Patent Publication Number: US-2007112844-A1

Title: Method and apparatus for processing metadata

Description:
This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/112,955, filed on Apr. 22, 2005, which is a continuation-in-part of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/877,584, filed on Jun. 25, 2004. This application also claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/643,087 filed on Jan. 7, 2005, which provisional application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety; this application claims the benefit of the provisional&#39;s filing date under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e). This present application hereby claims the benefit of these earlier filing dates under 35 U.S.C. §120. 
    
    
     COPYRIGHT NOTICES  
      A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.  
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
      The present invention relates generally to data processing. More particularly, this invention relates to processing metadata.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      Modern data processing systems, such as general purpose computer systems, allow the users of such systems to create a variety of different types of data files. For example, a typical user of a data processing system may create text files with a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or may create an image file with an image processing program such as Adobe&#39;s PhotoShop. Numerous other types of files are capable of being created or modified, edited, and otherwise used by one or more users for a typical data processing system. The large number of the different types of files that can be created or modified can present a challenge to a typical user who is seeking to find a particular file which has been created.  
      Modern data processing systems often include a file management system which allows a user to place files in various directories or subdirectories (e.g. folders) and allows a user to give the file a name. Further, these file management systems often allow a user to find a file by searching for the file&#39;s name, or the date of creation, or the date of modification, or the type of file. An example of such a file management system is the Finder program which operates on Macintosh computers from Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Another example of a file management system program is the Windows Explorer program which operates on the Windows operating system from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Both the Finder program and the Windows Explorer program include a find command which allows a user to search for files by various criteria including a file name or a date of creation or a date of modification or the type of file. However, this search capability searches through information which is the same for each file, regardless of the type of file. Thus, for example, the searchable data for a Microsoft Word file is the same as the searchable data for an Adobe PhotoShop file, and this data typically includes the file name, the type of file, the date of creation, the date of last modification, the size of the file and certain other parameters which may be maintained for the file by the file management system.  
      Certain presently existing application programs allow a user to maintain data about a particular file. This data about a particular file may be considered metadata because it is data about other data. This metadata for a particular file may include information about the author of a file, a summary of the document, and various other types of information. A program such as Microsoft Word may automatically create some of this data when a user creates a file and the user may add additional data or edit the data by selecting the “property sheet” from a menu selection in Microsoft Word. The property sheets in Microsoft Word allow a user to create metadata for a particular file or document. However, in existing systems, a user is not able to search for metadata across a variety of different applications using one search request from the user. Furthermore, existing systems can perform one search for data files, but this search does not also include searching through metadata for those files. Further, the metadata associated with a file is typically limited to those standardized metadata or content of the file.  
     SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIPTION  
      Methods and apparatuses for processing metadata are described herein. In one embodiment, when a file (e.g., a text, audio, and/or image files) having metadata is received, the metadata and optionally at least a portion of the content of the file are extracted from the file to generate a first set of metadata. An analysis is performed on the extracted metadata and the content to generate a second set of metadata, which may include metadata in addition to the first set of metadata. The second set of metadata may be stored in a database suitable to be searched to identify or locate the file.  
      According to certain embodiments of the invention, the metadata that can be searched, for example, to locate or identify a file, may include additional metadata generated based on the original metadata associated with the file and/or at least a portion of content of the file, which may not exist in the original metadata and/or content of the file. In one embodiment, the additional metadata may be generated via an analysis performed on the original metadata and/or at least a portion of the content of the file. The additional metadata may capture a higher level concept or broader scope information regarding the content of the file.  
      Other features of the present invention will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description which follows.  
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements.  
       FIG. 1  shows an exemplary embodiment of a data processing system, which may be a general purpose computer system and which may operate in any of the various methods described herein.  
       FIG. 2  shows a general example of one exemplary method of one aspect of the invention.  
       FIG. 3A  shows an example of the content of the particular type of metadata for a particular type of file.  
       FIG. 3B  shows another example of a particular type of metadata for another particular type of file.  
       FIG. 4  shows an example of an architecture for managing metadata according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.  
       FIG. 5  is a flowchart showing another exemplary method according to one embodiment of the invention.  
       FIG. 6  shows an example of a storage format which utilizes a flat file format for metadata according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.  
       FIGS. 7A-7E  show a sequence of graphical user interfaces provided by one exemplary embodiment in order to allow searching of metadata and/or other data in a data processing system.  
       FIGS. 8A and 8B  show two examples of formats for displaying search results according to one exemplary embodiment of the invention.  
       FIG. 9  shows another exemplary user interface of the present invention.  
       FIG. 10  shows another exemplary user interface of the present invention.  
       FIGS. 11A-11D  show, in sequence, another exemplary user interface according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 12A-12D  show alternative embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 13A and 13B  show further alternative embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 14A-14D  show further alternative embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 15A-15D  show another alternative embodiment of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 16A and 16B  show certain aspects of embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 17  shows an aspect of certain embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 18A and 18B  show further aspects of certain embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIGS. 19A-19E  show further illustrative embodiments of user interfaces according to the present invention.  
       FIG. 20  is a flow chart which illustrates another exemplary method of the present invention.  
       FIG. 21  is a flow chart showing another exemplary method of the present invention.  
       FIGS. 22A-22D  illustrate the display of a display device on which an embodiment of the method of  FIG. 21  is performed.  
       FIG. 23  shows a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system for processing metadata according to one embodiment.  
       FIG. 24  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for processing metadata according to one embodiment.  
       FIG. 25  shows a block diagram illustrating an exemplary configuration of rules and categories according to one embodiment.  
       FIGS. 26A and 26B  are examples of text metadata and additional text metadata generated according to one embodiment.  
       FIG. 27  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for process text metadata according to one embodiment.  
       FIGS. 28A and 28B  are examples of image metadata and additional image metadata generated according to one embodiment.  
       FIG. 29  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for processing image metadata according to one embodiment.  
       FIGS. 30A and 30B  are examples of audio metadata and additional audio metadata generated according to one embodiment.  
       FIG. 31  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for processing image metadata according to one embodiment.  
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
      Methods and apparatuses for processing metadata are described herein. In the following description, numerous details are set forth to provide a more thorough explanation of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the present invention.  
      Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment.  
       FIG. 1  shows one example of a typical computer system which may be used with the present invention. Note that while  FIG. 1  illustrates various components of a computer system, it is not intended to represent any particular architecture or manner of interconnecting the components as such details are not germane to the present invention. It will also be appreciated that network computers and other data processing systems which have fewer components or perhaps more components may also be used with the present invention. The computer system of  FIG. 1  may, for example, be a Macintosh computer from Apple Computer, Inc.  
      As shown in  FIG. 1 , the computer system  101 , which is a form of a data processing system, includes a bus  102  which is coupled to a microprocessor(s)  103  and a ROM (Read Only Memory)  107  and volatile RAM  105  and a non-volatile memory  106 . The microprocessor  103  may be a G3 or G4 microprocessor from Motorola, Inc. or one or more G5 microprocessors from IBM. The bus  102  interconnects these various components together and also interconnects these components  103 ,  107 ,  105 , and  106  to a display controller and display device  104  and to peripheral devices such as input/output (I/O) devices which may be mice, keyboards, modems, network interfaces, printers and other devices which are well known in the art. Typically, the input/output devices  109  are coupled to the system through input/output controllers  108 . The volatile RAM (Random Access Memory)  105  is typically implemented as dynamic RAM (DRAM) which requires power continually in order to refresh or maintain the data in the memory. The mass storage  106  is typically a magnetic hard drive or a magnetic optical drive or an optical drive or a DVD RAM or other types of memory systems which maintain data (e.g. large amounts of data) even after power is removed from the system. Typically, the mass storage  106  will also be a random access memory although this is not required. While  FIG. 1  shows that the mass storage  106  is a local device coupled directly to the rest of the components in the data processing system, it will be appreciated that the present invention may utilize a non-volatile memory which is remote from the system, such as a network storage device which is coupled to the data processing system through a network interface such as a modem or Ethernet interface. The bus  102  may include one or more buses connected to each other through various bridges, controllers and/or adapters as is well known in the art. In one embodiment the I/O controller  108  includes a USB (Universal Serial Bus) adapter for controlling USB peripherals and an IEEE 1394 controller for IEEE 1394 compliant peripherals.  
      It will be apparent from this description that aspects of the present invention may be embodied, at least in part, in software. That is, the techniques may be carried out in a computer system or other data processing system in response to its processor, such as a microprocessor, executing sequences of instructions contained in a memory, such as ROM  107 , RAM  105 , mass storage  106  or a remote storage device. In various embodiments, hardwired circuitry may be used in combination with software instructions to implement the present invention. Thus, the techniques are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software nor to any particular source for the instructions executed by the data processing system. In addition, throughout this description, various functions and operations are described as being performed by or caused by software code to simplify description. However, those skilled in the art will recognize what is meant by such expressions is that the functions result from execution of the code by a processor, such as the microprocessor  103 .  
      Capturing and Use of Metadata Across a Variety of Application Programs  
       FIG. 2  shows a generalized example of one embodiment of the present invention. In this example, captured metadata is made available to a searching facility, such as a component of the operating system which allows concurrent searching of all metadata for all applications having captured metadata (and optionally for all non-metadata of the data files). The method of  FIG. 2  may begin in operation  201  in which metadata is captured from a variety of different application programs. This captured metadata is then made available in operation  203  to a searching facility, such as a file management system software for searching. This searching facility allows, in operation  205 , the searching of metadata across all applications having captured metadata. The method also provides, in operation  207 , a user interface of a search engine and the search results which are obtained by the search engine. There are numerous possible implementations of the method of  FIG. 2 . For example,  FIG. 5  shows a specific implementation of one exemplary embodiment of the method of  FIG. 2 . Alternative implementations may also be used. For example, in an alternative implementation, the metadata may be provided by each application program to a central source which stores the metadata for use by searching facilities and which is managed by an operating system component, which may be, for example, the metadata processing software. The user interface provided in operation  207  may take a variety of different formats, including some of the examples described below as well as user interfaces which are conventional, prior art user interfaces. The metadata may be stored in a database which may be any of a variety of formats including a B tree format or, as described below, in a flat file format according to one embodiment of the invention.  
      The method of  FIG. 2  may be implemented for programs which do not store or provide metadata. In this circumstance, a portion of the operating system provides for the capture of the metadata from the variety of different programs even though the programs have not been designed to provide or capture metadata. For those programs which do allow a user to create metadata for a particular document, certain embodiments of the present invention may allow the exporting back of captured metadata back into data files for applications which maintain metadata about their data files.  
      The method of  FIG. 2  allows information about a variety of different files created by a variety of different application programs to be accessible by a system wide searching facility, which is similar to the way in which prior art versions of the Finder or Windows Explorer can search for file names, dates of creation, etc. across a variety of different application programs. Thus, the metadata for a variety of different files created by a variety of different application programs can be accessed through an extension of an operating system, and an example of such an extension is shown in  FIG. 4  as a metadata processing software which interacts with other components of the system and will be described further below.  
       FIGS. 3A and 3B  show two different metadata formats for two different types of data files. Note that there may be no overlap in any of the fields; in other words, no field in one type of metadata is the same as any field in the other type of metadata. Metadata format  301  may be used for an image file such as a JPEG image file. This metadata may include information such as the image&#39;s width, the image&#39;s height, the image&#39;s color space, the number of bits per pixel, the ISO setting, the flash setting, the F/stop of the camera, the brand name of the camera which took the image, user-added keywords and other fields, such as a field which uniquely identifies the particular file, which identification is persistent through modifications of the file. Metadata format  331  shown in  FIG. 3B  may be used for a music file such as an MP3 music file. The data in this metadata format may include an identification of the artist, the genre of the music, the name of the album, song names in the album or the song name of the particular file, song play times or the song play time of a particular song and other fields, such as a persistent file ID number which identifies the particular MP3 file from which the metadata was captured. Other types of fields may also be used. The following chart shows examples of the various fields which may be used in metadata for various types of files.  
