JP2000181655A - Information processing system and information processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it easy to confirm a history of past jobs by storing obtained pieces of history information on respective jobs and displaying the pieces of history information on the respective jobs according to an indication. SOLUTION: A language monitor 26 or status windows 24 and 27 store obtained printer statuses and when the statuses were obtained. When a new status is obtained thereafter, the job ID (identification information) included in the new status is compared with those of the statuses which are already stored. When the job ID does not change, it is judged that the same job is being processed and the old status is discarded. If the job ID changes, the stored status is decided as the final status of the job and saved. Thus, the final status of each job and the date and time of the status acquisition are saved in order as history information. On a user's request, pieces of history information on respective jobs are displayed in various form.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing system capable of acquiring the status of a printer and displaying it on a computer in an environment where a plurality of personal computers share the printer via a network. The present invention relates to an information processing method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, there is a printing system in an environment where a plurality of personal computers share a printer via a network. In such a system, the status of the printer and the status of the print job can be known on the display screen by periodically acquiring the status of the printer and displaying it on the display screen of the computer.

When a print job is completed, the result remains on the display screen until the next job is started.

[0004]

However, in the conventional system, when a new print job is sent, the information of the previous job disappears from the display screen, and the result of the job cannot be understood.

Particularly, in an environment where a printer is shared on a network, since a plurality of users print, the display of the result of their own job disappears as soon as another user starts printing. is there.

Further, in a network environment, there is a possibility that another person cancels his / her job. Therefore, if the display disappears, it is difficult to know whether the printing has been completed or canceled, which is very inconvenient. is there.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing system and an information processing method having a history management function for each job so that a past job history can be easily known.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an information processing system in which an output unit connected to a server device is shared and used by a plurality of client devices via a network. Provided, acquisition means for acquiring the history information about the job of the output means, each time the job is completed, storage means for storing the acquired history information of each job, and the history information of each stored job, An information processing system is configured by including display means for displaying in response to an instruction.

The present invention is also an information processing method in which an output unit connected to a server device is shared and used by a plurality of client devices via a network. Obtaining information each time a job is completed, storing the acquired history information of each job, and displaying the stored history information of each job in accordance with an instruction, thereby providing information processing. Provide a way.

[0010] The present invention also provides a computer,
A control program for sharing output means connected to a server device among a plurality of client devices via a network, wherein the control program transmits, to a computer, history information on a job of the output means, At the end of each job, storing the history information of each of the acquired jobs, and displaying the stored history information of each job in accordance with an instruction, thereby providing a medium on which a history acquisition control program is recorded. .

Here, when the job is displayed in accordance with the display, the job can be displayed in different colors for each client that owns the job.

[0012] The client can be designated, the history information of the job owned by the designated client can be selected, and the history information of the job owned by the selected client can be displayed.

[0013] A printer may be used as the output unit, and the job history information may include final status information of a print job and status acquisition date and time.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

[First Example] A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of a printing system according to the present invention.

Reference numeral 100 denotes a server computer;
Reference numeral 1 denotes the computer main body. A plurality of client computers (personal computers) 200 are connected to the server computer 100 via a network 150.

Here, the internal configuration of the server computer 100 will be described.

Reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU that executes overall processing of the entire computer system.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a ROM that stores various programs in addition to the control program according to the present invention (see FIGS. 3, 4, 6, and 7).

Reference numeral 3 denotes a RAM, which functions as a main memory of the CPU 1, a work area, and the like.

4 is a network interface (NI
C), which connects to the network 150 and exchanges data with the client computer 200 as another computer group.

Reference numeral 5 denotes a system bus.

Reference numeral 6 denotes a keyboard controller which controls key inputs from the keyboard 10 and a pointing device (not shown).

Reference numeral 7 denotes a hard disk controller, which includes a boot program, an application program,
Hard disk (HDD) for storing data files, etc.
11 is controlled.

