JPH11110405A - Information browsing device and information processing device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To provide an information browsing device capable of easily accessing original information at any time from cut-out information. SOLUTION: When information acquired from a WWW server 16 is stored in a main storage device (M4), the URL and the acquired information are stored in association with each other. More specifically, the URL is stored in the column of the information source descriptor of the information source descriptor table 12 provided in the main storage device 5, and the acquired information storage area 11 is provided in the main storage device 5. Is stored in the column of the address of the original information in the information source descriptor table 12. In this way, the correspondence between the URL and the corresponding information is registered in the information source descriptor table 12 provided in the main storage device 5 (M6).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information browsing apparatus for browsing digitized information and an information processing apparatus for processing cut-out information output from the information browsing apparatus, and more particularly to a WWW (World Wide) on the Internet.
Web) WWW for browsing information provided by a server
The present invention relates to an information browsing device and an information processing device suitable for a browser.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the use of a WWW mechanism to disclose information on the Internet or the use of software called a WWW browser to browse published information has been rapidly spreading. This is very convenient because useful information can be obtained while staying there.

[0003] In addition, such information is also a valuable information source when preparing a document such as a report, and texts and figures are cut out from the information obtained from WWW as original information and incorporated. (Paste or insert)
This makes it possible to create an attractive document.

[0004] In order to enable such cutting and pasting,
WWW browsers usually have a function called "cut and paste", and a "clipboard" is used to transfer a part or all of text and images displayed on the browser to another application (for example, word processing software). It has a mechanism to output to the called area.

As an example of a prior art which enables various data expressions by devising the output to the "clipboard", there is one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 6-131144. To output "display control information".

[0006]

By the way, while a document is created using information cut out from a WWW browser, it is often necessary to refer back to the original information of the cut out information.

In such a case, the URL (Uni) of the original information is used.
If you have stored or recorded a form resource locator, you can access that information again by re-entering the URL in the WWW browser,
If the URL is not known, the only way to search the Internet is to place a heavy burden on the user.

[0008] In addition, when the amount of the original information is enormous, the user has to search for the entire original information unless it is known which part of the original information has been cut out, which is inconvenient.

Such a problem can be solved by providing means for easily accessing the original information at any time from the cut-out information.

However, the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 6-131144 has been disclosed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H10-133139 does not include such an access unit, and cannot solve the above-described problem.

[0011] Under such circumstances, there is an urgent demand for the development of an information browsing apparatus having means for easily accessing the original information at any time from the cut-out information.

The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and allows easy access to the original information at any time from the cut-out information, so that the application between the WWW browser and a document creation device such as a word processor can be closely managed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information browsing device that can be linked to each other and that can promote the use of the Internet, and an information processing device that processes cutout information output from the information browsing device.

[0013]

An information browsing apparatus according to the present invention comprises a connecting means for connecting to an information source, an information obtaining means for obtaining information from the information source, and an information obtaining means for obtaining information obtained by the information obtaining means. An information browsing apparatus comprising: storage means for storing, display means for displaying the acquired information stored in the storage means on a screen, and range designation means for designating a part of the acquired information displayed on the screen. A descriptor storage unit for storing an information source descriptor describing an information source from which the obtained information has been obtained, and partial information included in a range specified by the range specifying unit, cut out from the storage unit, and the extracted partial information And a partial information cutout output means for adding and outputting the information source descriptor stored in the descriptor storage means, thereby achieving the object described above.

Preferably, when the partial information is cut out and output, the partial information cut-out output means also adds position information indicating which part of the obtained information corresponds to which part of the acquired information. Configuration.

[0015] Preferably, the output destination of the partial information cut-out output means is a clipboard.

Preferably, the information source descriptor is U
RL.

Preferably, the acquired information is an HTM
This is a file in the L format, and “fragment ID” is used as the position information of the cutout information in the obtained information.
if "is used.

Further, the information processing apparatus according to the present invention is characterized in that:
An information processing apparatus for processing cut-out information output by the partial information cut-out output means of the information browsing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein a reading means for reading the cut-out information; An information source descriptor extracting means for extracting an information source descriptor, and an original information acquiring means for connecting to the information source described in the information source descriptor and reacquiring the original information of the cut-out information, Thereby, the above object is achieved.