                                                                                                           Cop-                                               ied       Item   Parent in               Multi-       User   Get-   with   App       name   hierarchy   Attribute name   Description/Notes   CFType   value   Localized   settable   table   copy   viewable                  Item   n/a   Authors   Who created or   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes   Yes   Address                   contributed to the                           Book                   contents of this item               Comment   A free form text   CFString   No   No   Yes   Yes   Yes                   comment               ContentType   This is the type that is   CFString   No   ?   No   Yes   Yes                   determined by UTI               ContentTypes   This is the inheritance of   CFString   Yes   ?   No   Yes   Yes                   the UTI system               CreatedDate   When was this item   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes   Yes                   created               DisplayName   The name of the item as   CFString   No   Yes   Yes   Yes   Yes   Finder (or                   the user would like to                           Launch                   read it. Very well may                           Services)                   be the file name, but it                   may also be the subject                   of an e-mail message or                   the full name of a                   person, for example.               Keywords   This is a list words set   CFString   Yes   System-   Yes   Yes   Ask                   by the user to identify           provided                   arbitrary sets of           keywords                   organization. The scope           (if any)                   is determined by the                   user and can be flexibly                   used for any kind of                   organization. For                   example, Family,                   Hawaii, Project X, etc.               Contact   A list of contacts that   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes   Ask   Address               Keywords   are associated with this                           Book                   document, beyond what                   is captured as Author.                   This may be a person                   who&#39;s in the picture or a                   document about a                   person or contact                   (performance review,                   contract)               ModifiedDate   When this item was last   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes                   modified               Rating   A relative rating (0 to 5   CFNumber   No   n/a   Yes   Yes                   value) on how important a                   particular item is to you,                   whether it&#39;s a person, file                   or message               RelatedTos   A list of other items that   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes                   are arbitrarily grouped                   together.               TextContent   An indexed version of any   CFString   No   No   No   Yes                   content text               UsedDates   Which days was the   CFDate   Yes   No   No   Yes                   opened/viewed/played       Content/   Item   Copyright   Specifies the owner of this   CFString   No   No   Yes   Yes       Data           content, i.e. Copyright                   Apple Computer, Inc.               CreatorApp   Keeps track of the   CFString   No   ?   No   Yes                   application that was used                   to create this document (if                   it&#39;s known).               Languages   The languages that this   CFString   Yes   Yes   Yes   Yes                   document is composed in                   (for either text or audio-                   based media)               ParentalControl   A field that is used to   CFString   No   ?   Yes   Yes                   determine whether this is                   kid-friendly content or not               Publishers   The name or a person or   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes       Address                   organization that                           Book                   published this content.               PublishedDate   The original date that this   CFDate   No   No   Yes   Yes                   content was published (if                   it was), independent of                   created date.               Reviewers   A list of contacts who   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes       Address                   have reviewed the contents                           Book                   of this file. This would                   have to be set explicitly by                   an application.               ReviewStatus   Free form text that used to   CFString   No   ?   Yes   Yes                   specify where the                   document is in any                   arbitrary review process               TimeEdited   Total time spent editing   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes                   document               WhereTos   Where did this go to, eg.   CFString   Yes   System-   ?   Yes                   CD, printed, backedup           provided                               words                               only                               (if any)               WhereFroms   Where did this come from,   CFString   Yes   System-   ?   Yes                   e.g. camera, email, web           provided                   download, CD           words                               only                               (if any)       Image   Data   BitsPerSample   What is the bit depth of   CFNumber   No           Yes                   the image (8-bit, 16-bit,                   etc.)               ColorSpace   What color space model is   CFString   No           Yes       ColorSync                   this document following                           Utility?               ImageHeight   The height of the image in   CFNumber   No           Yes                   pixels               ImageWidth   The width of the image in   CFNumber   No           Yes                   pixels               ProfileName   The name of the color   CFString   No           Yes       ColorSync                   profile used with for                           Utility?                   image               ResolutionWidth   Resolution width of this   CFNumber   No           Yes                   image (i.e. dpi from a                   scanner)               ResolutionHeight   Resolution height of this   CFNumber   No           Yes                   image (i.e. dpi from a                   scanner)               LayerNames   For image formats that   CFString   Yes           Yes                   contain “named” layers                   (e.g. Photoshop files)               Aperture   The f-stop rating of the   CFNumber   No           Yes                   camera when the image                   was taken               CameraMake   The make of the camera   CFString   No   Yes       Yes                   that was used to acquire                   this image (e.g. Nikon)               CameraModel   The model of the camera   CFString   No   Yes       Yes                   used to acquire this image                   (Coolpix 5700)               DateTimeOriginal   Date/time the picture was   CFDate   No           Yes                   taken               ExposureMode   Mode that was used for   CFString   No           Yes                   the exposure               ExposureTime   Time that the lens was   CFDate   No           Yes                   exposed while taking the                   picture               Flash   This attribute is   CFNumber   No           Yes                   overloaded with                   information about red-eye                   reduction. This is not a                   binary value               GPS   Raw value received from   CFString   No           Yes                   GPS device associated                   with photo acquisition. It                   hasn&#39;t necessarily been                   translated to a user-                   understandable location.               ISOSpeed   The ISO speed the camera   CFNumber   No           Yes                   was set to when the image                   was acquired               Orientation   The orientation of the   CFString   No           Yes                   camera when the image                   was acquired               WhiteBalance   The white balance setting   CFNumber   No           Yes                   of the camera when the                   picture was taken               EXIFversion   The version of EXIF that   CFString   No           Yes                   was used to generate the                   metadata for the image       Time-   Data   AcquisitionSources   The name or type of   CFString   Yes           Yes       based           device that used to acquire                   the media               Codecs   The codecs used to   CFString   Yes           Yes                   encode/decode the media               DeliveryType   FastStart or RTSP   CFString   No           Yes               Duration   The length of time that the   CFNumber   No           Yes                   media lasts               Streamable   Whether the content is   CFBoolean   No           Yes                   prepared for purposes of                   streaming               TotalBitRate   The total bit rate (audio &amp;   CFNumber   No           Yes                   video combined) of the                   media.               AudioBitRate   The audio bit rate of the   CFNumber   No           Yes                   media               AspectRatio   The aspect ratio of the   CFString   No           Yes                   video of the media               ColorSpace   The color space model   CFString   No           Yes                   used for the video aspect                   of the media               FrameHeight   The frame height in pixels   CFNumber   No           Yes                   of the video in the media               FrameWidth   The frame width in pixels   CFNumber   No           Yes                   of the video in the media               ProfileName   The name of the color   CFString   No           Yes                   profile used on the video                   portion of the media               VideoBitRate   The bit rate of the video   CFNumber   No           Yes                   aspect of the media       Text   Data   Subject   The subject of the text.   CFString   No           Yes                   This could be metadata                   that&#39;s supplied with the                   text or something                   automatically generated                   with technologies like                   VTWIN               PageCount   The number of printable   CFNumber   No           Yes                   page of the document               LineCount   The number of lines in the   CFNumber   No           Yes                   document               WordCount   The number of words in   CFNumber   No           Yes                   the document               URL   The URL that will get you   CFString   No           Yes                   to this document (or at                   least did at one time).                   Relevant for saved HTML                   documents, bookmarks,                   RSS feeds, etc.               PageTitle   The title of a web page.   CFString   No           Yes                   Relevant to HTML or                   bookmark documents               Google Hierarchy   Structure of where this   CFString   No           Yes                   page can be found in the                   Google hierarchy.                   Relevant to HTML or                   bookmark documents       Com-   Data   &lt;Abstract&gt;   There are no specific   n/a   n/a   n/a   n/a   n/a   n/a   n/a       pound           attributes assigned to this       document           item. This is to catch all                   app-specific file formats                   that fall within Data, but                   don&#39;t fit into any of the                   other types. Typically                   these documents have                   multiple types of media                   embedded within them.                   (e.g. P       PDF   Com-   NumberOfPages   The number of printable   CFNumber   No           Yes           pound       pages in the document           document   PageSize   The size of the page stored   CFNumber   No       No   Yes                   as points               PDFTitle   PDF-specific title   CFString   No       ?   Yes                   metadata for the document               PDFAuthor   PDF-specific author   CFString   No       ?   Yes       Address                   metadata for the document                           Book               PDFSubject   PDF-specific subject   CFString   No       ?   Yes                   metadata for the document               PDFKeywords   PDF-specific keywords   CFString   Yes       ?   Yes                   metadata for the document               PDFCreated   PDF-specific created   CFDate   No       ?   Yes                   metadata for the document               PDFModified   PDF-specific modified   CFDate   No       ?   Yes                   metadata for the document               PDFVersion   PDF-specific version   CFString   No       ?   Yes                   metadata for the document               SecurityMethod   Method by which this   CFString   No           Yes                   document is kept secure       Pres-   Compound   SlideTitles   A collection of the titles   CFString   Yes           Yes       entation   document       on slides       (Keynote)       SlideCount   The number of slides   CFString   No           Yes               SpeakerNotesContent   The content of all the   CFString   ?           Yes                   speaker notes from all of                   the slides together       Appli-   Item   Categories   The kind of application   CFString   Yes           Yes       cation           this is: productivity,                   games, utility, graphics,                   etc. A set list that       Message   Item   Recipients   Maps to To and Cc:   CFString   Yes           Yes       Address                   addresses in a mail                           Book                   message.               Priority   The priority of the   CFString   No           Yes                   message as set by the                   sender               AttachmentNames   The list of filenames that   CFString   Yes           Yes                   represent attachments in a                   particular message (should                   be actionable within the                   Finder)               Authors   maps to From address in   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes   Yes   Address                   mail message                           Book               Comment   Not applicable to Mail   CFString   No   No   Yes   Yes   Yes                   right now (should we                   consider?)               Content Type       CFString   No       No   Yes   Yes               Content Types       CFString   Yes       No   Yes   Yes               CreatedDate   When was this message   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes   Yes                   was sent or received               DisplayName   Subject of the message   CFString   No   Yes   Yes   Yes   Yes               Keywords   There will be a way to set   CFString   Yes   System-   Yes   Yes   Ask                   keywords within Mail           provided                               keywords                               (if any)               Contact Keywords   Could be where recipients   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes   Ask   Address                   are held                           Book               ModifiedDate   Not applicable   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes               Rating   A relative rating (0 to 5   CFNumber   No   n/a   Yes   Yes                   stars) on how important a                   particular message is to                   you (separate from a                   message&#39;s Priority)               RelatedTos   Potentially threaded   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes                   messages could be put into                   this category               TextContent   An indexed version of the   CFString   No   No   No   Yes                   mail message               UsedDates   The day/time in which the   CFDate   Yes   No   No   Yes                   mail message was                   viewed/read       Contact   Item   Company   The company that this   CFString   No           Yes       Address                   contact is an employee of                           Book               E-mails   A list of e-mail addresses   CFString   Yes           Yes       Mail                   that this contact has               IMs   A list of instant message   CFString   Yes           Yes       iChat                   handles this contact has               Phones   A list of phone numbers   CFString   Yes                   that relate to this contact               Addresses   A list of physical   CFString   Yes                   addresses that relate to this                   person               Authors   the name of the owner of   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes   Yes   Address                   the Address Book (current                           Book                   user name)               Comment       CFString   No   No   Yes   Yes   Yes               ContentType       CFString   No       No   Yes   Yes               ContentTypes       CFString   Yes       No   Yes   Yes               CreatedDate   date the user entered this   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes   Yes                   into his AddressBook                   (either through import or                   direct entry)               DisplayName   Composite name of   CFString   No   Yes   Yes   Yes   Yes                   contact (First Name, Last                   Name)               Keywords   There will be a way to set   CFString   Yes   System-   Yes   Yes   Ask                   keywords within Address           provided                   Book           keywords                               (if any)               Contact Keywords       CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes   Ask   Address                                               Book               ModifiedDate   Last time this contact   CFDate   No   No   No   Yes                   entry was modified               Rating   A relative rating (0 to 5   CFNumber   No   n/a   Yes   Yes                   stars) on how important a                   particular contact is to you                   (separate from a message&#39;s                   Priority)               RelatedTos   (potentially could be used   CFString   Yes   No   Yes   Yes                   to associate people from                   the same company or                   family)               TextContent   An indexed version of the   CFString   No   No   No   Yes                   Notes section               UsedDates   The day/time in which the   CFDate   Yes   No   No   Yes                   contact entry was viewed                   in Address Book       Meeting   Item   Body   text, rich text or document   CFString   No           Yes       (TBD)           that represents the full                   content of the event               Description   text describing the event   CFString   No           Yes               EventTimes   time/date the event starts   CFDate   Yes           Yes               Duration   The length of time that the   CFNumber   No           Yes                   meeting lasts               Invitees   The list of people who are   CFString   Yes           Yes       Address                   invited to the meeting                           Book               Location   The name of the location   CFString   No           Yes                   where the meeting is                   taking place                    
      One particular field which may be useful in the various metadata formats would be a field which includes an identifier of a plug in or other software element which may be used to capture metadata from a data file and/or export metadata back to the creator application.  