Reference numeral 8 denotes a CRT controller.
The display of the display (CRT) 12 is controlled.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a bidirectional communication port (PORT), which is connected to a printer (PRT) 13 and
3 is executed.

As described above, in the printing system, the environment is such that the plurality of client computers 200 share the printer 13 as an output device connected to the server computer 100 via the network 150.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration of a control unit related to a printing process in the printing system.

In the client computer 200, an application program 21 creates print data and passes it to the printer driver 22. The printer driver 22 includes the application program 21
Is converted into data that can be understood by the printer 13 and passed to the spooler 23.

The spooler 23 of the client computer 200 transfers the data to the spooler 25 of the server computer 100 via the network 150. The spooler 25 passes the data to the language monitor 26. The language monitor 26 processes the data received from the spooler 25 if necessary, and sends the data to the printer 13. The printer 13 creates and outputs a print image based on the transmitted data.

The language monitor 26 acquires the printer status from the printer 13 and notifies the status window 27 of the printer status. At this time, the language monitor 26 is connected to the network 150.
, The printer status is also notified to the status window 24 of the client computer 200.

The language monitor 26 or the status windows 24 and 27 display the received printer status in a format that is easy for the user to understand. Hereinafter, the display processing will be described.

The language monitor 26 or the status windows 24 and 27 store the acquired printer status and the date and time of the status acquisition. Thereafter, when a new status is acquired, the already stored status is compared with the newly acquired status for the job ID (identification information) included in the status.

If the job ID has not changed, it is determined that the same job is being processed, and the old status is discarded. When the job ID changes, the stored status is determined as the final status of the job and stored.

In this way, the final status of each job and the status acquisition date and time are sequentially stored as history information. Then, according to the user's request, the history information of each job is displayed in various formats.

Thereafter, the status windows 24, 27
Receives an operation request for a print job from the user and notifies the language monitor 26 of the request. The language monitor 26 controls the printer 13 or the spooler 25 in accordance with the requested operation, and executes an operation on the print job.

FIG. 3 shows a control process in which the language monitor 26 of the server computer 100 acquires a status from the printer 13.

First, in step S1, the language monitor 26 acquires the printer status acquisition interval (for example, 1
Seconds) and start the timer.

In step S2, it is checked whether or not the set time has elapsed. When the time has elapsed, the process proceeds to step S3.

In step S3, the printer status of the printer 13 is obtained via the bidirectional interface. The printer status during printing includes information such as a job ID for identifying the job being printed, the document name of the print job, the owner of the print job, the status of the print job, and the number of pages printed.

In step S4, the acquired printer status is transmitted simultaneously to the status window 24 of the client computer 200 via the network 150.

In step S5, if there is a termination request from the language monitor 26, such as a shutdown of the system, the processing is terminated. If there is no end request, the process returns to step S1.

FIG. 4 shows a client computer 200.
The control processing of the status window 24 of FIG.

The status window 24 first checks whether or not the printer status has been received from the language monitor 26 in step S11. If it has been received, the process proceeds to step S12. If not, the process proceeds to step S17.
Move to

In step S12, when the printer status is received, the received new status and the reception date and time are stored in a RAM (not shown).

In step S13, the received new status is displayed on the screen in a form that is easy for the user to understand.

In step S14, the previously received RA
The old status stored in M is compared with the new status received this time. Job I in Printer Status
If D matches, the job is still being processed, and the process moves to step S16 without doing anything. Job ID
Has changed, it is determined that the processing of the previous job has been completed, and the routine goes to Step S15.

In step S15, the old status is stored on the hard disk as history information as the final status of the job, and the flow advances to step S16.

In step S16, the old status is discarded.

In step S17, if there is an operation for requesting history information display from the user, the process proceeds to step S18, and if not, the process proceeds to step S21.

In step S18, the history information stored on the hard disk is displayed in the form of a list.

