KR19990086325A - Grouping display method and device capable of supporting grouping in home network - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention discloses a grouping display method and a grouping supportable device in a home network. In a home network in which at least one client device and a plurality of server devices are connected, a grouping display method when displaying a device page using a web browser on a client device may include icons representing respective devices connected to the home network by predetermined groups. Collecting information necessary to display, generating a device page for representing a plurality of devices in a web browser based on the collected information, and loading a device page on a web browser screen to display icons by predetermined groups Characterized in that it comprises a step.

Description

Grouping display method and device capable of supporting grouping in home network

The present invention relates to a home network, and more particularly, to a method of grouping display 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, when many devices are connected to the home network, there should be a method of displaying a device page so that the user can distinguish the devices more effectively.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in the home network, which makes it easier for a user to access a desired device by displaying icons of devices connected to the home network by a predetermined group when displaying a device page on a web browser screen. It is to provide a grouping display method of.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a groupable device capable of displaying icons of devices connected to a home network for a predetermined group.

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 (a) and 3 (b) are diagrams for comparing a typical device page with a device page according to the grouping display method according to the present invention.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a grouping display method according to the present invention.

5 is a diagram illustrating an example of an attribute table of a device operating as a web server.

6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a device page when the same device is included in one group.

7 (a) and (b) are diagrams illustrating device pages according to another exemplary embodiment of the grouping display method according to the present invention.

In order to achieve the above object, in a home network to which at least one or more client devices and a plurality of server devices are connected, a grouping display method when displaying a device page using a web browser on the client device,

Collecting information necessary to display icons representing devices connected to a home network by a predetermined group; generating a device page for representing a plurality of devices in a web browser based on the collected information; and a web browser screen And loading the device page on the device and displaying the icons by predetermined groups.

In order to achieve the above another object, in a home network in which at least one client device and a plurality of server devices are connected, the devices connected to the home network may be

It supports a predetermined protocol required by the home network, and has an attribute table including at least a group name and a device name to enable grouping.

Hereinafter, a grouping display method and a device capable of supporting grouping 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, the DTV1 100, the DTV2 102, the DVCR 110, the DVDP 112, the DVC 114, and the like are connected to each other through an IEEE1394 bus to form a home network system. Here, the DTV1, DTV2 (100, 102) (or other devices including a display device such as a PC) and the like have a built-in web browser and operate as a client device, the DVCR 110, the DVDP 112, and the like. The DVC 114 and the like have a built-in web server and operate 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. The IEEE 1394 device includes layers marked with hatched. Here, the part marked with one side is basically included in the IEEE 1394 device, and the part marked with both sides may be selectively included. An IP over 1394 layer on top of IEEE1394, an IP and ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) layer on top of it, and a TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) layer on top of it so that IEEE1394 devices can operate as a web server on the Internet. This goes up. And every device acts as a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server, or web server, and has an HTML document hierarchy that describes its capabilities. 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.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the client device DTV1 100 has a built-in web browser to display easy information for controlling the server devices DVCR 110, DVDP 112, DVC 114, and the like. Create a page. Each server device has its own unique bitmap file or icon file that represents the device itself, which can be used to display devices currently connected to the IEEE1394 network from a client device with a built-in web browser. Can be used to create a device page. At this time, according to the generated device page, each icon displayed through the web browser on the screen of the client device is connected to the top level HTML page of each server device. The user can easily access the DVCR 110, the DVDP 112 and the DVC 114 by using the web page of the DTV1 100, specifically the device page displayed on the web browser screen. For example, when the user selects a DVCR icon, the DTV1 100 accesses the DVCR 110 to retrieve a web page linked through the icon.

In generating the device page as described above, when many devices are connected to the home network, it is necessary to display the device page so that the user can distinguish the devices more effectively. Hereinafter, the grouping display method proposed in the present invention will be described in detail.

3 (a) and 3 (b) are diagrams for comparing a typical device page with a device page according to the grouping display method according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3A, a web browser screen 304 is shown on a display screen 302 of a DTV operating as a client device, and icons of a plurality of devices connected to a home network are shown according to the device page. It is. For example, the devices are divided into several places in a home, so when icons are displayed as shown in FIG. 3 (a), where the device to be accessed is located, especially when there are several devices having the same function. It will not be easy to distinguish. On the other hand, the present invention is to display the devices connected to the home network as shown in Figure 3 (b) by a predetermined group. In FIG. 3B, the device page displays the icons of the devices grouped by rooms. Here, although grouped by room as an example, it may be grouped by a desired group by the user's work, use, function, and the like.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a grouping display method according to the present invention.

In general, the client device DTV generates a device page for displaying all server devices connected to the home network at run-time whenever there is a state change due to a bus reset including power-on. Therefore, first, it is determined whether or not the bus reset (step 402). At bus reset, a client device with a built-in web browser enters the step of generating a device page. In step 404, all devices connected to the home network are accessed. It is determined whether each device supports a predetermined protocol required by the home network (step 406). At this time, for the identified device, an IP address for each is obtained through a predetermined IP address passing process.

