Audio-related system node instantiation

• US 20050226595A1
• Filed: 03/25/2005
• Published: 10/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Harman International Industries Incorporated (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Harman International Industries Incorporated (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: Lee, John, Stevenson, Andrew, Kreifeldt, Richard Allen, Shuttleworth, Timothy J., Plunkett, William A., Werf, Bruce Vander
• Granted Patent: US 7,725,826 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/04 Studio equipment; Interconnection of studios
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2227/003 Digital PA systems using, e.g. LAN or internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 27/00 Public address systems circuits for preventing acoustic reaction H04R3/02; circuits for distributing signals to loudspeakers H04R3/12; monitoring or testing arrangements for public address systems H04R29/007; amplifiers H03F

Abstract

A system may instantiate a control panel view that is useable to monitor and control an audio-related device operable in an audio system. A product plugin that corresponds to an audio-related device may receive and analyze the components of an audio node structure received from the audio-related device. The product plugin is configured to store one or more predefined control panel views that are associated with one or more of the components. The product plugin is also configured to instantiate the predefined control panel views that correspond to the components. If the product plugin determines that all of the components are not represented, one or more user interface aspects can be integrated into one or more of the control panel views prior to instantiation. Alternatively, a generic control panel view can be generated.

Claims

1. A method for displaying a control panel view useable to monitor and control an audio-related device in a computing system having a graphical user interface, the method comprising:

the computing system retrieving a stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view from a control panel library that corresponds to at least one component in an audio node structure, where the audio node structure is indicative of the functionality of an audio-related device;

the computing system retrieving a graphical user interface aspect representative of at least a portion of the audio node structure when at least a portion of the audio node structure is unrepresented with the stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view in the control panel library;

the computing system integrating the graphical user interface aspect into the stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view; and

the computing system storing the graphical user interface control panel view that includes the integrated graphical user interface aspect to be instantiated on a display.

2. The method of claim 1, where retrieving a stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view comprises modifying the complexity of the graphical user interface control panel view based on at least one of the computing power and the display capabilities of a device where the graphical user interface control panel view is to be displayed.

3. The method of claim 1, where retrieving a graphical user interface aspect comprises retrieving a stored pre-defined graphical user interface aspect from the control panel library.

4. The method of claim 1, where retrieving a graphical user interface aspect comprises retrieving a stored pre-defined graphical user interface aspect from another control panel library.

5. The method of claim 1, where retrieving a graphical user interface aspect comprises building a graphical user interface aspect based on attributes descriptive of the at least a portion of the audio node structure that are associated with components included in the audio node structure.

6. The method of claim 1, where integrating the graphical user interface aspect comprises selectively interrelating the graphical user interface aspect with a graphical user interface component included in the stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view, where the interrelation is based on attributes descriptive of the audio node structure that are associated with components included in the audio node structure.

7. The method of claim 1, where storing the graphical user interface control panel view comprises including the integrated graphical user interface aspect as part of a new control panel view stored in a control panel data storage, where the new control panel view is associated with the audio node structure of the audio-related device.

8. A method for displaying with the display a control panel view useable to monitor and control an audio-related device in a computing system having a graphical user interface, the method comprising:

retrieving with the computing system a plurality of stored predefined graphical user interface aspects that are associated with an audio node structure of an audio-related device;

the computing system identifying components of the audio node structure that are unassociated with the retrieved graphical user interface aspects;

the computing system querying the audio-related device for attributes of the identified components; and

the computing system forming a graphical user interface aspect for association with the identified components based on the attributes.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the computing system instantiating the combination of the stored predefined graphical user interface aspects and the formed graphical user interface aspect.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising the computing system combining the stored pre-defined graphical user interface aspects with the formed graphical user interface aspect.

11. The method of claim 8, where retrieving comprises selecting a virtual device from a list of virtual devices and identifying a stored predefined graphical user interface aspect that is associated with the virtual device.

12. The method of claim 8, where retrieving comprises searching a control panel library of a product plugin associated with the audio-related device to identify corresponding graphical user interface aspects and searching other product plugins when the search of the product plugin is unsuccessful.

13. The method of claim 8, where identifying comprises comparing the stored predefined graphical user interface aspects with the components of the audio node structure.

14. A system for displaying a control panel view useable to monitor and control an audio-related device, the system comprising:

a node structure storage configured to store components of an audio node structure that are representative of the functionality of an audio-related device;

a control panel library configured to store a predefined graphical user interface control panel view that is associated with at least one of the components; and

a node instantiation engine configured to determine if the functionality of the at least one of the components is fully represented with the stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view,

where the node instantiation engine is further configured to integrate a graphical user interface aspect supportive of an unrepresented functionality of the at least one of the components into the stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view prior to instantiation.

15. The system of claim 14, where the node instantiation engine is further configured to search the control panel library for a graphical user interface aspect supportive of the unrepresented functionality.

16. The system of claim 14, where the control panel library comprises a plurality of control panel libraries each associated with a different product plugin, and the node instantiation engine is further configured to enable a search of each of the control panel libraries for a graphical user interface aspect supportive of the unrepresented functionality.

17. The system of claim 14, where the node instantiation engine is further configured to enable the generation of a generic graphical user interface aspect supportive of the unrepresented functionality.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising a control panel view buffer configured to temporarily store the instantiated predefined graphical user interface control panel view that includes the integrated graphical user interface aspect.