Preferably, the apparatus further comprises display means for displaying the original information, wherein the display means uses the position information described in claim 2 to automatically move a display to the position of the cut-out information and display the original information. It is configured to display information.

Preferably, the display means displays the cut-out information portion in the original information so as to stand out.

The operation of the present invention will be described below.

The information browsing apparatus of the present invention has a configuration in which an information source descriptor is added to the cut out partial information and outputs the information, so that the original information can be easily accessed from the cut out information at any time.

Further, according to the configuration in which the partial information is cut out and output, the position information indicating which part of the acquired information corresponds to the entire acquired information is also added, and the amount of the original information is enormous. User can easily access the desired information location.

The output destination of such cut-out information is preferably a clipboard which is a memory area of a memory means such as a RAM. As the information source descriptor, a URL is preferable.

Further, as the position information, for example,
If the acquired information is a file in the HTML format, "f
fragment identifier "can be used.

Further, the information processing apparatus of the present invention has a configuration in which an information source descriptor is extracted from cutout information, connected to the information source described in the information source descriptor, and the original information of the cutout information is obtained again. Therefore, for example, while a document is created using information cut out from a WWW browser, the user can easily refer back to the original information of the cut out information, which is very convenient.

It should be noted that the information processing apparatus of the present invention does not acquire the original information by itself, for example, an external application such as “Netscape” or “Inter
By controlling "net Explore", it is also possible to acquire and display the original information.

Also, using the position information of the cutout information,
According to the configuration in which the display is automatically moved to the position of the cut-out information, it is possible to realize a high-performance information processing device with less burden on the user.

Also, a high-performance information processing apparatus with a reduced burden on the user can be realized by a configuration in which the cut-out information portion is remarkably displayed in the re-acquired information.

[0030]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment of Information Browsing Apparatus of the Present Invention)
FIG. 11 shows an embodiment of the information browsing apparatus of the present invention. First, a system configuration of the information browsing apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. This information browsing device comprises a keyboard 1 and a mouse 2 as operation input means, a display device 3 comprising an LCD, a CPU 4 serving as a control center of the system, and a RAM, and obtained from an information source (the WWW server 16 in FIG. 2). Memorize information, memorize cutout information, and
It is connected to an external system via a main storage device 5 also used as a work area of the CPU 4, a secondary storage device 6 used for caching acquired information and a data communication path 8, and accesses an external information source. , And these devices are connected to each other via a bus 9.

When no access is made to an external information source such as the WWW server 16 shown in FIG.
And the data communication path 8 can be omitted.

Next, referring to FIG. 2, an operation procedure of information acquisition will be described with an example in which the information browsing apparatus having the above system configuration is applied to a WWW browser. As shown in FIG. 2, the main storage device 5 stores the acquired information storage area 1
1, an information source descriptor table 12 and a clipboard 15 are provided. Here, the information source descriptor corresponds to the URL.

In FIG. 2, a user 10 operates a keyboard 1 or a mouse 2 to input a URL of desired information stored in a remote WWW server 16, thereby obtaining desired information and displaying the information on a display device. 3 is displayed (M1).

Then, the data communication device 7 connects to the WWW server 16 specified by the URL via the data communication path 8 and communicates with the WWW server 16 via HTTP (Hypertex).
Communication is performed according to the tTransfer Protocol (tTransfer Protocol), and information desired by the user is transferred to the WWW server 16 (M2). Thereby, the WWW server 16
, The information desired by the user is transferred (M3).

The information transferred from the WWW server 16 is stored in the acquired information storage area 11 of the main storage device 5 according to a command from the CPU 4. Here, if the user 10 has activated the cache function, the secondary storage device 6
The information acquired from the WWW server 16 is also stored and used as cache data thereafter (M4).

Subsequently, the information obtained from the WWW server 16 is displayed on the display device 3 (M5). The processing up to this point is the same as the processing of the existing WWW browser.

In addition to the above operation procedure, the information browsing apparatus of the present invention, that is, the WWW browser of the present invention executes the following operation procedure of M6.