      Various different software architectures may be used to implement the functions and operations described herein. The following discussion provides one example of such an architecture, but it will be understood that alternative architectures may also be employed to achieve the same or similar results. The software architecture shown in  FIG. 4  is an example which is based upon the Macintosh operating system. The architecture  400  includes a metadata processing software  401  and an operating system (OS) kernel  403  which is operatively coupled to the metadata processing software  401  for a notification mechanism which is described below. The metadata processing software  401  is also coupled to other software programs such as a file system graphical user interface software  405  (which may be the Finder), an email software  407 , and other applications  409 . These applications are coupled to the metadata processing software  401  through client application program interface  411  which provide a method for transferring data and commands between the metadata processing software  401  and the software  405 ,  407 , and  409 . These commands and data may include search parameters specified by a user as well as commands to perform searches from the user, which parameters and commands are passed to the metadata processing software  401  through the interface  411 . The metadata processing software  401  is also coupled to a collection of importers  413  which extract data from various applications. In particular, in one exemplary embodiment, a text importer is used to extract text and other information from word processing or text processing files created by word processing programs such as Microsoft Word, etc. This extracted information is the metadata for a particular file. Other types of importers extract metadata from other types of files, such as image files or music files. In this particular embodiment, a particular importer is selected based upon the type of file which has been created and modified by an application program. For example, if the data file was created by PhotoShop, then an image importer for PhotoShop may be used to input the metadata from a PhotoShop data file into the metadata database  415  through the metadata processing software  401 . On the other hand, if the data file is a word processing document, then an importer designed to extract metadata from a word processing document is called upon to extract the metadata from the word processing data file and place it into the metadata database  415  through the metadata processing software  401 . Typically, a plurality of different importers may be required in order to handle the plurality of different application programs which are used in a typical computer system. The importers  413  may optionally include a plurality of exporters which are capable of exporting the extracted metadata for particular types of data files back to property sheets or other data components maintained by certain application programs. For example, certain application programs may maintain some metadata for each data file created by the program, but this metadata is only a subset of the metadata extracted by an importer from this type of data file. In this instance, the exporter may export back additional metadata or may simply insert metadata into blank fields of metadata maintained by the application program.  
      The software architecture  400  also includes a file system directory  417  for the metadata. This file system directory keeps track of the relationship between the data files and their metadata and keeps track of the location of the metadata object (e.g. a metadata file which corresponds to the data file from which it was extracted) created by each importer. In one exemplary embodiment, the metadata database is maintained as a flat file format as described below, and the file system directory  417  maintains this flat file format. One advantage of a flat file format is that the data is laid out on a storage device as a string of data without references between fields from one metadata file (corresponding to a particular data file) to another metadata file (corresponding to another data file). This arrangement of data will often result in faster retrieval of information from the metadata database  415 .  
      The software architecture  400  of  FIG. 4  also includes find by content software  419  which is operatively coupled to a database  421  which includes an index of files. The index of files represents at least a subset of the data files in a storage device and may include all of the data files in a particular storage device (or several storage devices), such as the main hard drive of a computer system. The index of files may be a conventional indexed representation of the content of each document. The find by content software  419  searches for words in that content by searching through the database  421  to see if a particular word exists in any of the data files which have been indexed. The find by content software functionality is available through the metadata processing software  401  which provides the advantage to the user that the user can search concurrently both the index of files in the database  421  (for the content within a file) as well as the metadata for the various data files being searched. The software architecture shown in  FIG. 4  may be used to perform the method shown in  FIG. 5  or alternative architectures may be used to perform the method of  FIG. 5 .  
      The method of  FIG. 5  may begin in operation  501  in which a notification of a change for a file is received. This notification may come from the OS kernel  403  which notifies the metadata processing software  401  that a file has been changed. This notification may come from sniffer software elements which detect new or modified files and deletion of files. This change may be the creation of a new file or the modification of an existing file or the deletion of an existing file. The deletion of an existing file causes a special case of the processing method of  FIG. 5  and is not shown in  FIG. 5 . In the case of a deletion, the metadata processing software  401 , through the use of the file system directory  417 , deletes the metadata file in the metadata database  415  which corresponds to the deleted file. The other types of operations, such as the creation of a new file or the modification of an existing file, causes the processing to proceed from operation  501  to operation  503  in which the type of file which is the subject of the notification is determined. The file may be an Acrobat PDF file or an RTF word processing file or a JPEG image file, etc. In any case, the type of the file is determined in operation  503 . This may be performed by receiving from the OS kernel  403  the type of file along with the notification or the metadata processing software  401  may request an identification of the type of file from the file system graphical user interface software  405  or similar software which maintains information about the data file, such as the creator application or parent application of the data file. It will be understood that in one exemplary embodiment, the file system graphical user interface software  405  is the Finder program which operates on the Macintosh operating system. In alternative embodiments, the file system graphical user interface system may be Windows Explorer which operates on Microsoft&#39;s Windows operating system. After the type of file has been determined in operation  503 , the appropriate capture software (e.g. one of the importers  413 ) is activated for the determined file type. The importers may be a plug-in for the particular application which created the type of file about which notification is received in operation  501 . Once activated, the importer or capture software imports the appropriate metadata (for the particular file type) into the metadata database, such as metadata database  415  as shown in operation  507 . Then in operation  509 , the metadata is stored in the database. In one exemplary embodiment, it may be stored in a flat file format. Then in operation  511 , the metadata processing software  401  receives search parameter inputs and performs a search of the metadata database (and optionally also causes a search of non-metadata sources such as the index of files  421 ) and causes the results of the search to be displayed in a user interface. This may be performed by exchanging information between one of the applications, such as the software  405  or the software  407  or the other applications  409  and the metadata processing software  401  through the interface  411 . For example, the file system software  405  may present a graphical user interface, allowing a user to input search parameters and allowing the user to cause a search to be performed. This information is conveyed through the interface  411  to the metadata processing software  401  which causes a search through the metadata database  415  and also may cause a search through the database  421  of the indexed files in order to search for content within each data file which has been indexed. The results from these searches are provided by the metadata processing software  401  to the requesting application which, in the example given here, was the software  405 , but it will be appreciated that other components of software, such as the email software  407 , may be used to receive the search inputs and to provide a display of the search results. Various examples of the user interface for inputting search requests and for displaying search results are described herein and shown in the accompanying drawings.  
      It will be appreciated that the notification, if done through the OS kernel, is a global, system wide notification process such that changes to any file will cause a notification to be sent to the metadata processing software. It will also be appreciated that in alternative embodiments, each application program may itself generate the necessary metadata and provide the metadata directly to a metadata database without the requirement of a notification from an operating system kernel or from the intervention of importers, such as the importers  413 . Alternatively, rather than using OS kernel notifications, an embodiment may use software calls from each application to a metadata processing software which receives these calls and then imports the metadata from each file in response to the call.  
      As noted above, the metadata database  415  may be stored in a flat file format in order to improve the speed of retrieval of information in most circumstances. The flat file format may be considered to be a non-B tree, non-hash tree format in which data is not attempted to be organized but is rather stored as a stream of data. Each metadata object or metadata file will itself contain fields, such as the fields shown in the examples of  FIGS. 3A and 3B . However, there will typically be no relationship or reference or pointer from one field in one metadata file to the corresponding field (or another field) in the next metadata file or in another metadata file of the same file type.  FIG. 6  shows an example of the layout in a flat file format of metadata. The format  601  includes a plurality of metadata files for a corresponding plurality of data files. As shown in  FIG. 6 , metadata file  603  is metadata from file  1  of application A and may be referred to as metadata file A 1 . Similarly, metadata file  605  is metadata from file  1  of application B and may be referred to as metadata file B 1 . Each of these metadata files typically would include fields which are not linked to other fields and which do not contain references or pointers to other fields in other metadata files. It can be seen from  FIG. 6  that the metadata database of  FIG. 6  includes metadata files from a plurality of different applications (applications A, B, and C) and different files created by each of those applications. Metadata files  607 ,  609 ,  611 , and  617  are additional metadata files created by applications A, B, and C as shown in  FIG. 6 .  
      A flexible query language may be used to search the metadata database in the same way that such query languages are used to search other databases. The data within each metadata file may be packed or even compressed if desirable. As noted above, each metadata file, in certain embodiments, will include a persistent identifier which uniquely identifies its corresponding data file. This identifier remains the same even if the name of the file is changed or the file is modified. This allows for the persistent association between the particular data file and its metadata.  
      User Interface Aspects  
      Various different examples of user interfaces for inputting search parameters and for displaying search results are provided herein. It will be understood that some features from certain embodiments may be mixed with other embodiments such that hybrid embodiments may result from these combinations. It will be appreciated that certain features may be removed from each of these embodiments and still provide adequate functionality in many instances.  
       FIG. 7A  shows a graphical user interface which is a window which may be displayed on a display device which is coupled to a data processing system such as a computer system. The window  701  includes a side bar having two regions  703 A, which is a user-configurable region, and  703 B, which is a region which is specified by the data processing system. Further details in connection with these side bar regions may be found in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/873,661, filed Jun. 21, 2004, and entitled “Methods and Apparatuses for Operating a Data Processing System,” by inventors Donald Lindsay and Bas Ording, attorney docket number 04860.P3306. The window  701  also includes a display region  705  which in this case displays the results of searches requested by the user. The window  701  also includes a search parameter menu bar  707  which includes configurable pull down menus  713 ,  715 , and  717 . The window  701  also includes a text entry region  709  which allows a user to enter text as part of the search query or search parameters. The button  711  may be a start search button which a user activates in order to start a search based upon the selected search parameters. Alternatively, the system may perform a search as soon as it receives any search parameter inputs or search queries from the user rather than waiting for a command to begin the search. The window  701  also includes a title bar  729  which may be used in conjunction with a cursor control device to move, in a conventional manner, the window around a desktop which is displayed on a display device. The window  701  also includes a close button  734 , a minimize button  735 , and a resize button  736  which may be used to close or minimize or resize, respectively, the window. The window  701  also includes a resizing control  731  which allows a user to modify the size of the window on a display device. The window  701  further includes a back button  732  and a forward button  733  which function in a manner which is similar to the back and forward buttons on a web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Safari. The window  701  also includes view controls which include three buttons for selecting three different types of views of the content within the display region  705 . When the contents found in a search exceed the available display area of a display region  705 , scroll controls, such as scroll controls  721 ,  722 , and  723 , appear within the window  701 . These may be used in a conventional manner, for example, by dragging the scroll bar  721  within the scroll region  721 A using conventional graphical user interface techniques.  
      The combination of text entry region  709  and the search parameter menu bar allow a user to specify a search query or search parameters. Each of the configurable pull down menus presents a user with a list of options to select from when the user activates the pull down menu. As shown in  FIG. 7A , the user has already made a selection from the configurable pull down menu  713  to specify the location of the search, which in this case specifies that the search will occur on the local disks of the computer systems. Configurable pull down menu  715  has also been used by the user to specify the kind of document which is to be searched for, which in this case is an image document as indicated by the configurable pull down menu  715  which indicates “images” as the selected configuration of this menu and hence the search parameter which it specifies. The configurable pull down menu  717 , as shown in  FIG. 7A , represents an add search parameter pull down menu. This add search parameter pull down menu allows the user to add additional criteria to the search query to further limit the search results. In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 7A , each of the search parameters is logically ANDed in a Boolean manner. Thus the current search parameter specified by the user in the state shown in  FIG. 7A  searches all local disks for all images, and the user is in the middle of the process of selecting another search criteria by having selected the add search criteria pull down menu  717 , resulting in the display of the pull down menu  719 , which has a plurality of options which may be selected by the user.  
       FIG. 7B  shows the window  701  after the user has caused the selection of the time option within pull down menu  719 , thereby causing the display of a submenu  719 A which includes a list of possible times which the user may select from. Thus it appears that the user wants to limit the search to all images on all local disks within a certain period of time which is to be specified by making a selection within the submenu  719 A.  
       FIG. 7C  shows the window  701  on the display of a data processing system after the user has selected a particular option (in this case “past week”) from the submenu  719 A. If the user accepts this selection, then the display shown in  FIG. 7D  results in which the configurable pull down menu  718  is displayed showing that the user has selected as part of the search criteria files that have been created or modified in the past week. It can be seen from  FIG. 7D  that the user can change the particular time selected from this pull down menu  718  by selecting another time period within the pull down menu  718 A shown in  FIG. 7D . Note that the configurable pull down menu  717 , which represents an add search parameter menu, has now moved to the right of the configurable pull down menu  718 . The user may add further search parameters by pressing or otherwise activating the configurable pull down menu  717  from the search parameter menu bar  707 . If the user decides that the past week is the proper search criteria in the time category, then the user may release the pull down menu  718 A from being displayed in a variety of different ways (e.g. the user may release the mouse button which was being depressed to keep the pull down menu  718 A on the display). Upon releasing or otherwise dismissing the pull down menu  718 A, the resulting window  701  shown in  FIG. 7E  then appears. There are several aspects of this user interface shown in  FIG. 7A-7E  which are worthy of being noted. The search parameters or search query is specified within the same window as the display of the search results. This allows the user to look at a single location or window to understand the search parameters and how they affected the displayed search results, and may make it easier for a user to alter or improve the search parameters in order to find one or more files. The configurable pull down menus, such as the add search parameter pull down menu, includes hierarchical pull down menus. An example of this is shown in  FIG. 7B  in which the selection of the time criteria from the pull down menu  717  results in the display of another menu, in this case a submenu  719 A which may be selected from by the user. This allows for a compact presentation of the various search parameters while keeping the initial complexity (e.g. without submenus being displayed) at a lower level. Another useful aspect of the user interface shown in  FIG. 7A-7E  is the ability to reconfigure pull down menus which have previously been configured. Thus, for example, the configurable pull down menu  713  currently specifies the location of the search (in this case, all local disks), however, this may be modified by selecting the pull down region associated with the configurable pull down menu  713 , causing the display of a menu of options indicating alternative locations which may be selected by the user. This can also be seen in  FIG. 7D  in which the past week option has been selected by the user (as indicated by “past week” being in the search parameter menu bar  707 ), but a menu of options shown in the pull down menu  718 A allows the user to change the selected time from the “past week” to some other time criteria. Another useful aspect of this user interface is the ability to continue adding various search criteria by using the add search criteria pull down menu  717  and selecting a new criteria.  