19. The system of claim 14, further comprising a discovery engine configured to retrieve additional information related to the unrepresented functionality from the audio-related device, where the information is useable to generate the generic graphical user interface aspect.

20. The system of claim 14, where the node instantiation engine is configured to integrate the graphical user interface aspect based on attributes of the unrepresented functionality that are retrieved from the audio-related device.

21. A performance equipment manager configured to operate in an audio system to display a control panel view useable to monitor and control an audio-related device, the performance equipment manager comprising:

a memory device;

instructions stored in the memory device to receive an audio node structure that is receivable from an audio-related device, where the audio node structure comprises a plurality of components that are each indicative of a portion of the functionality of the audio-related device;

instructions stored in the memory device to retrieve a stored predefined control panel view representative of at least a portion of the audio node structure; and

instructions stored in the memory device to generate a generic control panel view representative of at least a portion of the audio node structure when the stored predefined control panel view is not representative.

22. The performance equipment manager of claim 21, where instructions stored in the memory device to retrieve a stored predefined control panel view comprise:

instructions stored in the memory device to identify unrepresented components of the audio node structure;

instructions stored in the memory device to obtain a graphical user interface aspect that represents the unrepresented components; and

instructions stored in the memory device to integrate the graphical user interface aspect into the stored predefined control panel view.

23. The performance equipment manager of claim 22, where instructions stored in the memory device to identify unrepresented components comprise instructions stored in the memory device to check a component that is represented in the stored predefined control panel view for additional components associated with the represented component that are unsupported with the stored predefined control panel view.

24. The performance equipment manager of claim 22, where instructions stored in the memory device to obtain a graphical user interface aspect comprise instructions stored in the memory device to receive attributes from the audio-related device that are associated with the unrepresented components;

and

instructions stored in the memory device to form a graphical user interface aspect based on the received attributes.

25. The performance equipment manager of claim 21, where instructions stored in the memory device to retrieve a stored predefined control panel view comprise instructions to identify the stored predefined control panel view that is associated with at least one component of the audio node structure.

26. The performance equipment manager of claim 21, where instructions stored in the memory device to receive an audio node structure comprise instructions stored in the memory device to receive a list of virtual devices indicative of functional units of the audio-related device.

27. The performance equipment manager of claim 21, where instructions stored in the memory device to generate a generic control panel view comprise instructions stored in the memory device to retrieve attributes indicative of the components from the audio-related device.

28. A system for displaying a control panel view useable to monitor and control an audio-related device, the system comprising:

a product plugin configured to store a predefined graphical user interface control panel view that corresponds to the functionality of an audio-related device; and

a generic plugin configured to form a generic graphical user interface control panel view based on the functionality of the audio-related device when the functionality of the audio-related device does not correspond to the predefined graphical user interface control panel view.

29. The system of claim 28, where the functionality of the audio-related device is provided to the product plugin with an audio node structure comprising a plurality of components that correspond to the predefined graphical user interface control panel view.

30. The system of claim 28, where the product plugin is configured to modify the stored pre-defined graphical user interface control panel view to be compatible with the processing power of the displaying device.

31. The system of claim 28, where the generic plugin is further configured to generate a graphical user interface aspect that supports a portion of the functionality of the audio-related device that is unsupported with the predefined graphical user interface control panel view.

32. The system of claim 31, where the generic graphical user interface aspect is integrated into the stored predefined graphical user interface control panel view and associated with the unsupported portion.

33. The system of claim 28, where the predefined graphical user interface control panel view comprises a plurality of predefined graphical user interface control panel views that correspond to the functionality of a plurality of different audio-related devices.

34. A method of displaying a control panel view useable to monitor and control an audio-related device, the method comprising:

building a set of graphical user interface control panel views representative of an entire audio node structure of an audio-related device when sufficient computing power capability is present in a displaying device;

storing the set of graphical user interface control panel views to be available for display on a display screen of the displaying device; and

building a subset of the set of graphical user interface control panel views when limited computing power capability is present, where the computing power capability comprises at least one of processing capabilities or display capabilities of the displaying device.

35. The method of claim 34, further comprising:

discarding a currently displayed single graphical user interface control panel view; and

building another single graphical user interface single control panel view when said another single graphical user interface control panel view is requested.

36. The method of claim 34, where building a set of graphical user interface control panel views comprises retrieving a stored pre-defined graphical user interface control panel view that corresponds to a portion of the audio node structure and populating the stored pre-defined graphical user interface control panel view with actual values retrieved from the audio-related device.

37. The method of claim 34, where building a set of graphical user interface control panel views comprises instantiating each of the graphical user interface control panel views to include a plurality of actual values of state variables included in the audio node structure.

38. The method of claim 34, where building a set of graphical user interface control panel views comprises identifying graphical user interface control panel views that correspond to a list of virtual devices receivable from an audio-related device, where the virtual devices are each representative of functional units of the audio-related device.

39. The method of claim 34, where storing the set of graphical user interface control panel views comprises buffering for retrieval and display instantiated graphical user interface control panel views that include actual values.

40. The method of claim 39, where buffering instantiated control panel views comprises updating the actual values in the instantiated control panel views as the actual values in the audio-related device change.

41. The method of claim 34, where building a subset of the set of graphical user interface control panel views comprises instantiating a single graphical user interface control panel view that is a current display.