That is, when the information obtained from the WWW server 16 is stored in the main storage device 5 (M4), the URL and the obtained information are stored in association with each other. More specifically, the URL is stored in the column of the information source descriptor 13 (see FIG. 3) of the information source descriptor table 12 provided in the main storage device 5 and provided in the main storage device 5. Acquired information storage area 1
The address of the acquired data corresponding to 1 is stored in the source information address column 14 of the information source descriptor table 12. In this way, the correspondence between the URL and the corresponding information is registered in the information source descriptor table 12 provided in the main storage device 5 (M6).

For example, when the WWW page desired by the user 10 includes an inline image or the like, they are obtained at the same time as in a normal WWW browser, but these are also registered in the information source descriptor table 12. As an example, when a WWW page containing an inline image as shown in FIG. 4 is obtained, the state in the main storage device 5 is as shown in FIG.

Next, a description will be given of a processing procedure for extracting and outputting information in the information browsing apparatus of the present invention with reference to FIG.

As described above, the information obtained from the WWW server 16 is displayed on the screen of the display device 3, and the user 10 operates the keyboard 1 or the mouse 2 to cut out the range of information cut out from the display screen. (Step S
1).

Then, the CPU 4 searches the information source descriptor table 12 for the information in the designated range, that is, the URL corresponding to the cut-out information, and extracts it (step S2). It should be noted that the number of URLs corresponding to the cut-out information is not limited to one, but may be plural.

Subsequently, the CPU 4 outputs the cut-out information and the UR
L is converted into an output format in association with the output format (step S3). Note that the type of cutout information is not limited to text, but may be an image or sound. FIG. 7 shows an example of the conversion format. The format shown in FIG. 7 can handle binary data.

Subsequently, the CPU 4 outputs the converted data to the clipboard 15 in the main storage device 5 (Step S4).

FIG. 8 is a view for explaining the cut-out processing. As an example, the homepage of a restaurant (ABC restaurant) is displayed on the screen 20 of the WWW browser of the present invention. The user 10 designates the range of the address column 23 in the homepage and the W
It is assumed that an instruction is given to the WW browser, more specifically, the CPU 4.

Then, according to the above-mentioned procedure, the URL of the homepage of the ABC restaurant, that is, the information source descriptor “HTT” is added to the character string of the address information “ABC ward, ABC street 3-2-1, near the intersection”, ie, the cut-out information.
P: // WWW. ABC. XXX / index. ht
m ”is added and output to the clipboard 15 (M
7). Reference numeral 21 in the figure indicates the cut-out information with the output URL.

FIG. 9 shows another example of cutout information. FIG.
Is a character string of the above-mentioned address information "ABC section, ABC street 3-2-1, near the intersection" and a URL "HTTP://WWW.ABC.XXX/in.
dex. htm "and the extraction position information" 150-16 "
2 "22.

As the cutout position information 22, the number of bytes from the beginning of the data is generally appropriate. In the case of HTML, "fragment i" is used.
appropriate, where the HTML is HTML.
"Fragment identifier"
It is like a label that specifies a particular location in one HTML document, and <A NAME = “flag
ment identifier "> ... <A>. More specifically, FIG.
An example of a document is shown.
nt identifier ".

It is assumed that this entire document is "HTTP: //
WWW. XXX. CO. jp ”, the location of PART2 is, as shown in FIG. 10,“ HTTP: // WWW. XXX. CO. jp # P
It can be specified by a URL of "ART2".

That is, HTML has a function of designating a specific portion in one HTML document.

Therefore, the information browsing apparatus of the present invention is an HTM
When cutting out a part of the L document, “fragment icon” included in or near the cut out part is used.
A method of storing “tifier” as the cutout position information 22 is adopted.

To explain with an example, it is assumed that there is an HTML document as shown in FIG.

Assuming that a JPEG format image of the portion (B) is cut out from the HTML document, the information browsing apparatus of the present invention performs “f” in FIG.
fragment identifier "" midea
st ”is stored as cut-out information.

Note that "fragment identity"
"fier" is described in document RFC1866, and "RFC" is a document freely available on the Internet.For example, ftp.iij.ad.j
p / pub / internet / rfc.

(Embodiment 1 of Information Processing Apparatus of the Present Invention) FIG.
2 to 14 show the first embodiment of the information processing apparatus of the present invention. The first embodiment shows an example in which the information processing apparatus of the present invention is applied to a word processor. As the system configuration of the word processor, a configuration similar to that of FIG. 1 can be used. Therefore, in the following description, FIG.
The same code as the code of the middle device is used.