      It will also be appreciated that the various options in the pull down menus may depend upon the fields within a particular type of metadata file. For example, the selection of “images” to be searched may cause the various fields present in the metadata for an image type file to appear in one or more pull down menus, allowing the user to search within one or more of those fields for that particular type of file. Other fields which do not apply to “images” types of files may not appear in these menus in order reduce the complexity of the menus and to prevent user confusion.  
      Another feature of the present invention is shown in  FIGS. 7A-7E . In particular, the side bar region  703 A, which is the user-configurable portion of the side bar, includes a representation of a folder  725  which represents the search results obtained from a particular search, which search results may be static or they may be dynamic in that, in certain instances, the search can be performed again to obtain results based on the current files in the system. The folder  725  in the example shown in  FIGS. 7A-7E  represents a search on a local disk for all images done on December 10 th . By selecting this folder in the side bar region  703 A, the user may cause the display in the display region  705  of the results of that search. In this way, a user may retrieve a search result automatically by saving the search result into the side bar region  703 A. One mechanism for causing a search result or a search query to be saved into the side bar region  703 A is to select the add folder button  727  which appears in the bottom portion of the window  701 . By selecting this button, the current search result or search query is saved as a list of files and other objects retrieved in the current search result. In the case where the search query is saved for later use rather than the saving of a search result, then the current search query is saved for re-use at a later time in order to find files which match the search query at that later time. The user may select between these two functionalities (saving a search result or saving a search query) by the selection of a command which is not shown.  
       FIGS. 8A and 8B  show another aspect of a user interface feature which may be used with certain embodiments of the present invention. The window  801  of  FIG. 8A  represents a display of the search results which may be obtained as a result of using one of the various different embodiments of the present invention. The search results are separated into categories which are separated by headers  805 ,  807 ,  809 , and  811  which in this case represent periods of time. This particular segmentation with headers was selected by the user&#39;s selecting the heading “date modified” using the date modified button  803  at the top of the window  801 . An alternative selection of the kind category by selecting the button  802  at the top of the window  801 A shown in  FIG. 8B  results in a different formatting of the search results which are now categorized by headers which indicate the types of files which were retrieved in the search and are separated by the headings  815 ,  817 ,  819 , and  821  as shown in  FIG. 8B . The use of these headings in the search results display allows the user to quickly scan through the search results in order to find the file.  
       FIG. 9  shows another aspect of the present invention that is illustrated as part of the window  901  shown in  FIG. 9 . This window includes a display region  905  which shows the results of the search and the window also includes two side bar regions  903 A and  903 B, where the side bar region  903 A is the user-configurable portion and the side bar region  903 B is the system controlled portion. A folder add button  927  may be selected by the user to cause the addition of a search result or a search query to be added to the user-configurable portion of the side bar. The window  901  also includes conventional window controls such as a title bar or region  929  which may be used to move the window around a display and view select buttons  937  and maximize, minimize and resize buttons  934 ,  935 , and  936  respectively. The window  901  shows a particular manner in which the results of a text-based search may be displayed. A text entry region  909  is used to enter text for searching. This text may be used to search through the metadata files or the indexed files or a combination of both. The display region  905  shows the results of a search for text and includes at least two columns,  917  and  919 , which provide the name of the file that was found and the basis for the match. As shown in column  919 , the basis for the match may be the author field or a file name or a key word or comments or other data fields contained in metadata that was searched. The column  921  shows the text that was found which matches the search parameter typed into the text entry field  909 . Another column  911  provides additional information with respect to the search results. In particular, this column includes the number of matches for each particular type of category or field as well as the total number of matches indicated in the entry  913 . Thus, for example, the total number of matches found for the comments field is only 1, while other fields have a higher number of matches.  
       FIG. 10  shows certain other aspects of some embodiments of the present invention. Window  1001  is another search result window which includes various fields and menus for a user to select various search parameters or form a search query. The window  1001  includes a display region  1005  which may be used to display the results of a search and a user-configurable side bar portion  1003 A and a system specified side bar portion  1003 B. In addition, the window  1001  includes conventional scrolling controls such as controls  1021  and  1022  and  1021 A. The window further includes conventional controls such as a title bar  1029  which may be used to move the window and view control buttons  1037  and maximize, minimize, and resize buttons  1034 ,  1035 , and  1036 . A start search button  1015  is near a text entry region  1009 . A first search parameter menu bar  1007  is displayed adjacent to a second search parameter bar  1011 . The first search parameter search bar  1007  allows a user to specify the location for a particular search while two menu pull down controls in the second search parameter menu bar  1011  allow the user to specify the type of file using the pull down menu  1012  and the time the file was created or last modified using the menu  1013 .  
      The window  1001  includes an additional feature which may be very useful while analyzing a search result. A user may select individual files from within the display region  1005  and associate them together as one collection. Each file may be individually marked using a specific command (e.g. pressing the right button on a mouse and selecting a command from a menu which appears on the screen, which command may be “add selection to current group”) or similar such commands. By individually selecting such files or by selecting a group of files at once, the user may associate this group of files into a selected group or a “marked” group and this association may be used to perform a common action on all of the files in the group (e.g. print each file or view each file in a viewer window or move each file to a new or existing folder, etc.). A representation of this marked group appears as a folder in the user-configurable portion  1003 A. An example of such a folder is the folder  1020  shown in the user-configurable portion  1003 A. By selecting this folder (e.g. by positioning a cursor over the folder  1020  and pressing and releasing a mouse button or by pressing another button) the user, as a result of this selection, will cause the display within the display region  1005  of the files which have been grouped together or marked. Alternatively, a separate window may appear showing only the items which have been marked or grouped. This association or grouping may be merely temporary or it may be made permanent by retaining a list of all the files which have been grouped and by keeping a folder  1020  or other representations of the grouping within the user-configurable side bar, such as the side bar  1003 A. Certain embodiments may allow multiple, different groupings to exist at the same time, and each of these groupings or associations may be merely temporary (e.g. they exist only while the search results window is displayed), or they may be made permanent by retaining a list of all the files which have been grouped within each separate group. It will be appreciated that the files within each group may have been created from different applications. As noted above, one of the groupings may be selected and then a user may select a command which performs a common action (e.g. print or view or move or delete) on all of the files within the selected group.  
       FIGS. 11A, 11B ,  11 C, and  11 D show an alternative user interface for allowing a user to input search queries or search parameters. The user interface shown in these figures appears within the window  1101  which includes a user-configurable side bar region  1103 A and a system specified side bar region  1103 B. The window  1101  also includes traditional window controls such as a window resizing control  1131  which may be dragged in a conventional graphical user interface manner to resize the window, and the window further includes scrolling controls such as controls  1121 ,  1122 , and  1123 . The scrolling control  1121  may, for example, be dragged within the scrolling region  1121 A or a scroll wheel on a mouse other input device may be used to cause scrolling within a display region  1105 . Further, traditional window controls include the title bar  1129  which may be used to move the window around a desktop which is displayed on a display device of a computer system and the window also includes view buttons  1137  as well as close, minimize, and resize buttons  1134 ,  1135  and  1136 . A back and forward button, such as the back button  1132 , are also provided to allow the user to move back and forth in a manner which is similar to the back and forth commands in a web browser. The window  1101  includes a search parameter menu bar  1111  which includes a “search by” pull down menu  1112  and a “sort by” pull down menu  1114 . The “search by” pull down menu  1112  allows a user to specify the particular search parameter by selecting from the options which appear in the pull down menu once it is activated as shown in  FIG. 11B . In particular, the pull down menu  1113  shows one example of a pull down menu when the “search by” pull down menu  1112  has been activated. The “sort by” pull down menu  1114  allows a user to specify how the search results are displayed within a display region  1105 . In the example shown in  FIGS. 11A-11D  a user has used the “sort by” pull down menu  1114  to select the “date viewed” criteria to sort the search results by. It should also be noted that the user may change the type of view of the search results by selecting one of the three view buttons  1137 . For example, a user may select an icon view which is the currently selected button among the view buttons  1137 , or the user may select a list view or a column view.  
       FIG. 11B  shows the result of the user&#39;s activation of a “search by” pull down menu  1112  which causes the display of the menu  1113  which includes a plurality of options from which the user may choose to perform a search by. It will be appreciated that there are a number of different ways for a user to activate the “search by” pull down menu  1112 . One way includes the use of a cursor, such as a pointer on a display which is controlled by a cursor control device, such as a mouse. The cursor is positioned over the region associated with the “search by” menu title (which is the portion within the search parameter menu bar  1111  which contains the words “search by”) and then the user indicates the selection of the menu title by pressing a button, such as a mouse&#39;s button, to cause the pull down menu to appear, which in this case is the menu  1113  shown in  FIG. 11B . At this point, the user may continue to move the cursor to point to a particular option within the menu, such as the “time” option. This may result in the display of a submenu to the left or to the right of the menu  1113 . This submenu may be similar to the submenu  719 A or to the menu  1214  shown in  FIG. 12A . If the “kind” option is selected in the menu  1113 , the submenu may include a generic list of the different kinds of documents, such as images, photos, movies, text, music, PDF documents, email documents, etc. or the list may include references to specific program names such as PhotoShop, Director, Excel, Word, etc. or it may include a combination of generic names and specific names.  FIG. 11C  shows the result of the user having selected PhotoShop type of documents from a submenu of the “kind” option shown in menu  1113 . This results in the display of the search parameter menu bar  1111 A shown in  FIG. 11C  which includes a highlighted selection  1111 B which indicates that the PhotoShop type of documents will be searched for. The search parameter menu bar  1111  appears below the search parameter menu bar  1111 A as shown in  FIG. 11C . The user may then specify additional search parameters by again using the “search by” pull down menu  1112  or by typing text into the text entry field  1109 . For example, from the state of the window  1101  shown in  FIG. 11C , the user may select the “search by” pull down menu  1112  causing the display of a menu containing a plurality of options, such as the options shown within the menu  1113  or alternative options such as those which relate to PhotoShop documents (e.g. the various fields in the metadata for PhotoShop type of documents). A combination of such fields contained within metadata for PhotoShop type documents and other generic fields (e.g. time, file size, and other parameters) may appear in a menu, such as the menu  1113  which is activated by selecting the “search by” pull down menu. The user may then select another criteria such as the time criteria. In this case, the window  1101  displays a new search parameter menu bar  1115  which allows a user to specify a particular time. The user may select one of the times on the menu bar  1115  or may activate a pull down menu by selecting the menu title “time,” which is shown as the menu title  1116 . The state of the window  1101  shown in  FIG. 11D  would then search for all PhotoShop documents created in the last 30 days or 7 days or 2 days or today or at any time, depending on the particular time period selected by the user.  
       FIGS. 12A, 12B ,  12 C and  12 D show another example of a user interface for allowing the creation of search queries for searching metadata and other data and for displaying the results of the search performed using a search query. The different implementation shown in  FIGS. 12A-12D  shows a user interface presentation in a column mode; this can be seen by noting the selection of the column button, which is the rightmost button in the view buttons  1237  shown in  FIG. 12A . The window  1201  has two columns  1211  and the display region  1205 , while the window  1251  of  FIG. 12C  has three columns which are columns  1257 ,  1259 , and the display region  1255 , and the window  1271  has three columns which are columns  1277 ,  1279 , and the display region  1275 .  
