Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US8060514?dq=7,321,221
Timestamp: 2016-02-08 06:40:59
Document Index: 190075968

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 2116', 'art 2116', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 2']

Patent US8060514 - Methods and systems for managing composite data files - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inPatentsSystems and methods for managing data, such as metadata or non-metadata such as content. In one exemplary method, a composite document is received and it is determined whether the composite document contains at least one subdocument and if it does, the method captures metadata and/or content from the...http://www.google.com/patents/US8060514?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US8060514 - Methods and systems for managing composite data filesAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS8060514 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 11/499,128Publication dateNov 15, 2011Filing dateAug 4, 2006Priority dateAug 4, 2006Fee statusPaidAlso published asUS8914322, US20080040359, US20120030213Publication number11499128, 499128, US 8060514 B2, US 8060514B2, US-B2-8060514, US8060514 B2, US8060514B2InventorsYan Arrouye, Dominic GiampaoloOriginal AssigneeApple Inc.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (7), Referenced by (23), Classifications (9), Legal Events (3) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetMethods and systems for managing composite data files
US 8060514 B2Abstract
Systems and methods for managing data, such as metadata or non-metadata such as content. In one exemplary method, a composite document is received and it is determined whether the composite document contains at least one subdocument and if it does, the method captures metadata and/or content from the subdocument and stores the captured metadata and/or content for use in future searches (or an immediate search). The metadata and/or content from the composite document is typically combined together with information about the hierarchy of the subdocuments in the document. The type of information in metadata for one type of file differs from the type of information in metadata for another type of file. Other methods are described and data processing systems and machine readable media are also described.
1. A method performed by a data processing system, comprising:
receiving a composite document;
breaking the composite document into multiple subdocuments of a plurality levels of depth, the subdocuments having different file types;
individually indexing the content of the multiple subdocuments and adding the content to an indexed database;
capturing metadata from the multiple subdocuments, wherein the metadata describes the content of the subdocuments and independently storing the metadata of the subdocuments into a metadata database; and,
searching the stored metadata using a search query, wherein the search is performed as the search query is being received.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the method is a recursive process.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the capturing of metadata is performed by a plurality of importer programs, each tailored for at least one particular file format.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata of the composite document forms a hierarchical structure.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the capturing of metadata is performed for relevant subdocuments, wherein relevant subdocuments are specified by at least one of a position of a relevant subdocument in a presentation of the composite document and a frequency of occurrence of the relevant subdocument in the composite document.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein a first importer captures metadata from one portion of the composite document and a second importer captures metadata from another portion of the composite document, and wherein metadata is captured from a plurality of nested levels of subdocuments.
receiving a notification from an operating system element that a document has changed or been created or been deleted, and wherein the capturing is in response to the receiving of the notification.
determining a type of a subdocument having metadata and, in response to determining the type,
selecting a first software element from a group of software elements, wherein the first software element performs said capturing from the subdocument and a second software element, from the group, captures metadata from at least one portion of the composite document other than the subdocument.
9. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium containing executable program instructions for causing a data processing system to perform a method of managing data, the method comprising:
capturing metadata from the multiple subdocuments, wherein the metadata describes the content of the subdocuments and independently storing the metadata of the subdocuments into a metadata database; and
10. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the method is a recursive process.
11. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the capturing of metadata is performed by a plurality of importer programs, each tailored for at least one particular file format.
12. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the metadata of the composite document forms a hierarchical structure.
13. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the capturing of metadata is performed for relevant subdocuments, wherein relevant subdocuments are specified by at least one of a position of a relevant subdocument in a presentation of the composite document and a frequency of occurrence of the relevant subdocument in the composite document.
14. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein a first importer captures metadata from one portion of the composite document and a second importer captures metadata from another portion of the composite document, and wherein metadata is captured from a plurality of nested levels of subdocuments.
15. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 further comprising:
16. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 further comprising:
selecting a first software element from a group of software elements, wherein the first software element performs said capturing from the subdocument and a second software element from the group captures metadata from at least one portion of the composite document other than the subdocument.
means for receiving a composite document;
means for breaking the composite document into multiple subdocuments of a plurality levels of depth, the subdocuments having different file types;
means for capturing metadata from the multiple subdocuments, wherein the metadata describes the content of the subdocuments and independently storing the metadata of the subdocuments into a metadata database; and
means for searching the stored metadata using a search query, wherein the search is performed as the search query is being received.