After operation 406, information necessary to display icons representing each of the devices for each predetermined group is collected for the devices supporting the predetermined protocol (operation 408). Typically, a device page retrieves an IP address for a server device through a predetermined IP address passing process and displays an icon to the user by reading an icon file, such as icon.gif, from the IP address in a web browser. In the present invention, the device page generation process reads not only the IP address but also information included in a unique attribute table of each device as information for display by a predetermined group.

5 is a diagram illustrating an example of an attribute table of a device operating as a web server.

Referring to FIG. 5, an attribute table includes at least a group name belonging to a device when a corresponding device is divided into devices connected to a home network by a predetermined group, and a device name. For example, when grouping by room, the group name of the DTV may be set to "Livingroom", and the device name may be set to "DTV". In addition, the attribute table may be used as a criterion for distinguishing when there are devices having the same function in a group, including a product serial number and the like. In addition, it is possible to distinguish devices having the same function by a World Wide Unique ID instead of a product serial number.

Again, after operation 408 with reference to FIG. 4, a device page for representing the plurality of devices in the web browser is generated based on the collected information (operation 410). In detail, icons representing the devices are first grouped by a predetermined group name, and when there are devices having the same device name in a group, the device page is generated by distinguishing them with additional unique information of each device.

6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a device page when the same device is included in one group.

When device icons are grouped by room during device page generation, for example, if two DTVs are included in the "Livingroom", that is, they have the same icon according to the same device name, a series of products from the attribute table for each device Read more numbers to distinguish icons. In this case, devices having the same device name may display a device name including a product serial number at the bottom of the icon, as shown in FIG. 6, when each icon is displayed on the device page.

Finally, after operation 410 of FIG. 4, the device page is loaded on the web browser screen to display icons by predetermined groups (operation 412). The web browser automatically loads the device page when the user turns on the DTV, which is a client device, or by preset customization or by some other definition. When the device page is loaded, icons and the like are fetched from the devices. As shown in FIG. 3B, device pages are displayed for each predetermined group.

At this time, if there are devices having the same device name in step 408, if there is a distinction, as shown in Figure 6 further displays a device name including, for example, the product serial number for naming these icons together with the icons do. In addition, when the device name is displayed in this manner, the device name indicated by the dotted line may be redefined by the user's request.

7 (a) and (b) are diagrams illustrating device pages according to another exemplary embodiment of the grouping display method according to the present invention.

Various editing functions may be added in the aforementioned device page generation process. For example, as shown in FIG. 7A, icons of devices are divided into predetermined groups, and main and sub groups are further divided to show all corresponding icons for the group name "Livingroom" of the main group 706. The subgroups 708 and 710 will be shown only as the representative icons "Bedroom1 icon" and "Bedroom2 icon". At this time, when the user selects one icon of the subgroups, all of the actual icons included in the subgroup 708 are displayed as shown in FIG. 7B, while the other groups 706 and 710 are represented as the representative icons. . By generating the device page in this way, the user can more easily access all of the desired devices in the predetermined group on the large screen.

The grouping display method according to the present invention has been described so far. The grouping-supportable device according to the present invention that performs this method supports certain protocols required by the home network and, for example, includes an attribute table including at least a group name and a device name to be groupable as shown in FIG. 5. Have

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 collects information necessary to display icons representing respective devices connected to a home network by a predetermined group, and generates a device page for representing a plurality of devices in a web browser based on the collected information. And storing a program code that can be executed in a computer by loading a device page on a web browser screen and displaying the icons by predetermined groups.

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 grouping display method and the grouping supportable device in the home network according to the present invention display icons of devices connected to the home network by a predetermined group, thereby making the device desired by the user more easily accessible. There is an advantage.

Claims (6)

In a home network in which at least one client device and a plurality of server devices are connected, a grouping display method when displaying a device page using a web browser on the client device, (a) collecting information necessary to display icons representing respective devices connected to the home network for each predetermined group; (b) generating a device page for representing the plurality of devices in the web browser based on the collected information; And and (c) loading the device page on the web browser screen and displaying the icons for each predetermined group. The method of claim 1, wherein the information in the step (a), Grouping display method in the home network, characterized in that included in the attribute table each of the devices connected to the home network. The method of claim 2, wherein the attribute table, And at least a group name belonging to the device when the device is connected to the home network by a predetermined group, and a device name. According to claim 1, wherein step (b), Based on the collected information, icons representing the devices are first grouped by a predetermined group name, and when there are devices having the same device name in a group, the device page is generated by distinguishing them with additional unique information of each device. Grouping display method in a home network, characterized in that. The method of claim 1, wherein step (c) comprises: And displaying a device name each of the icons together with the icons, wherein the device name is taken from the collected information. In a home network in which at least one client device and a plurality of server devices are connected, an attribute table including at least a group name and a device name to support grouping, and devices connected to the home network support a predetermined protocol required by the home network. Device capable of supporting grouping, characterized in that it has a.