      The window  1201  shown in  FIGS. 12A and 12B  includes a display region  1205  which shows the results of a search; these results may be shown dynamically as the user enters search parameters or the results may be shown only after the user has instructed the system to perform the search (e.g. by selecting a “perform search” command). The window  1201  includes conventional window controls, such as a resizing control  1231 , a scrolling control  1221 , a title bar  1229  which may be used to move the window, a window close button, a window minimize button, and a window resize button  1234 ,  1235 , and  1236 , respectively. The window  1201  also includes a user-configurable side bar region  1203 A and a system specified side bar region  1203 B. It can be seen from  FIG. 12A  that a browse mode has been selected as indicated by the highlighted “browse” icon  1203 C in the system specified side bar region  1203 B. The window  1201  also includes a text entry region  1209 , which a user may use to enter text for a search, and the window  1201  also includes view selector buttons  1237 .  
      A column  1211  of window  1201  allows a user to select various search parameters by selecting one of the options which in turn causes the display of a submenu that corresponds to the selected option. In the case of  FIG. 12A , the user has selected the “kind” option  1212  then has used the submenu  1214  to select the “photos” option from the submenu, resulting in an indicator  1213  (photos) to appear in the column  1211  under the “kind” option as shown in  FIG. 12A . It can also be seen that the user has previously selected the “time” option in the column  1211  and has selected from a submenu brought up when the “time” option was selected the “past week” search parameter. When the user has finished making selections of the various options and suboptions from both the column  1112  and any of the corresponding submenus which appear, then the display showed in  FIG. 12B  appears. Note that the submenus are no longer present and that the user has completed the selection of the various options and suboptions which specify the search parameters. Column  1211  in  FIG. 12B  provides feedback to the user indicating the exact nature of the search query (in this case a search for all photos dated in the past week), and the results which match the search query are shown in the display region  1205 .  
       FIGS. 12C and 12D  show an alternative embodiment in which the submenus which appear on a temporary basis in the embodiment of  FIGS. 12A and 12B  are replaced by an additional column which does not disappear after a selection is made. In particular, the column  1259  of the window  1251  functions in the same manner as the submenu  1214  except that it remains within the window  1251  after a selection is made (wherein the submenu  1214  is removed from the window after the user makes the selection from the submenu). The column  1279  of window  1271  of  FIG. 12D  is similar to the column  1259 . The window  1251  includes a side bar which has a user-configurable side bar region  1253 A and a system defined side bar region  1253 B. The system specified side bar region  1253 B includes a “browse” selection region  1254  which has a clear button  1258  which the user may select to clear the current search query. The window  1271  of  FIG. 12D  provides an alternative interface for clearing the search query. The window  1271  also includes a user configurable side bar region  1273 A and a system specified side bar region  1273 B, but the clear button, rather than being with the “search” region  1274  is at the top of the column  1277 . The user may clear the current search parameter by selecting the button  1283  as shown in  FIG. 12D .  
       FIG. 13A  shows another embodiment of a window  1301  which displays search results within a display region  1302 . The window  1301  may be a closeable, minimizeable, resizeable, and moveable window having a resizing control  1310 , a title bar  1305  which may be used to move the window, a text entry region  1306  and a user configurable portion  1303 , and a system specified portion  1304 . The window  1301  further includes buttons for selecting various views, including an icon view, a list view, and a column view. Currently, the list view button  1316  has been selected, causing the display of the search results in a list view manner within the display region  1302 . It can be seen that the text (“button”) has been entered into the text entry region  1306  and this has caused the system to respond with the search results shown in the display region  1302 . The user has specified a search in every location by selecting “everywhere” button  1317 . Further, the user has searched for any kind of document by selecting the “kind” option from the pull down menu  1315  and by selecting the “any” option in the pull down menu  1319 . The where or location slice  1307  includes a “+” button which may be used to add further search parameters, and similarly, the slice  1308  includes a “+” and a “−” button for adding or deleting search parameters, respectively. The slice  1307  further includes a “save” button  1309  which causes the current search query to be saved in the form of a folder which is added to the user configurable portion  1303  for use later. This is described further below and may be referred to as a “smart folder.” The search input user interface shown in  FIGS. 13A and 13B  is available within, in certain embodiments, each and every window controlled by a graphical user interface file management system, such as a Finder program which runs on the Macintosh or Windows Explorer which runs on Microsoft Windows. This interface includes the text entry region  1306  as well as the slices  1307  and  1308 .  
      The window  1301  shown in  FIG. 13B  shows the activation of a menu by selecting the search button  1323 A, causing a display of a menu having two entries  1323  and  1325 . Entry  1323  displays recently performed searches so that a user may merely recall a prior search by selecting the prior search and cause the prior search to be run again. The menu selection  1325  allows the user to clear the list of recent searches in the menu.  
       FIGS. 14A, 14B , and  14 C show examples of another window in a graphical user interface file system, such as the Finder which runs on the Macintosh operating system. These windows show the results of a particular search and also the ability to save and use a smart folder which saves a prior search. The window  1401  shown in  FIG. 14A  includes a display region  1403 , a user configurable region  1405 , a smart folder  1406 , a system specified region  1407 , an icon view button  1409 , a list view button  1410 , and a column view button  1411 . The window  1401  also includes a text entry region  1415  and a location slice  1416  which may be used to specify the location for the search, which slice also includes a save button  1417 . Additional slices below the slice  1416  allow the user to specify further details with respect to the search, in this case specifying types of documents which are images which were last viewed this week. The user has set the search parameters in this manner by selecting the “kind” option from the pull down menu  1419  and by selecting the “images” type from the pull down menu  1420  and by selecting the “last viewed” option from pull down menu  1418  and by selecting “this week” from the pull down menu  1422 . The user has also selected “everywhere” by selecting the button  1421  so that the search will be performed on all disks and storage devices connected to this system. The results are shown within the display region  1403 . The user can then save the search query by selecting the “save” button  1417  and may name the saved search query as “this week&#39;s images” to produce the smart folder  1406  as shown in the user configurable portion  1405 . This allows the user to repeat this search at a later time by merely selecting the smart folder  1406  which causes the system to perform a new search again, and all data which matches the search criteria will be displayed within the display region  1403 . Thus, after several weeks, a repeating of this search by selecting the smart folder  1406  will produce an entirely different list if none of the files displayed in the display region  1403  of  FIG. 14A  are viewed in the last week from the time in which the next search is performed by selecting the smart folder  1406 .  
       FIG. 14B  shows a way in which a user may sort or further search within the search results specified by a saved search, such as a smart folder. In the case of  FIG. 14B , the user has selected the smart folder  1406  and has then entered text “jpg”  1425  in the text entry region  1415 . This has caused the system to filter or further limit the search results obtained from the search query saved as the smart folder  1406 . Thus, PhotoShop files and other files such as TIF files and GIF files are excluded from the search results displayed within the display region  1403  of  FIG. 14B  because the user has excluded those files by adding an additional search criteria specified by the text  1425  in the text entry region  1415 . It can be seen that the “jpg” text entry is ANDed logically with the other search parameters to achieve the search results displayed in the display region  1403 . It can also be seen that the user has selected the icon view by selecting the icon view button  1409 . Thus, it is possible for a user to save a search query and use it later and to further limit the results of the search query by performing a search on the results of the search query to further limit the search results.  
       FIG. 14C  shows the window  1401  and shows the search results displayed within the display region  1403 , where the results are based upon the saved search specified by the smart folder  1406 . The user has caused a pull down menu  1427  to appear by selecting the pull down region  1427 A. The pull down region  1427  includes several options which a user may select. These options include hiding the search criteria or saving the search (which is similar to selecting the button  1417 ) or showing view options or opening the selected file. This allows the user, for example, to hide the search criteria, thereby causing the slice  1416  and the other search parameters to be removed from the window  1401  which is a moveable, resizeable, minimizeable, and closeable window.  
       FIG. 14D  shows an example of a user interface which allows the user to specify the appearance of a smart folder, such as the smart folder  1406 .  
       FIGS. 15A, 15B ,  15 C, and  15 D show an example of a system wide search input user interface and search result user interface. In one particular exemplary embodiment, these user interfaces are available on the entire system for all applications which run on the system and all files and metadata, and even address book entries within an address book program, such as a personal information manager, and calendar entries within a calendar program, and emails within an email program, etc. In one exemplary embodiment, the system begins performing the search and begins displaying the results of the search as the user types text into a text entry field, such as the text entry field  1507 . The search results are organized by categories and are displayed as a short list which is intentionally abbreviated in order to present only a selected number of the most relevant (scored) matches or hits to the search query. The user can ask for the display of all the hits by selecting a command, such as the “show all” command  1509 .  FIG. 15A  shows a portion of a display controlled by a data processing system. This portion includes a menu bar  1502  which has at its far end a search menu command  1505 . The user can select the search menu command by positioning a cursor, using a mouse, for example, over the search menu command  1505  and by pressing a button or by otherwise activating or selecting a command. This causes a display of a text entry region  1507  into which a user can enter text. In the example shown in  FIG. 15A , which is a portion of the display, the user has entered the text “shakeit” causing the display of a search result region immediately below a “show all” command region  1509  which is itself immediately below the text entry region  1507 . It can be seen that the hits or matches are grouped into categories (“documents” and “PDF documents”) shown by categories  1511  and  1513  within the search result region  1503 .  FIG. 15B  shows another example of a search. In this case, a large number of hits was obtained ( 392  hits), only a few of which are shown in the search result region  1503 . Again, the hits are organized by categories  1511  and  1513 . Each category may be restricted in terms of the number of items displayed within the search result region  1503  in order to permit the display of multiple categories at the same time within the search result region. For example, the number of hits in the documents category may greatly exceed the available display space within the search result region  1503 , but the hits for this category are limited to a predetermined or dynamically determinable number of entries within the search result region  1503  for the category  1511 . An additional category, “top hit” is selected based on a scoring or relevancy using techniques which are known in the art. The user may select the “show all” command  1509  causing the display of a window, such as window  1601  shown in  FIG. 16A .  FIG. 15C  shows a display of a graphical user interface of one embodiment of the invention which includes the menu bar  1502  and the search menu command  1505  on the menu bar  1502 .  FIG. 15D  shows another example of the search result region  1503  which appeared after a search of the term “safari” was entered into the text entry region  1507 . It can be seen from the search result region  1503  of  FIG. 15D  that the search results are again grouped into categories. Another search result window  1520  is also shown in the user interface of  FIG. 15D . It can be seen that application programs are retrieved as part of the search results, and a user may launch any one of these application programs by selecting it from the search result region, thereby causing the program to be launched.  
       FIGS. 16A and 16B  show examples of search result windows which may be caused to appear by selecting the “show all” command  1509  in  FIG. 15A  or  15 B. Alternatively, these windows may appear as a result of the user having selected a “find” command or a some other command indicating that a search is desired. Moreover, the window  1601  shown in  FIGS. 16A and 16B  may appear in response to either of the selection of a show all command or the selection of a find command. The window  1601  includes a text entry region  1603 , a group by menu selection region  1605 , a sort by menu selection region  1607 , and a where menu selection region  1609 . The group by selection region  1605  allows a user to specify the manner in which the items in the search results are grouped according to. In the example shown in  FIG. 16A , the user has selected the “kind” option from the group by menu selection region  1605 , causing the search results to be grouped or sorted according to the kind or type of document or file. It can be seen that the type of file includes “html” files, image files, PDF files, source code files, and other types of files as shown in  FIG. 16A . Each type or kind of document is separated from the other documents by being grouped within a section and separated by headers from the other sections. Thus, headers  1611 ,  1613 ,  1615 ,  1617 ,  1619 ,  1621 , and  1623  designate each of the groups and separate one group from the other groups. This allows a user to focus on evaluating the search results according to certain types of documents. Within each group, such as the document groups or the folder groups, the user has specified that the items are to be sorted by date, because the user has selected the date option within the sort by menu region  1607 . The user has also specified that all storage locations are to be searched by selecting “everywhere” from the where menu selection region  1609 . Each item in the search result list includes an information button  1627  which may be selected to produce the display of additional information which may be available from the system. An example of such additional information is shown in  FIG. 17  in which a user has selected the information button  1627  for item  1635 , resulting in the display of an image  1636  corresponding to the item as well as additional information  1637 . Similarly, the user has selected the information button for another item  1630  to produce the display of an image of the item  1631  as well as additional information  1632 . The user may remove this additional information from the display by selecting the close button  1628  which causes the display of the information for item  1635  to revert to the appearance for that item shown in  FIG. 16A . The user may collapse an entire group to hide the entries or search results from that group by selecting the collapse button  1614  shown in  FIG. 16A , thereby causing the disappearance of the entries in this group as shown in  FIG. 16B . The user may cause these items to reappear by selecting the expand button  1614 A as shown in  FIG. 16B  to thereby revert to the display of the items as shown in  FIG. 16A .  
