METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR SEARCH INDEXING

• US 20080114761A1
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Published: 05/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X1 Discovery, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Idealab IdeaLab
• Inventors: Gross, William, Colwell, Steven Lee
• Granted Patent: US 8,498,977 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2428 Query predicate definition using graphical user interfaces, including menus and forms G06F16/2423 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/332 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

The present invention provides for quick and efficient searching. One embodiment includes a first instruction configured to read at least a first search string and a second search string entered into a same first search field, and a second instruction configured to incrementally filter search results to locate at least a first document that has a least a first word that begins with the first string and a second word that begins with the second string.

Claims

1. A computerized method of selectively executing a command, the method comprising:

providing a user interface comprising a first field;

receiving at least a first string from a user-controlled input device in the first field;

determining if the first string comprises a command;

selectively initiating execution of a command process in response to determining that the first string comprises a command; and

selectively initiating an incremental search of a plurality of documents in response to determining that the first string is not a command, wherein the incremental search updates a matching subset of the plurality of documents as each character of the first string is received from the user-controlled input device.

2. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein determining if the first string comprises a command comprises:

comparing at least a portion of the first string to a set of commands; and

determining if the at least a portion of the first string corresponds to a command in the set of commands.

3. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein selectively initiating execution of a command process comprises executing a command file edited by an end user.

4. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein selectively initiating execution of a command process comprises executing a search application command.

5. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein selectively initiating execution of a command process comprises executing a command process using a second string entered into the first field as a command argument.

6. The method as defined in claim 1, further comprising determining if a second string and a third string entered into the first field are command arguments, and if so, determining if there is an HTML violation.

7. The method as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

determining if there is an ambiguity with respect to at least a first command entered by a user; and

presenting a list of user selectable options in order to resolve the ambiguity.

8. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the plurality of documents comprises a plurality of email documents.

9. A method of performing a search comprising:

receiving a first partial search string in a first search field;

receiving a second partial search string in the first search field;

wherein the first and second partial search strings are separated by a string separator character in the first search field;

incrementally searching for one or more documents each including at least one string that corresponds to the first partial search string and at least one string that corresponds to the second partial search string.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first partial search string comprises characters corresponding to at least a portion of a first string being searched for and the second search string comprises characters corresponding to at least a portion of a second string being searched for.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

displaying in a user interface an indication of one or more located documents that include at least a first string that corresponds to the first partial search string and at least a second string that corresponds to the second partial search string.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising displaying via the user interface a portion of a selected located document.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the string separator character is selected from the group comprising a space, “

<

”

, “

(”

, “

[”

, and “

{”

.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising highlighting a plurality of occurrences of the first and second partial search strings in the selected document while not highlighting portions of text between occurrences of the first and second partial search strings in the selected document.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the documents comprise emails, text documents, contact information, appointment information, task information, music files, system files, photographs, and/or images.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein at least some of the documents comprise at least the following email fields in which one or more of the first and second partial search strings may be located:

to, from, cc, bcc, subject, body.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the search field corresponds to a single field of the documents and the incremental search is performed only on content of the single field of the documents.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the single field of the documents comprises one of:

to, from, cc, bcc, subject, or body fields of email documents.

19. A search apparatus stored on a computer readable medium, the search apparatus comprising instructions configured to be executed by a computing device in order to perform the method of:

receiving a first string in a first search field;

in response to receiving the first string, incrementally locating a first group of documents that has at least a first word that begins with the first string;

receiving a second string in the first search field, wherein the first and second strings are separated by a string separator character in the first search field;

in response to receiving the second string, incrementally locating a second group of documents that is a subset of the first group of documents, each of the documents of the second group of documents comprising at least a second word that begins with the second partial search string; and

displaying an indication of at least one of the documents of the second group of documents.

20. The search apparatus of claim 19, wherein at least some of the first group of documents comprise emails.