18. The system of claim 17 wherein the method is a recursive process.
19. The system of claim 17 wherein the capturing of metadata is performed by a plurality of importer programs, each tailored for at least one particular file format.
20. The system of claim 17 wherein the metadata of the composite document forms a hierarchical structure.
21. The system of claim 17 wherein the capturing of metadata is performed for relevant subdocuments, wherein relevant subdocuments are specified by at least one of a position of a relevant subdocument in a presentation of the composite document and a frequency of occurrence of the relevant subdocument in the composite document.
22. The system of claim 17 wherein a first importer captures metadata from one portion of the composite document and a second importer captures metadata from another portion of the composite document, and wherein metadata is captured from a plurality of nested levels of subdocuments.
means for receiving a notification from an operating system element that a document has changed or been created or been deleted, and wherein the capturing is in response to the receiving of the notification.
25. The method of claim 1, wherein capturing metadata from the subdocuments comprises:
extracting one of the subdocuments into a temporary file with a first type, wherein the composite document has a second type different from the first type;
selecting a metadata importer based on the first type; and
capturing the metadata from the temporary file using the selected metadata importer.
26. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein capturing metadata from the subdocuments comprises:
27. The system of claim 17, wherein capturing metadata from the subdocuments comprises:
means for extracting one of the subdocuments into a temporary file with a first type, wherein the composite document has a second type different from the first type;
means for selecting a metadata importer based on the first type; and
means for capturing the metadata from the temporary file using the selected metadata importer.
receiving a command to delete a file;
determining that one of the subdocuments of the composite document is a copy of the file to be deleted;
performing a predetermined action in response to the determining.
29. The method of claim 28, wherein the predetermined action is one of notifying a user about the subdocument and deleting the one subdocument from the composite document.
30. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9, further comprising:
31. The method of claim 30, wherein the predetermined action is one of notifying a user about the one subdocument and deleting the subdocument from the composite document.
means for receiving a command to delete a file;
means for determining that one of the subdocuments of the composite document is a copy of the file to be deleted;
means for performing a predetermined action in response to the determining.
33. The method of claim 32, wherein the predetermined action is one of notifying a user about the one subdocument and deleting the one subdocument from the composite document.
34. The method of claim 1 wherein the searching is begun concurrently as the search query is entered and before entry of the search query is completed.
35. The non-transitory machine readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the searching is begun concurrently as the search query is entered and before entry of the search query is completed.
36. The system of claim 17 wherein the searching is begun concurrently as the search query is entered and before entry of the search query is completed. Description
Modern data processing systems, such as general purpose computer systems, allow the users of such systems to create composite data files which include a variety of different types of data formats. The information often has a composite nature, and the modern computer system allows the integration of these components into a composite data file. For example, a typical document contains text, generated from a text editing program or a word processing program such as Microsoft Word, and may also contain images, generated from an image processing program such as Adobe's PhotoShop program. The document can also contain an embedded document, thus creating an arbitrarily deep hierarchy of data storage. Other examples include a drawing or CAD document containing text objects, a video project containing multiple audio and video clips, an audio/video clip containing information about persons such as the copyright holders, an archive document containing multiple documents, which themselves may be composite documents and multiple directories, which contain multiple documents. In addition, there are numerous other types of files and formats that are capable of being created or modified, edited, and otherwise used for a typical data processing system. The arbitrarily deep level of information storage within a document can present a challenge to a typical user who is seeking to find particular information.
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'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, and even the file content. However, this search capability searches through information only at the top level and for a particular type. Thus, for example, the searchable data for a Microsoft Word file is the text contained in the document, or other related data such as 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. The searchable data do not include information about embedded files such as a drawing or a image file in the Microsoft Word file.
Further, 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 information deep within the document 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.
A method of managing data in one exemplary embodiment includes capturing metadata and/or content from a composite document successively to all levels (or at least a plurality of levels) of subdocuments within the composite document. “Document” should be understood to mean any storable information in some tangible medium and a composite document should be understood to include a document that has at least two parts which are different from each other. A document includes, for example, an item such as a vCard or a web page or a database record, etc. The subdocuments may have different file formats, and can have an arbitrarily deep level of document hierarchy. In one embodiment, the metadata from the subdocuments are captured and stored in a database, such as a metadata database. In another embodiment, the hierarchical information of the composite document is maintained in the metadata database. In another embodiment, the method of capturing metadata of the composite document comprises a recursive process to capture all metadata from the subdocuments within all hierarchical levels (or at least a plurality of levels) of the composite document.