      The search results user interface shown in  FIGS. 16A and 16B  presents only a limited number of matches or hits within each category. In the particular example of these figures, only the five top (most relevant or most highly sorted) hits are displayed. This can be seen by noticing the entry at the bottom of each list within a group which specifies how many more hits are within that group; these hits can be examined by selecting this indicator, such as indicator  1612 , which causes the display of all of the items in the documents category or kind for the search for “button” which was entered into the text entry region  1603 . Further examples of this behavior are described below and are shown in conjunction with  FIGS. 18A  and  18 B. It will be appreciated that window  1601  is a closeable and resizable and moveable window and includes a close button and a resizing control  1625 A.  
       FIGS. 18A and 18B  illustrate another window  1801  which is very similar to the window  1601 . The window  1801  includes a text entry region  1803 , a group by menu selection region  1805 , a sort by menu selection region  1807 , and a where menu selection region  1809 , each of which function in a manner which is similar to the regions  1605 ,  1607 , and  1609  respectively of  FIG. 16A . Each item in a list view within the window  1801  includes an information button  1827 , allowing a user to obtain additional information beyond that listed for each item shown in the window  1801 . The window  1801  further includes headers  1811 ,  1813 ,  1815 ,  1817 ,  1819 ,  1821 , and  1823  which separate each group of items, grouped by the type or kind of document, and sorted within each group by date, from the other groups. A collapse button  1814  is available for each of the headers. The embodiment shown in  FIGS. 18A and 18B  shows the ability to switch between several modes of viewing the information. For example, the user may display all of the hits within a particular group by selecting the indicator  1812  shown in  FIG. 18A  which results in the display of all of the images files within the window  1801  within the region  1818 A. The window is scrollable, thereby allowing the user to scroll through all the images. The user can revert back to the listing of only five of the most relevant images by selecting the “show top  5 ” button  1832  shown in  FIG. 18B . Further, the user can select between a list view or an icon view for the images portion shown in  FIGS. 18A and 18B . The user may select the list view by selecting the list view button  1830  or may select the icon view by selecting the icon view button  1831 . The list view for the images group is shown in  FIG. 16A  and the icon view for the images group is shown in  FIGS. 18A and 18B . It can be seen that within a single, moveable, resizable, closeable search result window, that there are two different views (e.g. a list view and an icon view) which are concurrently shown within the window. For example, the PDF documents under the header  1819  are displayed in a list view while the images under the header  1817  are displayed in an icon view in  FIGS. 18A and 18B . It can also be seen from  FIGS. 18A and 18B  that each image is shown with a preview which may be capable of live resizing as described in a patent application entitled “Live Content Resizing” by inventors Steve Jobs, Steve Lemay, Jessica Kahn, Sarah Wilkin, David Hyatt, Jens Alfke, Wayne Loofbourrow, and Bertrand Serlet, filed on the same date as this application, and being assigned to the assignee of the present inventions described herein, and which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.  
       FIG. 19A  shows another example of a search result window which is similar to the window  1601 . The window  1901  shown in  FIG. 19A  includes a text entry region  1903  and a group by menu selection region  1905  and a sort by menu selection region  1907  and a where menu selection region  1908 . Further, the window includes a close button  1925  and a resizing control  1925 A. Text has been entered into the text entry region  1903  to produce the search results shown in the window  1901 . The search results again are grouped by a category selected by a user which in this case is the people options  1906 . This causes the headers  1911 ,  1913 ,  1915 , and  1917  to show the separation of the groups according to names of people. Within each group, the user has selected to sort by the date of the particular file or document. The user interface shown in  FIG. 19A  allows a user to specify an individual&#39;s name and to group by people to look for communications between two people, for example.  FIG. 19B  shows another way in which a user can group a text search (“imran”) in a manner which is different from that shown in  FIG. 19A . In the case of  FIG. 19B , the user has selected a flat list from the group by menu selection region  1905  and has selected “people” from the sort by menu region  1907 . The resulting display in window  1901 A is without headers and thus it appears as a flat list.  
       FIG. 19C  shows the user interface of another search result window  1930  which includes a text entry region  1903  and the selection regions  1905 ,  1907 , and  1908  along with a scrolling control  1926 . The results shown in the window  1930  have been grouped by date and sorted within each group by date. Thus, the headers  1932 ,  1934 ,  1936 ,  1938 , and  1940  specify time periods such as when the document was last modified (e.g. last modified today, yesterday, or last week). Also shown within the search results window  1930  is the information button  1942  which may be selected to reveal further information, such as an icon  1945  and additional information  1946  as shown for one entry under the today group. This additional information may be removed by selecting the contraction button  1944 .  
       FIG. 19D  shows a search result window  1950  in which a search for the text string “te” is grouped by date but the search was limited to a “home” folder as specified in the where menu selection region  1908 . Time specific headers  1952 ,  1954 ,  1956 , and  1958  separate items within one group from the other groups as shown in  FIG. 19D .  
       FIG. 19E  shows an alternative embodiment of a search result window. In this embodiment, the window  1970  includes elements which are similar to window  1901  such as the selection regions  1905 ,  1907 , and a scrolling control  1926  as well as a close button  1925  and a resizing control  1925 A. The search result window  1970  further includes a “when” menu selection region  1972  which allows the user to specify a search parameter based on time in addition to the text entered into the text entry region  1903 . It can be seen from the example shown in  FIG. 19E  that the user has decided to group the search results by the category and to sort within each group by date. This results in the headers  1973 ,  1975 ,  1977 , and  1979  as shown in  FIG. 19E .  
       FIG. 20  shows an exemplary method of operating a system wide menu for inputting search queries, such as the system wide menu available by selecting the search menu command  1505  shown in  FIG. 15A  or  15 B, or  15 C. In operation  2001 , the system displays a system wide menu for inputting search queries. This may be the search menu command  1505 . The user, in operation  2003 , inputs a search, and as the search query is being inputted, the system begins performing and begins displaying the search results before the user finishes inputting the search query. This gives immediate feedback and input to the user as the user enters this information. The system is, in operation  2005 , performing a search through files, metadata for the files, emails within an email program, address book entries within an address book program, calendar entries within a calendar program, etc. The system then, in operation  2007 , displays an abbreviated (e.g. incomplete) list of hits if there are more than a certain number of hits. An example of this abbreviated listing is shown in  FIG. 15B . The listing may be sorted by relevance and segregated into groups such as categories or types of documents. Then in operation  2009 , the system receives a command from the user to display all the hits and in operation  2011  the system displays the search results window, such as the window  1601  shown in  FIG. 16A . This window may have the ability to display two different types of views, such as an icon view and a list view within the same closeable, resizable, and moveable window. It will be appreciated that the searching, which is performed as the user is typing and the displaying of results as the user is typing may include the searching through the metadata files created from metadata extracted from files created by many different types of software programs.  
       FIGS. 21 , and  22 A,  22 B,  22 C, and  22 D will now be referred to while describing another aspect of the inventions. This aspect relates to a method of selecting a group of files, such as a group of individual data files. In an exemplary method of this aspect, a data processing system receives a selection of a plurality of items, such as data files, folders (e.g. graphical user interface representations of subdirectories), application programs or a combination of one or more of these items. This selection may be performed by one of the many conventional ways to select a plurality of items such as (a) positioning a cursor at each item individually (e.g. through the movement of a mouse) and indicating a selection individually by, for example, pressing and releasing a button, such as a mouse&#39;s button; (b) pointing a cursor at a first item in a list and indicating a selection of the first item and pointing the cursor at a last item in a list of items and indicating a selection of all items from the first item to the last item in the list; (c) drawing a selection rectangle by a dragging operation of the cursor, etc. Thus operation  2101  shown in  FIG. 21  receives one or more inputs indicating a selection of a plurality of items. The system in operation  2103  receives a command requesting both the creation of a new storage facility (e.g. a folder) and an association of the plurality of items with the new storage facility. While the operation  2103  is shown following operation  2101 , in certain embodiments operation  2103  may precede operation  2101 . The association of operation  2103  may be a copy or a move operation. For example, the user may select multiple items and then command the system to move those items from their existing locations to a new folder which is created in one operation as a result of the move and create new folder command. In response to the command received in operation  2103 , the system creates a new storage facility, such as a new folder, with a predetermined directory path name or a user specified path name and the system further associates the selected plurality of items with the new storage facility. This association may be either a move or a copy operation. A copy operation would typically involve making a copy of each selected item and storing the item with a path name that reflects the storage of the item within the new folder having a predetermined directory path name or a user specified directory path name. A move operation, in which the items are moved into the new folder, may merely change the path names associated with each of the selected items (rather than making a copy of the items) which changed path names will reflect the new file system location (e.g. within the subdirectory of the new folder) of the selected items.  
       FIGS. 22A-22D  show one example of the method of  FIG. 21 . A desktop  2201  on a display device is shown containing multiple windows and also an icon  2227  on the desktop. A cursor  2211  is also shown on the desktop. The windows  2203 ,  2205 , and  2207  each contain a plurality of items shown as icons. In particular, window  2203  includes a data file represented by icon  2215  in a folder (e.g. a graphical representation of a subdirectory in a file storage system) represented by icon  2217 . The window  2205  includes a program icon  2223  and a document icon  2219  and another document icon  2225  and a folder icon  2221 . The window  2207  shows a list view of several files including “File B.” The user may then, using the cursor  2211  or using other conventional user interface techniques, select multiple items. This may be done with one input or more inputs which indicate the selection of multiple items.  FIG. 22B  shows the result of the user having selected icons  2215 ,  2217 ,  2223 ,  2225 ,  2227 , and “File B” in window  2207 . It can be seen that the cursor  2211  is positioned adjacent to the icon  2225  at this point in the operation. Then the user, after having selected a plurality of items, may invoke the command referred to in operation  2103 . An example of this is shown in  FIG. 22C  which represents a portion of the desktop  2101 , which portion is designated  2201 A as shown in  FIG. 22C . The user has caused a pop up menu  2230  to appear, which pop up menu includes three options  2231 ,  2232 , and  2233 . Option  2231  would allow a user to move all the selected items into the trash (e.g. delete them) while options  2232  and  2233  relate to the command referred to in operation  2103  of  FIG. 21 . In particular, option  2232  is a command which is selectable by the user to create a new folder and, in the same operation, move the items which have been selected into the new folder. Option  2233  is a command which allows the user to, in one operation, create a new folder and copy the selected items into the new folder. In the example shown in  FIGS. 22A-22D , the user will select option  2232 , thereby causing the system to create a new storage facility, such as a new folder with a predetermined directory name (e.g. “new folder”) or alternatively, a user specified path name. This result is shown in  FIG. 22D  in which the desktop  2201  now includes a new window labeled “new folder” which represents and shows the contents of this new folder, which is also shown as the folder  2253  which is a graphical user interface representation of this new folder.  
      It will be appreciated that this method may employ various alternatives. For example, a window may appear after the command option  2232  or  2233  has been selected, and this window asks for a name for the new folder. This window may display a default name (e.g. “new folder”) in case the user does not enter a new name. Alternatively, the system may merely give the new folder or new storage facility a default path name. Also, the system may merely create the new folder and move or copy the items into the new folder without showing the new window as shown in  FIG. 22D .  
      Exemplary Processes for Generating Metadata  
      According to certain embodiments of the invention, the metadata that can be searched, for example, to locate or identify a file, may include additional metadata generated based on the original metadata associated with the file and/or at least a portion of content of the file, which may not exist in the original metadata and/or content of the file. In one embodiment, the additional metadata may be generated via an analysis performed on the original metadata and/or at least a portion of the content of the file. The additional metadata may capture a higher level concept or broader scope information regarding the content of the file.  
      For example, according to one embodiment, if a text file or a word document contains first metadata or content of “Nike” (e.g., a shoe designer), “Callaway” (e.g., a golf club designer), and “Tiger Woods” (e.g., a professional golf player), based on an analysis on these terms, additional metadata (e.g., second metadata) generated may include “Golf” and/or “PGA Tournament”, etc., although the additional metadata may not exist in the file&#39;s content of metadata. Subsequently, when a search is conducted on a term such as “golf”, the file may be identified since the file contains the first metadata (e.g., “Nike”, “Callaway”, and “Tiger Woods”) likely related to the term being searched (e.g., golf). As a result, although a user searches a term that is not contained in the file, the file may still be identified as a part of a search result because the file contains certain terms that are considered related to the term being searched based on an analysis.  
      In at least certain embodiments, a file is analyzed algorithmically in order to derive or generate metadata for the file and this metadata is added to a metadata database, such as metadata database  415  of  FIG. 4 . The analysis may be based on algorithms which analyze the contents of the file or metadata imported or otherwise obtained from the file (prior to the analysis) or a combination of both contents of the file and the metadata imported or otherwise obtained from the file (prior to the analysis). This analysis may generate either the only set of metadata for the file or a second set of metadata if metadata is imported or otherwise obtained from the file (prior to the analysis).  
