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Communication apparatus, control program of communication apparatus, and relay apparatus providing efficient download of electronic data

  • US 10,044,789 B2
  • Filed: 11/08/2011
  • Issued: 08/07/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/08/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
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First Claim
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1. A communication system comprising:

  • a print apparatus configured to communicate with a plurality of servers, storing a plurality of albums each including a plurality of pieces of image data, at least one of the plurality of albums including N2 pieces of image data, the print apparatus comprising;

    a display configured to display N5 pieces of thumbnail images concurrently; and

    a touch panel configured to receive an input operation; and

    a relay apparatus configured to communicate with the plurality of servers and a plurality of print apparatuses including the print apparatus, wherein N2 is larger than N1, N1 is larger than N5, N1 is a number of URLs which the relay apparatus acquires from at least one of the plurality of servers and corresponds to a number of pieces of image data included in a page of a selected album from among the plurality of albums, the URLs relate to the album including the N2 pieces of image data, and the image data is subject to printing by the print apparatus;

    wherein the relay apparatus comprises;

    a first processor; and

    first memory storing computer readable instructions, when executed by the first processor, causing the relay apparatus to execute;

    receiving a first request which identifies one of the plurality of albums from the print apparatus;

    receiving number information indicative of a number of the image data of the album identified by the first request, the identified album including N2 pieces of the image data, and the N2 pieces of image data being identified by URLs,requesting, to at least one of the plurality of servers, N1 pieces of a first URLs which respectively identify thumbnail data of N1 pieces of the image data included in a first page out of a plurality of pages into which the identified album is divided, wherein the N2 pieces of image data in the identified album are stored in at least one of the plurality of servers, arrangement numbers are respectively assigned to the N2 pieces of image data in the identified album, the N1 pieces of the image data in the first page includes the N1 pieces of the image data from the image data arranged in a first position according to the arrangement numbers to the image data arranged in N1th position according to the arrangement numbers;

    acquiring the N1 pieces of the first URLs transmitted from at least one of the plurality of servers after the first URL is requested without requiring the relay apparatus to acquire the N1 pieces of the image data; and

    transmitting the acquired N1 pieces of the first URLs to the print apparatus, wherein the print apparatus comprises;

    a second processor; and

    second memory storing computer readable instructions, when executed by the second processor, causing the print apparatus to execute;

    receiving a first input operation through the touch panel;

    transmitting the first request to the relay apparatus in response to the first input operation;

    receiving the N1 pieces of the first URLs from the relay apparatus corresponding to the album identified by the first request after the first request is transmitted;

    transmitting, to at least one of the plurality of servers, a first thumbnail image request including N5 pieces of the received first URLs out of the N1 pieces of the received first URLs without accessing the relay apparatus;

    downloading, from the at least one of the plurality of servers, the N5 pieces of thumbnail data corresponding to the N5 pieces of the received first URLs included in the first thumbnail image request in response to the first thumbnail image request without accessing the relay apparatus;

    displaying, on the display, a next page key and only N5 pieces of thumbnail images of the thumbnail data downloaded in response to the first thumbnail image request, wherein the thumbnail images are displayed in an order of the arrangement numbers from the thumbnail data of the first image data to the N5th image data according to the arrangement numbers, wherein in a state the next page key and the N5 pieces of thumbnail images are displayed on the display, the print apparatus is configured to receive a second input operation corresponding to a touch to the next page key, a third input operation corresponding to a touch for selecting one of the N5 pieces of thumbnail images, and a fourth input operation different from the second and third input operations;

    in a state that the N5 pieces of the thumbnail images and the next page key are displayed,when the touch panel receives the second input operation,transmitting a second request indicative of a next page of the page corresponding to the thumbnail images displayed on the display;

    when the touch panel receives the third input operation,transmitting a third request indicative of the thumbnail selected by the touch of the third input to the relay apparatus; and

    when the touch panel receives the fourth input operation,transmitting, to at least one of the plurality of servers, a second thumbnail image request including N5 pieces of the received first URLs corresponding to a next of the last arrangement number of the arrangement numbers corresponding to the thumbnail images being displayed on the display out of the N1 pieces of the first URLs without accessing the relay apparatus;

    downloading, from the at least one of the plurality of servers, the N5 pieces of thumbnail data corresponding to the N5 pieces of the received first URLs included in the second thumbnail image request in response to the second thumbnail image request without accessing the relay apparatus;

    displaying, on the display, the next page key and only the N5 pieces of the thumbnail images of the thumbnail data downloaded from the at least one of the plurality of servers,wherein the print apparatus is configured to receive the second input operation, the third input operation and the fourth input operation through the touch panel in a state that the thumbnail image and the next page key are being displayed,wherein the instructions stored in the first memory cause the relay apparatus to execute;

    after the N1 pieces of the first URLs acquired from at least one of the plurality of servers are transmitted to the print apparatus,when the relay apparatus receives the second request from the print apparatus,requesting to at least one of the plurality of servers the N1 pieces of the first URLs which respectively indicate the thumbnail data of the N1 pieces of the image data included in the page which is indicated by the second request and is a different one of the plurality of pages into which the identified album is divided;

    acquiring the N1 pieces of the first URLs transmitted from the at least one of the plurality of servers after requesting the N1 pieces of the first URLs which respectively indicate the thumbnail data of the N1 pieces of the image data included in the page indicated by the second request without requiring the relay apparatus to acquire the N1 pieces of the image data included in the page indicated by the second request;

    transmitting the acquired N1 pieces of the first URLs to the print apparatus;

    when the relay apparatus receives the third request from the print apparatus,requesting to at least one of the plurality of servers a second URL indicating image data corresponding to the thumbnail data indicated by the third request,wherein the instructions stored in the second memory causes the print apparatus to execute;

    receiving, from the relay apparatus, the first URLs which respectively indicate the thumbnail data of the N1 pieces of the image data included in the second request after the second request is transmitted to at least one of the plurality of servers;

    displaying, on the display, the next page key and only the N5 pieces of thumbnail images out of the N1 pieces of thumbnail images represented by the N1 pieces of thumbnail data which can be downloaded from at least one of the plurality of servers using the N1 pieces of received first URLs corresponding to the page indicated by the second request, wherein the thumbnail images are displayed in the order of the arrangement numbers from the thumbnail data of the first image data to the N5th image data according to the arrangement numbers, wherein the print apparatus is configured to receive the second input operation, the third input operation and the fourth input operation in a state that the thumbnail images and the next page key are displayed on the display;

    receiving the second URL indicative of the image data corresponding to the thumbnail data indicated by the third request transmitted from the relay apparatus after the third request is transmitted to at least one of the plurality of servers;

    downloading the image data from at least one of the plurality of servers using the second URL indicative of the image data corresponding to the thumbnail data indicated by the received third request; and

    executing a print process of printing an image based on the downloaded image data.

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