In another exemplary embodiment, a method of managing data includes indexing information from a composite document successively to all levels (or at least a plurality of levels) of subdocuments within the composite document. The indexing process can index through an arbitrarily deep level of document hierarchy and through a variety of different file formats of the subdocuments. In one embodiment, the index from the subdocuments are captured and stored in a database. In another embodiment, the hierarchical information of the composite document is maintained in the index database containing the indexed full content of at least a set of documents on a system. In another embodiment, the method of indexing a composite document comprises a recursive process to capture information from all subdocuments within all hierarchical levels (or at least a plurality of levels) of the composite document.
In one aspect of the invention, the composite metadata and index can be captured selectively. Since not all subdocuments are necessarily interesting or relevant, the present invention data management method, in one exemplary embodiment, includes the ability to exclude portions of a document such as non-relevant or non-interesting information. For example, a company logo or a presentation graphical theme is usually not relevant information, and can be excluded from being captured in metadata or index database. The determination of the relevancy of the information, in an embodiment, can be based on the usage or location of the information on the document or based on selection by a user for a particular document or based on a general preference setting, selected by a user, for a plurality of documents.
Further, the objects (e.g. embedded image, chart, or document) are typically encoded in the parent object or document in proprietary ways, making it impossible for a generic program to extract the embedded information. Thus in one aspect of the invention, the data managing method according to the present invention can invoke appropriate importer plug-ins of other software to read the embedded information and files, and to interpret its structure. After determining that the information in a subdocument is relevant, the subdocuments are classified in standard formats based on their types, which allows them to be imported through an appropriate importer plug-in. In an embodiment, a document is divided into parts which are indexed (e.g. indexed into an inverted index of the full text content of files stored on a system).
Another aspect of the present invention relates to various user interfaces such as search input interfaces and interfaces for the presentation of search results, to allow a user to search through the metadata and index of content. In one embodiment, this search may occur concurrently or hierarchically for all the metadata/index with different levels of the composite documents. For example, the search results may be displayed in multiple different formats with headers to separate the different subdocuments within a document which is shown in a search result, or be limited to a predetermined number for each category. Another user interface feature provides multiple views for different portions of a search results window.
Another aspect of the present invention relates to a software architecture for managing metadata and non-metadata databases such as an indexed database of the full text content of the data files. The maintaining of composite metadata and indexed content allows proper management of the index and the document database with the linkage between a document and its parent and its children. Search queries may be directed concurrently to metadata and non-metadata sources in response to a single search query.
Another aspect of the inventions described herein relates to one or more importers which interact with new or modified files created by different application programs. For example, an importer is called by the application programs or by a metadata processing software in response to a notification from the application programs or from an operating system (OS) kernel that a new file has been created or an existing file has been modified. An importer will typically specify a file path name for the extracted metadata and specify selected data to be extracted and written into the file path name of the file containing the extracted metadata.
Another aspect of the inventions described herein relates to performing a search through a system while receiving input from a user. In an exemplary method of this aspect, the data processing system begins a search through the plurality of data files as the user enters input and before the user completes the entry of the search query. This search may be performed through the plurality of data files as well as the metadata and non-metadata databases, where the metadata includes metadata extracted from subdocuments within a document and the non-metadata database (e.g. an indexed content database containing full text, or other, content of documents) includes non-metadata (e.g. content) extracted from subdocuments. The search results may be sorted by relevancy or organized by categories, and the system may display a partial list of matches with options for displaying additional information.
FIG. 21 shows a prior art method of capturing metadata at a single level and indexing of content at a single level.
FIGS. 22A and 22B show an embodiment of the present invention for metadata capturing and indexing content, respectively.
FIG. 23 illustrates a three nested level composite document according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 24 illustrates a four nested level composite document according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 25 illustrates a relevancy aspect for a composite document according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 26 shows the successive breakdown of a composite document into relevant atomic subdocuments in one aspect of the present invention.
FIG. 27 shows an embodiment of a recursive breakdown of a composite document into relevant atomic subdocuments.