FIG. 5 shows a display screen 50 for displaying print job history information.

As the history information, the document name 5 of the print job
1, the job owner 52, the job result 53, the number of pages printed 54, and the date and time 55 when the final status was received are displayed on the display screen 50 in a list format. Each displayed print job is color-coded by owner, making it easy to visually understand who printed the job.

In step S19, when the history information is displayed, the process waits for the OK button to be pressed, and when pressed, the process proceeds to step S20, and the display of the history information is ended.

In step S21, if there is a request to end the status window 24, the process ends. If there is no end request, the process returns to step S11, and the process is performed again.

[Second Example] Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. The description of the same parts as those in the first example is omitted, and the same reference numerals are given.

The system in this example uses the same system as the printing system shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 and the description of the system configuration is omitted.

First, a control process in which the language monitor 26 of the server computer 100 acquires the printer status from the printer 13 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In FIG. 6, the language monitor 26
First, in step S31, a printer status acquisition interval (for example, 1 second) is set, and a timer is started.

In the step S32, it is checked whether or not the set time has elapsed. When the time has elapsed, the process proceeds to a step S33.

In step S33, the printer status of the printer 13 is obtained via the bidirectional interface. When printing is being performed, the printer status includes information such as a job ID for identifying the job being printed, the document name of the print job, the owner of the print job, the status of the print job, and the number of pages printed. ing.

In step S34, the new status acquired this time and the date and time of acquisition are stored in the RAM.

In step S35, the new status is transmitted to the client computer 2 via the network 150.
00 to the status window 24 at the same time.

In step S36, the previously acquired RA
The old status stored in M is compared with the new status acquired this time. If the job IDs in the status match, the job is still being processed,
The process moves to step S38 without doing anything. If the job ID has changed, it is determined that the processing of the previous job has been completed, and the routine goes to Step S37.

In step S37, the old status is simultaneously transmitted to the status window 24 as history information as the final status of the job.

In step S38, the old status is discarded.

In step S39, if there is a termination request to the language monitor 26, such as a shutdown of the system, the processing is terminated. If there is no end request, step S31
Return to

Next, control processing of the status window 24 of the client computer 200 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In FIG. 7, the status window 24
First, in step S41, the language monitor 26
If printer status has been received from step S4
The process proceeds to step S2, and if not, the process proceeds to step S43.

In step S42, when the printer status is received, the received status is displayed on the screen in a format that is easy for the user to understand, and then the process proceeds to step S43.

In step S43, the language monitor 2
If the job history information is received from step 6, the process proceeds to step S
Proceed to 44, otherwise proceed to step S45.

In step S44, when the history information is received, the received history information is stored in the hard disk, and the process proceeds to step S45.

In step S45, if there is an operation for requesting the history display from the user, the flow proceeds to step S46, and if not, to step S51.

In step S46, when there is a history display request operation, the history information stored in the hard disk, in which the log-in user name matches the job owner, is extracted and the list is extracted. Display in the form of

FIG. 8 shows a display screen 60 for displaying print job history information.

The name 61 of the currently logged-in user is displayed as the initial value of the owner. This owner can be changed by a user operation. Below the user name 61, the history information of the jobs owned by the selected owner is displayed in a list format. As history information,
The document name 62 of the print job, the job result 63, the number of pages 64 printed, and the date and time 65 when the final status was received are displayed. After displaying the history information in this way, the process proceeds to step S47.

Then, in a step S47, it is checked whether or not the owner has been changed by the operation of the user. If the owner has been changed, the process proceeds to a step S48, and if not, the process proceeds to a step S49.

In step S48, since the owner has been changed, from the history information stored in the hard disk, the information whose owner selected by the user matches the job owner is extracted and the history is displayed again.

In step S49, it is determined whether or not the OK button has been pressed.
If not, the process returns to step S47.

In step S50, since the OK button has been pressed, the display of the history information ends.