Next, the configuration of the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. An editing device 30 is provided inside the main storage device 5 similar to the above. The editing device 30 may be the same as the editing device mounted on a normal word processor.
The attached cutout information 32 can be read from the clipboard 31. Further, a cache area 33 is provided in the secondary storage device 6. In addition,
Parts corresponding to those in FIG. 2 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant description will be omitted.

FIG. 13 shows a display example of a screen when a guide letter for a farewell party is created by the word processor of the first embodiment. In the figure, a portion 40 surrounded by a dotted line corresponds to cutout information 32 with an information source descriptor (see FIG. 12).
In FIG. 8, the cut-out information 21 with the URL of FIG. 8 is pasted. As described above, the information source descriptor is stored in the main storage device 5 but is preferably not displayed on the screen.

Next, a processing procedure for reacquiring the cut-out information 21 with the information source descriptor will be described with reference to FIG.

When the user 10 has the keyboard 1 or the mouse 2
And the like to specify the cut-out information portion on the screen of the display device 3 (step S11), and then operate the operation input means such as the keyboard 1 or the mouse 2 to obtain the original information again. When an instruction is given to the information processing apparatus (step S
12), upon receiving this, the CPU 4 extracts an information source descriptor (URL in this case) from the cut-out information (step S13).

Next, in step S 14, the CPU 4 stores the data of the URL in the cache area 3 of the secondary storage device 6.
3 is determined to be cached, and if it is confirmed that the cache is cached, the process proceeds to step S15.
Here, data is extracted from the cache area 33 provided in the secondary storage device 6.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S14 that the URL data is not cached in the cache area 33 of the secondary storage device 6, the process proceeds to step S16, where the data communication device 7 is controlled to specify the URL. WW to do
Connect to W server 16.

Subsequently, the CPU 4 communicates with the WWW server 16 according to the HTTP protocol to obtain desired information.

The CPU 4 does not perform the reacquisition of the original information in steps S14 to S17 by itself.
It is also possible to control and act on behalf of an external application. As an example of such a method, “Netscap
It is conceivable to launch an existing WWW browser such as "e Navigator" using the URL as a parameter.

(Second Embodiment of Information Processing Apparatus of the Present Invention) Next, a second embodiment of the information processing apparatus of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The information processing apparatus according to the second embodiment is different from the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment in that clipping position information can be extracted. The processing procedure will be described below with reference to FIG. However, since the processing procedure of steps S11 to S17 in FIG. 15 is the same as the processing procedure of steps S11 to S14 in FIG. 14, the description is omitted here.

In the second embodiment, the CPU 4
After executing the processing in step S15 or step S17, the process proceeds to step S20, where the extraction position information is extracted from the above-described extraction information. Next, in step S21, the acquired information is displayed on the display device 3.

Next, the screen is scrolled to the position indicated by the cutout position information (step S22). continue,
The information of the cut-out portion is highlighted (step S2)
3).

In the scroll operation in step S22, if the cutout position information is such as the line number of the cutout information as shown in FIG. 9, scrolling may be performed by the number of lines. Also, if the cutout position information is HT
If "fragment identifier" of the ML, the "fragment identifier"
The display position may be jumped to the position of the anchor of the NAME attribute having the same value as r ".

Here, “fragment ID”
NAME attribu with the same value as “ififier”
To jump the display position to the position of the anchor of te means that the stored extraction position information is “fragme”.
nt identifier, for example, as described above, if it is “middle”, after acquiring the HTML document with the information browsing device of FIG. 2, <A NAME
= “Mideast”> refers to moving the display to the location <A>.

In step S23, in the second embodiment, in order to display the cut-out portion so as to be conspicuous from other portions, reverse display is performed. Instead, the font is changed or the color is changed. It is also possible to take a display form such as changing.

(Other Embodiments) In the above embodiment, the output destination of the cut-out information is the main storage device, but it may be a shared memory shared between application programs.

Further, in the above embodiment, the case where the URL is used as the information source descriptor has been described. However, it is also possible to use the file path or the host identification name.

[0073]

According to the information browsing apparatus of the present invention described above, a configuration is adopted in which an information source descriptor is added to the extracted partial information and output, so that the original information can be easily accessed at any time from the extracted information. Will be possible.