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 personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular telephones, media players (e.g. an iPod), devices which combine aspects or functions of these devices (e.g. a media player combined with a PDA and a cellular telephone in one device), an embedded processing device within another device, network computers and other data processing systems which have fewer components or perhaps more components may also be used with or to implement one or more embodiments of the present invention. The computer system of FIG. 1 may, for example, be a Macintosh computer from Apple Computer, Inc.
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's width, the image's height, the image'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.
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 1003A and a system specified side bar portion 1003B. In addition, the window 1001 includes conventional scrolling controls such as controls 1021 and 1022 and 1021A. The window further includes conventional controls such as a title bar 1029 which may be used to move the window and view control buttons 1637 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 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 1203A and a system specified side bar region 1203B. It can be seen from FIG. 12A that a browse mode has been selected as indicated by the highlighted “browse” icon 1203C in the system specified side bar region 1203B. 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.
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 1253A and a system defined side bar region 1253B. The system specified side bar region 1253B 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 1273A and a system specified side bar region 1273B, 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.
Capturing Metadata and Content for an Index Database for Composite Documents
In another aspect of the invention, a data management method includes capturing metadata and non-metadata such as content from composite documents. A composite document is loosely considered in the present invention as a document having at least one subdocument (e.g. a part, a component, or an item) which differs from, usually in format, another part of the document. In effect, the document may be considered to have at least two parts, a first part which is a first document which contains another document (which may be considered the subdocument) within a container provided by the first document. The more than one subdocuments often have different file formats which are different from each other. Typical examples of composite documents are a document containing text and an image, a CAD document containing a CAD drawing and a text object, a video project containing multiple audio and video clips, an audio/video clip containing additional information about the copyright holder, an archive document containing multiple documents and directories containing multiple documents.
Traditional metadata or index capturing typically addresses only one level or one type of content or data in a document. FIG. 21 shows a prior art metadata and content capturing from a document. The metadata 2111 and the content 2112 of the document 2110 is captured by an importer 2120 to a metadata database 2121 and an index database 2122, respectively. In this case, the importer 2120 handles both importing of metadata into the metadata database 2121 and capturing of content which is indexed into a full text content index database 2122. Shown in this Figure is that the metadata 2111 is within the document 2110, but the metadata 2111 can be located physically anywhere in the system with a link to the document 2110. The metadata 2111 is captured to the metadata database 2121, but other possible metadata are ignored, for example, metadata associated with the embedded file 2115, metadata associated with the chart 2116, metadata associated with the FIG. 2117, or higher embedded level metadata, such as one associated with the subdocuments of the embedded file 2115.
Further, within the content 2112 to be imported to the index database 2122, full text content and/or keywords 2113 are indexed to the index database 2122, but other possible sources of content are ignored, for example, the full text content and/or keywords associated with the embedded file 2115, the keywords associated with the chart 2116, the keywords associated with the FIG. 2117, or higher embedded level keywords, such as one associated with the subdocuments of the embedded file 2115.
An exemplary method, in an embodiment of the invention, includes capturing metadata and non-metadata (such as a content to be stored in a full text index database) successively to user-determined or system-determined or application-specified levels, preferably all levels, of subdocuments within the composite document. In one aspect, the method of data managing comprises the successive breakdown of a composite document into relevant atomic subdocuments, and metadata and non-metadata can be extracted from the atomic subdocuments before combining together the extracted information to form the metadata of the composite document. The subdocument metadata and non-metadata may be linked to their parent document and also to their children subdocuments to allow, e.g., a search operation to locate all document associations.
FIGS. 22A and 22B show generalized examples of one embodiment of the present invention with FIG. 22A showing a capture of metadata from a composite document and FIG. 22B showing an indexing of a composite document. The method of FIG. 22A may begin in operation 2201 in which a composite document is accessed. This access may occur as a result of a first software process (e.g. a process of an operating system's kernel or other process of the operating system) alerting or notifying a second software process (e.g. a process of a metadata processing software) that a new document has been created or that an existing document has been modified. In response to the alert or notification, the second software process, in one embodiment, performs operations 2201, 2203, 2205, and 2207. The composite document is then successively broken into relevant subdocuments of a plurality of levels of depth in operation 2203. The metadata is then extracted from the subdocuments in operation 2205, and the metadata from those subdocuments are combined to form the metadata of the composite document in operation 2207. The metadata may be stored independently with or without a link to metadata from the container or parent document, or may be added to the parent or container document metadata.