       FIG. 23  shows a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system for processing metadata according to one embodiment. Exemplary system  2300  may be implemented as software, hardware, or a combination of both. For example, exemplary system  2300  may be implemented within a data processing system such as exemplary system  101  of  FIG. 1 . Alternatively, exemplary system  2300  may be implemented as a part of metadata processing software  401  of  FIG. 4 .  
      In one embodiment, exemplary system  2300  includes, but is not limited to, a metadata importer to extract at least a portion of content and metadata from a file to generate (e.g., import) a first set of metadata, and a metadata analyzer coupled to the metadata importer to perform a metadata analysis on the first set of metadata to generate a second set of metadata. In certain embodiments, a content analyzer may analyze the content (e.g. text) of a file to generate metadata which is added to a metadata database, such as metadata database  2303 . The second set of metadata may include at least one metadata that is not included in the first set of metadata, where the second set of metadata is suitable to be searched to identify or locate the file.  
      Referring to  FIG. 23 , according to one embodiment, exemplary system  2300  includes, a metadata analysis module  2301  communicatively coupled to a metadata importer  2302  and a metadata database  2303 . In one embodiment, the metadata analysis module  2301  may be implemented as a part of the metadata processing module  401  of  FIG. 4 , which may be implemented software, hardware, or a combination of both. The metadata importer  2302  may be implemented as a part of metadata importer  413  of  FIG. 4 . The metadata database  2303  may be implemented as a part of metadata database  415  of  FIG. 4 .  
      In one embodiment, the metadata importer  2302  receives a file containing metadata associated with the file and extracts at least a portion of the metadata and content of the file to generate a first metadata set  2305 . File  2304  may be one of the various types of files including, but are not limited to, the following types of files: 
          Plain text, rich text format (RTF) files     JPEG, PNG, TIFF, EXIF, and/or GIF images     MP3 and/or AAC audio files     QuickTime movies     Portable document format (PDF) files     Word and/or spreadsheet documents (e.g., Microsoft Word or Excel documents)     Chatting documents (e.g., iChat transcripts)     Email messages (e.g., Apple Xmail)     Address Book contacts     Calendar files (e.g., iCal calendar files)     Video clip (e.g., QuickTime movies)        

      In one embodiment, metadata importer  2302  may be an importer dedicated to import certain types of documents. Metadata importer  2302  may be a third party application or driver that is dedicated to import the metadata from a particular file format produced by the third party application or drives. For example, metadata importer  2302  may be a PDF metadata importer that is dedicated to import metadata from a PDF file and the metadata importer  2302  may be designed and/or provided by a PDF file designer (e.g., Adobe System) or its partners. The metadata importer  2302  may be communicatively coupled to the metadata analysis module via an API (application programming interface) such as, for example, as a plug-in application or driver.  
      In response to the first metadata set  2305 , according to one embodiment, the metadata analysis module  2301  performs an analysis (e.g., a semantic analysis) on the first metadata set  2305  and generates additional metadata, a second metadata set  2306 . At least a portion of the first and/or second metadata sets may then be stored in the metadata database  2303  in a manner suitable to be searched to identify or locate the file subsequently, using one of the techniques described above. In addition to generating a second metadata set, or as an alternative to generating the second metadata set, a content analyzer may analyze the content of a file and generate metadata which is added to metadata database  2303 .  
      In one embodiment, the metadata analysis module  2301  may perform the analysis using a variety of analytical techniques including, but not limited to, the following techniques: 
          Latent semantic analysis (LSA)     Tokenization     Stemming     Concept extraction     Spectrum analysis and/or filtering     Optical character recognition (OCR)     Voice recognition (also referred to as speech-to-text operations)        

      Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is a statistical model of words usage that permits comparisons of the semantic similarity between pieces of textual information. LSA was originally designed to improve the effectiveness of information retrieval (IR) methods by performing retrieval based on the derived “semantic” content of words in a query as opposed to performing direct word matching. This approach avoids some of the problem of synonymy, in which different words can be used to describe the same semantic concept.  
      The primary assumption of LSA is that there is some underlying or “latent” structure in the pattern of word usage across documents, and that statistical techniques can be used to estimate this latent structure. The term “document” in this case, can be thought of as contexts in which words occur and also could be smaller text segments such as individual paragraphs or sentences. Through an analysis of the associations among words and documents, the method produces a representation in which words that are used in similar contexts will be more semantically associated.  
      Typically, in order to analyze a text, LSA first generates a matrix of occurrences of each word in each document (e.g., sentences or paragraphs). LSA then uses singular-value decomposition (SVD), a technique closely related to eigenvector decomposition and factor analysis. The SVD scaling decomposes the word-by-document matrix into a set of k, typically ranging from 100 to 300, orthogonal factors from which the original matrix can be approximated by linear combination. Instead of representing documents and terms directly as vectors of independent words, LSA represents them as continuous values on each of the k orthogonal indexing dimensions derived from the SVD analysis. Since the number of factors or dimensions is much smaller than the number of unique terms, words will not be independent. For example, if two terms are used in similar contexts (documents), they will have similar vectors in the reduced-dimensional LSA representation. One advantage of this approach is that matching can be done between two pieces of textual information, even if they have no words in common.  
      For example, to illustrate this, if the LSA was trained on a large number of documents, including the following two:  
      1) The U.S.S. Nashville arrived in Colon harbor with 42 marines  
      2) With the warship in Colon harbor, the Colombian troops withdrew.  
      The vector for the word “warship” would be similar to that of the word “Nashville” because both words occur in the same context of other words such as “Colon” and “harbor”. Thus, the LSA technique automatically captures deeper associative structure than simple term-term correlations and clusters. One can interpret the analysis performed by SVD geometrically. The result of the SVD is a k-dimensional vector space containing a vector for each term and each document. The location of term vectors reflects the correlations in their usage across documents. Similarly, the location of document vectors reflects correlations in the terms used in the documents. In this space the cosine or dot product between vectors corresponds to their estimated semantic similarity. Thus, by determining the vectors of two pieces of textual information, the semantic similarity between them can be determined.  
      Tokenization is a process of converting a string of characters into a list of words and other significant elements. However, in most cases, morphological variants of words have similar semantic interpretations and can be considered as equivalent for the purpose of IR applications. For this reason, a number of so-called stemming algorithms, or stemmers, have been developed, which attempt to reduce a word to its stem or root form. Thus, the key terms of a query or document are represented by stems rather than by the original words. This not only means that different variants of a term can be conflated to a single representative form, it also reduces the dictionary size (e.g., the number of distinct terms needed for representing a set of documents). A smaller dictionary size results in a saving of storage space and processing time.  
      At least for certain embodiments, it does not usually matter whether the stems generated are genuine words or not. Thus, “computation” might be stemmed to “comput”, provided that (a) different words with the same base meaning are conflated to the same form, and (b) words with distinct meanings are kept separately. An algorithm, which attempts to convert a word to its linguistically correct root (“compute” in this case), is sometimes called a lemmatiser. Examples of stemming algorithms may include, but are not limited to, Paice/Husk, Porter, Lovins, Dawson, and Krovetz stemming algorithms. Typically, once the sentences of a document have been processed into a list of words, LSA may be applied to the words.  
      Concept extraction is a technique used for mining textual information based on finding common “themes” or “concept” in a given document. Concept extraction technique may also be used to extract some semantic features from raw text which are then linked together in a structure which represents the text&#39;s thematic content. Content extraction technique may be combined with LSA to analyze the first metadata set and generate the second metadata set, according to one embodiment.  
      A spectrum is normally referred to as a range of color or a function of frequency or wavelength, which may represent electromagnetic energy. The word spectrum also takes on the obvious analogous meaning in reference to other sorts of waves, such as sound wave, or other sorts of decomposition into frequency components. Thus, a spectrum is a usually a two-dimensional plot of a compound signal, depicting the components by another measure. For example, frequency spectrum is a result of Fourier-related transform of a mathematical function into a frequency domain.  
      According to one embodiment, spectrum analysis/filtering may be used to analyze an image and/or an audio in the frequency domain, in order to separate certain components from the image and/or audio sound. For example, spectrum analysis/filtering may be used to separate different colors from the image or different tunes of an audio, etc. The spectrum analysis may be used to determine the type of music or sound for an audio file or the type of picture.  
      In addition to spectrum analysis/filtering performed on an image, according to one embodiment, OCR (optical character recognition) may be used to recognize any text within the image. OCR is the recognition of printed or written text or characters by a computer. This involves photo scanning of the text character-by-character, analysis of the scanned-in image, and then translation of the character image into character codes, such as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), commonly used in data processing. During OCR processing, the scanned-in image or bitmap is analyzed for light and dark areas in order to identify each alphabetic letter or numeric digit. When a character is recognized, it is converted into an ASCII code. Special circuit boards and computer chips (e.g., digital signal processing or DSP chip) designed expressly for OCR may be used to speed up the recognition process.  
      Similarly, in addition to the spectrum analysis/filtering performed on an audio, voice recognition (also referred to as speech-to-text) may be performed to recognize any text within the audio (e.g., words used in a song). Voice recognition is the field of computer science that deals with designing computer systems that can recognize spoken words and translate them into text. Once the text within an image and an audio has been extracted (e.g., via OCR and/or voice recognition), other text related analysis techniques such as LSA, etc. may be applied. Note that, throughout this application, the above techniques are described by way of examples. They are not shown by way of limitations. Other techniques apparent to one with ordinary skill in the art may also be applied.  
      Referring back to  FIG. 23 , the operations involved in some or all of the above techniques may be handled by some or all of the modules  2310 - 2316 , individually or in combination. The operations may be performed sequentially or substantially concurrently. Modules  2310 - 2316  may be implemented as software, hardware, or a combination of both. Some or all of the modules  2310 - 2316  may be implemented locally or alternatively, they may be implemented remotely over a network (e.g., similar to external resources  23 . 7 ). Note that exemplary system is shown for illustration purposes only, more or less of modules  2310 - 2316  may be implemented dependent upon a specification configuration. For example, some or all of the modules  2310 - 1216 , may be implemented separately. Alternatively, they may be implemented as a single module. Further, some or all of the functionality of modules  2310 - 2316  may be implemented within the metadata importer  2302 .  
      In addition, certain external resources  2307  may be invoked to assist the analysis to obtain additional metadata. Some examples of the external resources  2307  may include GPS (global positioning system) services, Web services, and/or database services, etc. For example, in response to the first metadata as the example described above having the terms of “Nike”, “Callaway”, and “Tiger Woods”, the metadata analysis module  2301  may access certain external resources, such as databases or Web sites over a network, to obtain additional information about the companies of Nike and/or Callaway (e.g., company&#39;s press release or product announcements, etc.), as well as information regarding Tiger Woods (e.g., biography or world PGA ranking, etc.) At least a portion of the obtained information may be used as a part of the second metadata set  2306 , which may in turn be stored in the metadata database  2303  in a manner suitable to be searched subsequently to identify or locate the file. Note that the external resources  2307  may also be used by other components for the system  2300 , such as, for example, metadata importer  2302 .  
      Furthermore, the first metadata set  2305  may be analyzed against a previously trained metadata set  2309  in order to generate the second metadata set  2306 , according to one or more rules  2308 . The trained metadata set  2309  may be trained against a relatively large amount of information via a training interface (not shown) by one or more users. Alternatively, the exemplary system  2300  may also include a dynamic training interface (not shown) to allow a user to categorize particular metadata, especially when the metadata analysis module  2301  could not determine. The result of user interaction may further be integrated into the trained metadata set  2309 . Examples of rules  2308  may be implemented similar to those shown in  FIG. 25 . Other configurations may exist.  
       FIG. 24  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for processing metadata according to one embodiment. Exemplary process  2400  may be performed by a processing logic that may include hardware (circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software (such as is run on a dedicated machine), or a combination of both. For example, the exemplary process  2400  may be performed by the metadata importer  2302  and/or the metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 . In one embodiment, exemplary process  2400  includes, but is not limited to, extracting at least a portion of content and metadata from a file to generate a first set of metadata, and performing a metadata analysis on the first set of metadata to generate a second set of metadata having at least one metadata not included in the first set of metadata, where the second set of metadata is suitable to be searched to identify the file.  
      Referring to  FIGS. 23 and 24 , at block  2401 , a file having metadata is received, for example, by metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . The file may be received via a file system operation such as a write operation. Alternatively, the file may be received over a network, for example, via an attachment of an email. In response to the file, at block  2402 , the metadata associated with the file and at least a portion of the content of the file may be extracted to generate a first metadata set (e.g., first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 ). In one embodiment, the first metadata set may be generated via a metadata importer associated with a type of the file.  
      According to one embodiment, the metadata importer  2302  may invoke one or more of the modules  2310 - 2316  to generate the first metadata set  2305 . According to a further embodiment, the external resources  2307  may be invoked by the metadata importer  2302 .  
