System and method for ordering events

• US 20050166179A1
• Filed: 01/28/2004
• Published: 07/28/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: MacLaurin, Matthew B., Vronay, David P., Stojanovic, Alexander S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,689,994 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management

Abstract

The system and method of the present invention relates to the determining the specific ordering and execution of events from temporal constraints, filtering functions, and execution heuristics. To facilitate specification of event order objects be can associated with events in an object authoring system which provides for interaction, conditional behavior, and fuzzy relationships by dividing all time into past, present, and future. A user or developer can then perform all their work in the editable area marked “now.” Items that may have happened prior to the current work show up in the “past” area and items which might happen in the future show up in the “future” area. A user can then associate and/or dissociate objects associated with events in the editable area, for instance by simply loosely specifying temporal relationships or constraints amongst objects rather than specifying an exact temporal sequence directly.

Claims

1. An event ordering system, comprising:

a constraint component that receives temporal constraints associated with a plurality of events; and

an order component that determines an event order in accordance with the temporal constraints, wherein the event order specifies the execution order of events.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the constraint is an event start and/or a stop time.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the constraint is event duration.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the constraint is a filter.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a system information component that provides information about an execution system to the order component to facilitate selection of an optimal event order.

6. The system of claim 5, the information about an executing system includes available memory.

7. The system of claim 5, the information about an execution system includes data throughput rate.

8. An interactive event ordering system, comprising:

a display component that provides a plurality of object workspaces, the workspaces including at least one of a past, present and/or future space, the present space is an editable area; and

a design component that temporally associates and/or disassociate objects in the editable area.

9. The system of claim 8, object workspaces are user interfaces that facilitate a graphical-based approach to specify relationships amongst objects.

10. The system of claim 8, non-associated objects order of execution is determined via utility-based analysis.

11. The system of claim 8, non-associated objects are executed randomly.

12. The system of claim 8, the design component comprising a specification component that receives hard start and/or end times for events associated with objects.

13. The system of claim 8, the design component temporally associates objects as a function of respective location in the editable area.

14. The system of claim 8, further comprising a duration component that receives information regarding event duration.

15. The system of claim 8, the design component receives and executes information related to nested events associated with respective objects.

16. The system of claim 8, further comprising a policy component that applies pre-defined rules to execution of the objects.

17. The system of claim 8, further comprising a policy component that applies pre-defined rules to editing of the objects.

18. The system of claim 8, the design component receives and executes information regarding hierarchical relationship of respective objects.

19. The system of claim 8, the design component receives and executes information regarding dependency relationship of respective objects.

20. The system of claim 8, further comprising a query component that searches for events that satisfy a query, and displays objects associated with the events in temporal order.

21. The system of claim 22, the query component provides context information for respective objects.

22. The system of claim 8, objects placed in the past area are executed prior to objects in the present area.

23. The system of claim 8, objects placed in the future area are executed after objects in the present area.

24. The system of claim 8, the design component associates objects in a non-linear conditional manner.

25. The system of claim 8, the design component associates objects via iterative loops.

26. The system of claim 8, the design component associates objects based on a specified version.

27. A method for ordering events comprising:

receiving temporal constraints associated with a plurality of events;

generating one or more event execution orders in accordance with the constraints; and

selecting an optimal event order based at least in part on execution system information.

28. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 27.

29. A method for object authoring comprising:

receiving object data associated with events from a workspace including at least one of a past, present, and future area; and

,

associating objects temporally based at least in part upon relative object locations;

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising associating objects based on one or more operational objects.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the operational objects correspond to a loop.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the operational objects corresponds to a trigger.

33. The method of claim 30, wherein the operational objects correspond to a conditional.

34. The method of claim 30, wherein the operational objects correspond to hard start and/or stop times.

35. The method of claim 29, wherein objects are associated in a non-linear conditional manner.

36. The method of claim 29, wherein the objects are associated via iterative loops.

37. The method of claim 29, further comprising determining the execution order of events based on object associations.

38. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 29.