Similarly, for non-metadata such as content which is to be added to an indexed full text content database, the method of FIG. 22B may begin in operation 2211 in which a composite document is accessed. The composite document is then successively broken into relevant subdocuments of a plurality of levels of depth in operation 2213. The subdocuments are then indexed individually in operation 2215, and the indexed contents from each of the subdocuments are combined to form the indexed content of the composite document in operation 2217.
FIG. 23 shows an embodiment including a composite document having three levels of nested documents. The composite document comprises various subdocuments including a subdocument of main content, a subdocument of image 1, a subdocument of chart 2 and a subdocument of embedded file 3. The subdocument chart 2 further has another level of subdocuments, including a chart content 2, an image 2A, and an image 2B. The subdocument embedded file 3 also has a second level of subdocuments, including a main content 3, an image 3A and an image 3B. A method of successively capturing metadata and non-metadata according to one embodiment of the invention provides the capturing of information to the last level of embedded subdocuments, including the top level of the document, the first level of subdocuments of the Main content, Image 1, Chart 2, and Embedded file 3, and the second level of subdocuments of the Chart content 2, Image 2A and Image 2B of parent document Chart 2, the Main content 3, Image 3A and Image 3B of parent document Embedded file 3. In an alternative embodiment, information from less than all levels may be captured (e.g. certain levels may be filtered and hence not captured as they are deemed to be not interesting). The subitems (e.g. items of subdocuments) are preferably identified with an association to a parent document or children documents. The capturing of metadata and non-metadata (such as content to be added to a full text index database) may be stored in a hierarchical structure to preserve the hierarchical information of the composite document. The captured metadata is preferably stored in a metadata database, and the captured non-metadata (e.g. index) is preferably stored in a non-metadata (e.g. index) database. Information of all levels of the composite document are captured, thus the metadata and non-metadata databases represent a complete picture of the composite document, permitting proper managing and searching of the data files.
FIG. 24 shows another embodiment including a zip archive composite document having four levels of nested documents. The zip archive comprises File 1, File 2, and Directory 3 and Directory 4. Directory 3 and Directory 4 comprise File 3A, File 3B, Directory 3C and File 4A, File 4B, respectively. Directory 3C further comprises Files 3CA and 3CB. The nested metadata capturing of the present invention allows the capturing of metadata in all four nested levels, permitting a coherent and coordinated managing of files. For examples, a search for File 3CB can deliver the document zip archive, or a deletion of File 3CA can prompt a notification of what to do with a copy of File 3CA in document zip archive.
In another aspect, the present invention distinguishes between interesting or relevant objects (e.g. subdocuments) from non-interesting or irrelevant objects. For example, a Keynote or PowerPoint presentation may contain text and images that are either part of the user's message (relevant content), or part of the presentation graphical theme such as the company logo or the company trademarked branding (irrelevant content) or even a graphical background. Often the relevancy of an object is very subjective, depending on the occasion, or depending on the target audience. The present invention provides an exemplary guideline for relevancy determination, which can be adjusted and reviewed in many situations for best performance. One criterion for relevancy determination is based on the usage or location of the object on the document. For example, if an object is used repeatedly throughout the presentation, existing in every slide of a PowerPoint presentation, it is likely that the object representing a company logo, or a presentation graphical theme, and thus is likely irrelevant, e.g. the content of the object is not interesting to most audiences. Another example is that if an object is located in a far corner (e.g. a page number in the far bottom right corner), it is likely not interesting.
The present invention, in an exemplary method, employs relevancy criterion to determine the relevancy of the subdocuments, and preferably to rank the subdocuments according to certain relevancy criterion with a certain cutoff criterion. The relevancy determination helps in eliminating non-interesting objects, stopping the collection of metadata or the indexing of non-interesting sections, resulting in a less clustered database and therefore a faster search process.
FIG. 25 shows an embodiment including a keynote document having an non-interesting subdocument of a company logo with image and text. Once the object is marked irrelevant, the capturing program skips that object and moves on to the next object. The resulting metadata or index will not contain this information in this example.
In one aspect, the present invention employs importers, such as plug-in importers, to read and interpret the different parts of a composite document. The importer can determine if the composite document contains any subdocuments (e.g. parts, components, objects). An importer may further comprise a relevancy process to determine the relevant subdocuments. After the identification of relevant subdocuments in a document, an importer can put the subdocument in a standard format based on their type, allowing them to be in turn imported.