      At block  2403 , a metadata analysis is performed on the first metadata set and/or at least a portion of the file content to generate a second metadata set (e.g., second metadata set  2306 ) in addition to the first metadata set. The analysis may be performed by metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 . The analysis may include one or more of the analyses described above (e.g., modules  2310 - 2316  and/or external resources  2307 ), individually or in combination. At block  2404 , some or all of the first and second metadata sets may be stored in one or more databases (e.g., metadata database  2303 ) in a manner (e.g., category configuration examples shown in  FIG. 25 ) suitable to be searched subsequently to identify or locate the file. Other operations may also be performed. These other operations may include, for example, determining another file which is similar to the file which was analyzed and examining the another file to extract metadata from the another file and add that extracted metadata into the second set of metadata for the file. The another file may be determined, by for example, a relevancy test, to be most similar to the file, and then additional metadata for the file can be extracted from the another file.  
      A typical file may include a set of standard metadata, such as dates when the file was created, accessed, or modified, as well as security attributes such as whether the file is read-only, etc. In addition, each type of files may further include additional metadata specifically designed for the respective type of file. Among the types of files described above, text, image, audio, and a combination of these (e.g., a video clip) may be more popular than others. Following descriptions may be used to describe detailed processes on these files. However, these processes are illustrated by way of examples only, other types of files may also be handled using one or more techniques described above.  
       FIGS. 26A and 26B  are examples of text metadata and additional text metadata generated according to one embodiment. Exemplary text metadata  2600  may be a part of first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 , extracted from the text metadata associated with a text file and/or at least a portion of the content of the text file. For example, exemplary metadata  2600  may be extracted or imported by a text metadata importer similar to metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . In one embodiment, the text metadata importer extract one or more keywords from the vocabulary used in the text file and may generate additional information, such as a field of article and/or topic of the article. The field of article and/or the topic of the article may also be determined by the metadata analysis module. In one embodiment, the metadata analysis module performs one or more analyses on the metadata  2600  of  FIG. 26A  and generates additional metadata  2650  as shown in  FIG. 26B , which may include at least one metadata that is not included in the metadata  2600 . Note that exemplary metadata in  FIGS. 26A and 26B  are shown for illustration purposes only. It will be appreciated that more or less information may be implemented as metadata.  
       FIG. 27  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for process text metadata according to one embodiment. Exemplary process  2700  may be performed by a processing logic that may include hardware (circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software (such as is run on a dedicated machine), or a combination of both. For example, the exemplary process  2700  may be performed by the metadata importer  2302  and/or the metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 .  
      Referring to  FIG. 27 , at block  2701 , a text file having metadata is received, for example, by metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . The text file may be received via a file system operation such as a write operation or alternatively, the text file may be received over a network (e.g., an email). In response to the text file, at block  2702 , the metadata associated with the file and at least a portion of the content of the file may be extracted to generate a first metadata set (e.g., first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 ). In one embodiment, the first metadata set may be generated via a text metadata importer associated with the text file. In one embodiment, one or more keywords may be extracted from the vocabularies used in the text file. The keywords may be extracted using at least one of tokenization, stemming, and/or concept extraction techniques as described above, for example, by invoking modules  2310 - 2316  and/or eternal resources  2307  of  FIG. 23 .  
      At block  2703 , a metadata analysis is performed on the first metadata set and/or at least a portion of the file content to generate a second metadata set (e.g., second metadata set  2306 ) in addition to the first metadata set. The analysis may be performed by metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 . The analysis may include one or more of the analyses described above (e.g., LSA), individually or in combination. For example, according to one embodiment, based on the keywords extracted from the text file, the field and/or topic of the article may be determined. In addition, if applicable, an event and/or the dates of the event associated with the article, as well as the company or companies and persons that sponsor the event may also be determined via the analysis, as shown in  FIG. 26B .  
      Furthermore, one or more external resources may be invoked to determine additional information regarding the article described in the text file. For example, external GPS services may be invoked to determine a location and dates/time of the event. Further, external Web services or database services may be invoked to obtain additional information regarding the companies or persons sponsoring the event, etc.  
      At block  2704 , some or all of the first and second metadata sets may be stored in one or more databases (e.g., metadata database  2303 ) in a manner (e.g., category configuration examples shown in  FIG. 25 ) suitable to be searched subsequently to identify or locate the file. Other operations may also be performed.  
       FIGS. 28A and 28B  are examples of image metadata and additional image metadata generated according to one embodiment. Exemplary image metadata  2800  may be a part of first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 , extracted from the image metadata associated with an image file (e.g., a JPEG or GIF file) and/or at least a portion of the content of the image file. For example, exemplary metadata  2800  may be extracted or imported by an image metadata importer similar to metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . In one embodiment, the metadata analysis module performs one or more analyses on the metadata  2800  of  FIG. 28A  and generates additional metadata  2850  as shown in  FIG. 28B , which may include at least one metadata that is not included in the metadata  2800 . Note that exemplary metadata in  FIGS. 28A and 28B  are shown for illustration purposes only. It will be appreciated that more or less information may be implemented as metadata.  
       FIG. 29  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for processing image metadata according to one embodiment. Exemplary process  2900  may be performed by a processing logic that may include hardware (circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software (such as is run on a dedicated machine), or a combination of both. For example, the exemplary process  2900  may be performed by the metadata importer  2302  and/or the metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 .  
      Referring to  FIG. 29 , at block  2901 , an image file (e.g., a JPEG or GIF file) having metadata is received, for example, by metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . The image file may be received via a file system operation such as a write operation or alternatively, the image file may be received over a network. In response to the image file, the metadata associated with the file and/or at least a portion of the content of the file may be extracted to generate a first metadata set (e.g., first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 ). In one embodiment, the first metadata set may be generated via an image metadata importer associated with the image file. For example, if the file is a JPEG file, a JPEG metadata importer that is able to decode the JPEG file format (e.g., JPEG 2000 compatible encoding, etc.) may be invoked to extract the metadata associated with the JPEG file such as, for example, those shown in  FIG. 28A . According to one embodiment, the metadata importer  2302  may invoke one or more of the modules  2310 - 2316  to generate the first metadata set  2305 . According to a further embodiment, the external resources  2307  may be invoked by the metadata importer  2302 .  
      For example, at block  2902 , based on at least a portion of the metadata  2800  of  FIG. 28A , the nature of the image (e.g., photo, drawing, or painting) may be determined. In addition, as another example, based on the ISO setting, focal length, and/or shutter speed, whether a photo was taken during day or night time, and/or whether the photo was taken in a still or action situation may be determined. Some or all of this additional information may be used as a part of additional metadata as shown in  FIG. 28B .  
      According to one embodiment, a metadata analysis may then be performed on the first metadata set and/or at least a portion of the file content to generate a second metadata set (e.g., second metadata set  2306 ) in addition to the first metadata set. The analysis may be performed by metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 . The analysis may include one or more of the analyses described above, individually or in combination. For example, according to one embodiment, at block  2903 , an image analysis such as color/shape analysis (e.g., using spectrum analysis/filtering techniques) may be performed to determine the time (e.g., day vs. night) and the type (e.g., portrait, person, or landscape) of the image, and other image related information.  
      Furthermore, according to one embodiment, at block  2904 , one or more external resources may be invoked to determine additional information regarding the image. For example, external GPS services may be invoked to determine a location and date/time when the image was generated.  
      At block  2905 , any text (if there is any) existed in the image may be recognized, for example, using OCR techniques. Thereafter, any text metadata processing techniques, such as those described above (e.g., similar to operations of  FIG. 27 ) may be applied to obtain additional information.  
      At block  2906 , some or all of the first and second metadata sets may be stored in one or more databases (e.g., metadata database  2303 ) in a manner (e.g., category configuration examples shown in  FIG. 25 ) suitable to be searched subsequently to identify or locate the file. Other operations may also be performed.  
       FIGS. 30A and 30B  are examples of audio metadata and additional audio metadata generated according to one embodiment. Exemplary audio metadata  3000  may be a part of first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 , extracted from the audio metadata associated with an audio file (e.g., a MP3 file) and/or at least a portion of the content of the audio file. For example, exemplary metadata  3000  may be extracted or imported by an audio metadata importer similar to metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . In one embodiment, the metadata analysis module performs one or more analyses on the metadata  3000  of  FIG. 30A  and generates additional metadata  3050  as shown in  FIG. 30B , which may include at least one metadata that is not included in the metadata  3000 . Note that exemplary metadata in  FIGS. 30A and 30B  are shown for illustration purposes only. It will be appreciated that more or less information may be implemented as metadata.  
       FIG. 31  shows a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process for processing image metadata according to one embodiment. Exemplary process  3100  may be performed by a processing logic that may include hardware (circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software (such as is run on a dedicated machine), or a combination of both. For example, the exemplary process  3100  may be performed by the metadata importer  2302  and/or the metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 .  
      Referring to  FIG. 31 , at block  3101 , an audio file (e.g., an MP3 file) having metadata is received, for example, by metadata importer  2302  of  FIG. 23 . The audio file may be received via a file system operation such as a write operation or alternatively, the audio file may be received over a network. In response to the audio file, the metadata associated with the file and at least a portion of the content of the file may be extracted to generate a first metadata set (e.g., first metadata set  2305  of  FIG. 23 ). In one embodiment, the first metadata set may be generated via an audio metadata importer associated with the audio file. For example, if the file is an MP3 file, an MP3 metadata importer that is able to decode the MP3 compatible file format may be invoked to extract the metadata associated with the MP3 file such as, for example, those shown in  FIG. 30A . According to one embodiment, the metadata importer  2302  may invoke one or more of the modules  2310 - 2316  to generate the first metadata set  2305 . According to a further embodiment, the external resources  2307  may be invoked by the metadata importer  2302 . In certain embodiments, the metadata importer may analyze, based on an algorithm, the audio file to derive additional metadata. For example, the metadata importer can keep track of when a song was last played and determine a pattern (e.g. the song is normally played within an hour of noon) and based upon this pattern, time related metadata or other metadata can be created. This time related metadata can be used to find songs played at a certain time or be used to create a time based favorites list. It will be appreciated that metadata can be exported by a software program which creates or modifies a file rather than by a separate, specific importer which is designed to extract the metadata from the file. In either case, the metadata can be considered to be imported into a metadata database, and thus the term “metadata importer” is intended to encompass either mechanism of introducing metadata into a metadata database.  
      According to one embodiment, a metadata analysis may then be performed on the first metadata set and/or at least a portion of the file content to generate a second metadata set (e.g., second metadata set  2306 ) in addition to the first metadata set. The analysis may be performed by metadata analysis module  2301  of  FIG. 23 . The analysis may include one or more of the analyses described above, individually or in combination. For example, according to one embodiment, at block  3102 , a frequency analysis (e.g., using spectrum analysis/filtering techniques) may be performed to determine the type of the music (e.g., Jazz or classical), and other audio related information.  
      Furthermore, according to one embodiment, at block  3103 , one or more external resources may be invoked to determine additional information regarding the audio. For example, external Web or database services may be invoked to determine biography information of the artist, and GPS services may be invoked to determine location and date when the audio was recorded (e.g., the location and date of the concert).  
      At block  3104 , any text (if there is any) existed in the audio, such as, for example, words used in a song, may be recognized, for example, using OCR techniques. Thereafter, any text metadata processing techniques, such as those described above (e.g., similar to operations of  FIG. 27 ) may be applied to obtain additional information.  
      At block  3105 , some or all of the first and second metadata sets may be stored in one or more databases (e.g., metadata database  2303 ) in a manner (e.g., category configuration examples shown in  FIG. 25 ) suitable to be searched subsequently to identify or locate the file. Other operations may also be performed.  
      Note that although a text file, an image file, and an audio file have been described above, they are illustrated by way of examples rather than by way of limitations. In fact, any of the above examples may be performed individually or in combination. For example, a word document may include text and an image. Some or all of the operations involved in  FIGS. 27 and 29  may be performed individually or in combination. For another example, a video clip may include a sequence of images and audio clips. As result, some or all of the operations involved in  FIGS. 29 and 31  may be performed individually or in combination. Other types of metadata may also be processed.  
      Thus, methods and apparatuses for processing metadata have been described herein. Some portions of the preceding detailed descriptions have been presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the ways used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result. The operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like.  
      It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system&#39;s registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.  
      Embodiments of the present invention also relate to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may include a general-purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), erasable programmable ROMs (EPROMs), electrically erasable programmable ROMs (EEPROMs), magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupled to a computer system bus.  
      The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method operations. The required structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below. In addition, the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the invention as described herein.  
      A machine-readable medium may include any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable medium includes read only memory (“ROM”); random access memory (“RAM”); magnetic disk storage media; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.  
      In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.