In step S51, it is checked whether or not the status window 24 has a termination request. If there is a termination request, the process is terminated. If there is no end request, step S
Returning to step 41, the processing is performed again.

In each of the above examples, a printer has been described as an example of the output means. However, the present invention is not limited to this.
Status information of another device may be managed.

Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus including one device (for example, a copying machine or a facsimile machine) May be applied.

The present invention can of course be applied to a case where the present invention is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus. Then, a storage medium storing a program represented by software for achieving the present invention is supplied to a system or an apparatus, and the computer (or CPU or M) of the system or the apparatus is supplied.
PU) can read and execute the program code stored in the storage medium, so that the effects of the present invention can be enjoyed.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

The storage medium for supplying the program code includes, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, ROM
(A mask ROM, a flash EEPROM, or the like) can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also an OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) May perform some or all of the actual processing, and the processing may realize the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a function expansion port inserted into the computer or a memory provided in a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the program code is read based on the instruction of the program code. It goes without saying that the CPU included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

[0090]

As described above, according to the present invention,
In an environment where a plurality of clients share an output unit such as a printer connected to a server via a network, a function for managing the final status information of each job of the output unit as history information is provided. Regardless of the client, the past job history can be easily known, and work efficiency can be improved.

Further, according to the present invention, the history information is displayed in different colors for each job owner, so that the job owner can be easily visually distinguished.

Further, according to the present invention, since the history information can be displayed by designating the owner of the job, it is possible to easily find the job whose result is to be known.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a printing system according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a control unit related to the printing system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of the language monitor of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the status window of FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a display screen for displaying print job history information.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a language monitor according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of a status window.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a display screen for displaying print job history information.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 CPU 2 ROM11 Hard disk 12 Display device 13 Printer 100 Server computer 101 Computer main body 150 Network 200 Client computer

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. An information processing system in which an output unit connected to a server device is shared and used by a plurality of client devices via a network, wherein the information processing system is provided in the plurality of client devices, and a job of the output unit is provided. Acquisition means for acquiring history information about each job, storage means for storing the acquired history information of each job, and display means for displaying the stored history information of each job in accordance with an instruction. An information processing system comprising: 2. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the display unit displays the jobs in different colors for each client that owns each job. 3. The system further comprises: a designation unit for designating a client; and a selection unit for selecting history information of a job owned by the client designated by the designation unit, wherein the display unit is owned by the selected client. 2. The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein history information of a job to be executed is displayed. 4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output unit is a printer, and the job history information includes final status information of a print job and status acquisition date and time. Information processing system. 5. An information processing method in which an output unit connected to a server device is shared and used by a plurality of client devices via a network, wherein the plurality of client devices record a job history of the output unit. Acquiring information every time each job is completed; storing the acquired history information of each job; and displaying the stored history information of each job in accordance with an instruction. Characteristic information processing method. 6. The information processing method according to claim 5, wherein when displaying the job in accordance with the display, the job is displayed in different colors for each client that owns the job. 7. The method further comprising: specifying a client; and selecting history information of a job owned by the specified client, displaying the history information of a job owned by the selected client. 6. The information processing method according to claim 5, wherein: 8. The printer according to claim 5, wherein a printer is used as the output unit, and the history information of the job includes final status information of the print job and status acquisition date and time. Information processing method. 9. A control program for a computer to use an output unit connected to a server device by a plurality of client devices via a network, the control program comprising: A history, wherein history information on a job is acquired each time a job is completed, the acquired history information of each job is stored, and the stored history information of each job is displayed according to an instruction. A medium on which an acquisition control program is recorded. 10. The medium according to claim 9, wherein when displaying the job in accordance with the display, the job is displayed in different colors for each client that owns the job. 11. The system according to claim 9, wherein a client is designated, history information of a job owned by the designated client is selected, and history information of a job owned by the selected client is displayed. On which the history acquisition control program of the above is recorded.