The subdocuments are often in different, proprietary formats which differ from the parent document. In an embodiment, the present invention provides the invoking of several different appropriate importers for the subdocuments to read and extract information from the proprietary coded subdocuments. The calling of appropriate importers for the subdocuments is made as part of a process of an exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 26.
FIG. 26 shows a generalized example of one embodiment of the present invention. In this example, the capturing metadata/index (non-metadata) occurs successively for all nested levels (or at least a plurality of levels in certain embodiments) of the composite document. The method of FIG. 26 may begin in operation 2601 in which a composite document is accessed. This composite document is made available in operation 2602 to identify all relevant subdocuments within the composite document. The metadata and index are captured from the relevant non-composite subdocuments in operation 2603 and the relevant composite subdocuments are subjected to an identification of nested subdocuments in operation 2604. The process continues successively for all nested levels of the composite document, as shown in operation 2605. After the innermost level of subdocuments, all metadata/index are combined to form a composite metadata/index for the composite document in operation 2606. The metadata/index are then stored for future searching (or immediate searching) in operation 2607.
FIG. 27 shows a generalized example of a recursive process for the successive un-nesting of the nested subdocument levels of a composite document. The method of FIG. 27 may begin in operation 2701 in which a composited document is accessed. This composite document is made available in operation 2702 to a recursive subroutine to identify all relevant subdocuments within the composite document. When the subroutine completes, it returns the composite metadata/index. The metadata/index are then stored or searched in operation 2703. A generalized example of a recursive routine is shows with a document argument in the operation 2711. This document argument is made available in operation 2712 to identify all relevant subdocuments in one level of the argument document. Each subdocuments are then checked to see if itself is a composite document in operation 2713. If it is, then the recursive subroutine is called again in operation 2714, this time using the composite subdocument as the argument document. If it is not, then the document is a non-composite document, and metadata/index can be captured from this document, operation 2715. The subroutine passes to operation 2716 where the captured metadata/index are combined or linked (to parent or to children). The subroutine is end, and the metadata/index is returned in operation 2717.
As discussed above, the capturing of metadata or index content can occur when there is a change in the data file, such as file modification, file deletion, file creation, or file import. The capturing can occur in response to a notification of file change, coming from the OS kernel or from any software programs.
In an embodiment, as a file changes, a software component responsible for managing data files is notified, and invokes the appropriate importer for the container document, which knows how to read the file and interpret its structure. The importer therefore can determine if the document contains any components such as subdocuments. Further, if the document does contain subdocuments, the importer can determine which components are interesting, preferably based on their usage or location on the document. The importer then classifies the interesting components in formats based on their type, and then calls appropriate importers based on the type of subdocument to import the components. This process may be a recursive process, allowing the building of an arbitrarily deep and detailed hierarchy of components. As the importer imports a component of a document, it receives the extracted metadata, and then can decide to use that metadata or to add to the metadata of the parent document. The importer can also index the content (e.g. full text content of words) of the component as a sub-item of the parent document. In certain embodiments, the set of importers may interact by preparing a subpart for a format for processing by another importer. For example, an importer “A” for the parent/container document (e.g. the parent document is a Microsoft Word “.doc” file and the importer “A” is an importer for Microsoft Word “.doc” type files) is called to import metadata from the document and determines that the document has at least a subpart in a different format (e.g. a PDF format). In response, importer “A” extracts this embedded subpart from the format of “A” (“.doc” format, in this example) for the type of embedded subpart so that the importer B does not know that the data it is importing was embedded in the parent/container document.
In another aspect of the invention, the composite metadata and index can be searched. In one embodiment, this search may occur concurrently or hierarchically for all the metadata/index with different levels of the composite documents. In one implementation of this method, a single search interface may be provided to search all of the nested metadata/index for all of the nested subdocuments within the composite document, thereby allowing a single search to search through all of the nested metadata/index embedded within the composite documents. Further, the single search may also search through the metadata, the indexed content, and other non-metadata and non-indexed content of the composite data files.
In another aspect of the invention, the maintaining of composite metadata and index allows a proper management of the index and the document database. In an embodiment, the subitems (i.e. the items associated with subdocuments) are identified and associated with parent documents, and vice versa, thus it is possible for a given item to search and locate all its subitems, and for a given subitem to search and locate its parent items. This capability permits proper data management, especially with linked or embedded documents. For examples, certain subitems can be deleted when the parent component is deleted or changed, or the subitems can be properly presented as such in the user interface.
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