Patent ID: 8497883

Claim:
An information display device for receiving image data of publications distributed by an information distribution device via a communication network and for displaying said image data as page images on a display screen, with said information display device including at least: storing means for storing various data and programs used to execute applications; controlling means for controlling data processes, input/output devices, and the execution of programs stored in the storing means; communication means for receiving image data and associated attribute data via the communication network; inputting means for receiving event input generated by various operations on keyboard, a pointing device, or a touch panel; and displaying means for displaying the image data and attribute data on a display screen in response to operations received by the inputting means; and wherein said information display device the image data includes multiple sets of image data in a hierarchical structure having multiple hierarchical levels differing in image size and resolution; and said storing means has image-processing means for selecting corresponding image data of a corresponding hierarchical level in response to operations for enlarging, reducing, or moving a display image received by the inputting means, so as to display all or a portion of an image equivalent to a page image; and, when establishing an HTTP connection with the information distribution device via the communication means, transmitting search data based on event input received by the inputting means, receiving XML data describing addresses and display positions of the corresponding image data and attribute data, receiving the relevant image data and attribute data based on the XML data, and displaying the image data and attribute data on the display screen via the displaying means; the controlling means has prefetching means for storing image data associated with page changes from among the received image data constituting each page of the image data to be displayed on the display screen in a display region of the storing means based on a predetermined priority; and in the event of a user operation for changing to a page that does not conform to the predetermined priority before reading of the specified page has been completed, the controlling means first reads the image data for the specified page and subsequently reads the image data for other pages, based on a predetermined priority that differs according to content.