414 shown on the device page, the web page of the DVCR is linked to and displayed on the web browser screen 410 as shown in FIG. 4B. At this time, if the user selects an icon displayed on a separate browser screen 420, the corresponding web page of the desired device can be directly viewed without going through the device page shown in FIG.

5 is a diagram illustrating a screen of a client device according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 5, icons 522, 524, 526... Are displayed on the background screen 520 of the client device separately from the web browser screen 510.

On the other hand, the embodiments of the present invention described above can be written as a program that can be executed on a computer. And may be implemented in a general-purpose digital computer for running the program from a medium used in the computer. The media includes storage media such as magnetic storage media (e.g. ROM, floppy disks, hard disks, etc.), optical reading media (e.g. CD-ROM, DVD, etc.) and carrier waves (e.g., transmitted over the Internet). .

The recording medium displays a device page showing icons representing all devices connected to a home network, respectively, on a web browser screen of a client device, displaying icons separately from the web browser screen, and icons displayed separately by the user. If one is selected, regardless of the current display content of the web browser screen, the program code for executing the step of linking and displaying the web page of the device directly on the computer stores the program code.

And functional programs, codes and code segments for implementing the present invention can be easily inferred by programmers in the art to which the present invention belongs.

As described above, the method of providing a hot link in a home network according to the present invention has an advantage of providing a hot link so that a user can quickly access a desired device.

Claims (6)

A method of providing a hot link in a home network in which a plurality of server devices including a web server and at least one client device controlling the server devices through an embedded web browser are connected, (a) displaying a device page showing icons representing respective devices connected to the home network on a web browser screen of the client device, and displaying the icons separately from the display result; And and (b) when the user selects one of the separately displayed icons, linking and displaying the web page of the corresponding device regardless of the current display content of the web browser screen. How to provide a hot link. The method of claim 1, wherein the step (a) displays the icons separately on some screens of the web browser screen itself. Wherein the server devices with a web server include information of the icons to be displayed on the web browser screen in each web page. The method of claim 2, wherein each of the web page, Hot link providing method in the home network, characterized in that dynamically upgraded at the time of bus reset of the home network. The method of claim 1, wherein the step (a) displays the icons on a background screen of the client device separately from the web browser screen, Wherein the information of the icons is supported by the client device. The method of claim 1 or 4, wherein the icons to be displayed separately on the background screen, Hot link providing method in the home network, characterized in that dynamically upgraded at the time of bus reset of the home network. The device of claim 1, wherein the predetermined devices are: All devices connected to the home network or some of the devices that the user wants to display, hot link providing method in a home network.