In particular, according to the information browsing apparatus of the second aspect, when extracting and outputting partial information, position information indicating which part of the obtained information corresponds to the entire acquired information is also added. Since the output configuration is adopted, there is an advantage that the user can easily access a desired information location even if the amount of the original information is enormous.

Further, the information processing apparatus of the present invention has a configuration in which an information source descriptor is extracted from cutout information, connected to the information source described in the information source descriptor, and the original information of the cutout information is reacquired. Therefore, for example, while a document is created using information cut out from a WWW browser, the user can easily refer back to the original information of the cut out information, which is very convenient.

According to the information processing apparatus of the present invention, the display information is automatically moved to the position of the cut-out information by using the position information of the cut-out information. A high-performance information processing device can be realized.

Also, according to the information processing apparatus of the present invention, since the cut-out information portion is remarkably displayed in the re-acquired information, a high-performance information processing apparatus with little burden on the user is provided. Can be realized.

As described above, according to the present invention, the information source can be easily accessed from the cut-out information.
Since the WW browser and the application such as a word processor can be closely linked, it can greatly contribute to promoting the use of the Internet.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a system configuration of an information browsing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a system configuration of the information browsing apparatus of the present invention, together with an operation procedure for acquiring information.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating details of a main storage device.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a WWW page containing an inline image.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a state in a main storage device when a WWW page containing an inline image is obtained.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for extracting and outputting information.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a conversion format.

FIG. 8 is a view for explaining information extraction processing.

FIG. 9 is a view showing cutout information with an information source descriptor to which a cutout position is also added.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of an HTML document.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of an HTML document.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a system configuration of the information processing apparatus of the present invention together with an operation procedure.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a display screen when a guide letter for a farewell party is created by a word processor.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure when retrieving cutout information with an information source descriptor.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure when information is reacquired and redisplayed.

[Description of sign]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Keyboard 2 Mouse 3 Display device 4 CPU 5 Main storage device 6 Secondary storage device 7 Data communication device 8 Data communication path 9 Bus 11 Acquired information storage area 12 Information source descriptor table 13 Information source descriptor 14 Address of original information Column 15 Clipboard 16 WWW Server 20 WWW Browser 21 Extraction Information with Information Source Descriptor 22 Extraction Information with Information Source Descriptor with Extraction Position 23 Address Part on WWW Browser Screen 30 Editing Device 31 Clipboard 32 Extraction Information with Information Source Descriptor 33 Cache area 34 Data communication device 40 Address part on word processor screen

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A connection means for connecting to an information source, an information obtaining means for obtaining information from the information source, a storage means for storing the obtained information obtained by the information obtaining means, and a storage means for storing the obtained information. An information browsing apparatus comprising a display unit for displaying the acquired information on a screen and a range designating unit for designating a part of the acquired information displayed on the screen, wherein an information source from which the acquired information is acquired is described. Descriptor storage means for storing an information source descriptor, and partial information included in a range designated by the range designation means is cut out from the storage means, and the information stored in the descriptor storage means in the cut out partial information An information browsing apparatus comprising: a partial information cutout output unit for adding a source descriptor to output. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein said partial information cut-out output means adds and outputs position information indicating which part of said acquired information corresponds to which part of said acquired information when said partial information is cut out and output. Item 1. The information browsing device according to Item 1. 3. The information browsing device according to claim 1, wherein the output destination of the partial information cut-out output means is a clipboard. 4. The information browsing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information source descriptor is a URL. 5. The information browsing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the obtained information is a file in an HTML format, and “fragment identifier” is used as position information of cutout information in the obtained information. 6. An information processing apparatus for processing cut-out information output by the partial information cut-out output means of the information browsing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the reading is performed by reading the cut-out information. Means, information source descriptor extracting means for extracting the information source descriptor from the cutout information, and original information for connecting to the information source described in the information source descriptor and reacquiring the original information of the cutout information An information processing apparatus comprising: an obtaining unit. 7. A display device for displaying the original information,
The display means uses the position information according to claim 2,
7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein a display is automatically moved to a position of the cutout information and the original information is displayed. 8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the display means displays the cut-out information portion in the original information in a prominent manner.