IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS, IMAGE FORMING METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20090080010A1
• Filed: 09/16/2008
• Published: 03/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Nanaumi, Yoshihito
• Application Number:
  US12/211,519
• Publication Number:
  US 20090080010A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.130
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/502 relating to the structure of the control menu, e.g. pop-up menus, help screens
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/5083 for scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 2215/00109 Remote control of apparatus, e.g. by a host
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems

Abstract

An image forming apparatus of this invention causes a user to select a function to be executed by the image forming apparatus and determines the priority order of a document based on the selected function, the storage location of the document, and the attribute information of the document. A document is searched for based on the selected function. The list of documents selected from documents found by a search unit is displayed based on the determined priority order. If the search unit has found documents having the same contents, a document having a highest priority order is displayed in the list.

Claims

1. An image forming apparatus comprising:

a function selection unit configured to cause a user to select a function to be executed by the image forming apparatus;

a determination unit configured to determine a priority order of a document based on the selected function, a storage location of the document, and attribute information of the document;

a search unit configured to search for a document based on the selected function; and

a display unit configured to display a list of documents selected from documents found by said search unit based on the priority order determined by said determination unit,

wherein when said search unit has found documents having the same contents, said display unit displays a document having a highest priority order in the list.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a memory unit configured to store a table in which the function, the storage location of the document, the attribute information of the document, and information of the priority order are associated with each other,

wherein said determination unit determines the priority order of the document based on the table and the selected function.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the priority order is determined based on the selected function, the storage location of the document, and the attribute information of the document.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the attribute information of the document represents a format of the document which corresponds to one of data after print image processing is executed and data suitable for sending before print image processing is executed.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a document selection unit configured to cause the user to select a desired document from the list displayed by said display unit; and

an execution unit configured to execute processing of the function selected by said function selection unit for the document selected by said document selection unit.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the function selected by said function selection unit is print processing, and a search target includes documents stored in a storage unit of a remote image forming apparatus, the priority order is determined depending on whether a model of the image forming apparatus is identical to a model of the remote image forming apparatus.

7. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the table includes information of a path to process the document.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said search unit performs a search in descending order of priority order of documents, stops the search when the number of documents found has reached a threshold value, and presents the found documents as a search result.

9. An image forming method comprising:

a function selection step of causing a user to select a function to be executed by an image forming apparatus;

a determination step of determining a priority order of a document based on the selected function, a storage location of the document, and attribute information of the document;

a search step of searching for a document based on the selected function; and

a display step of displaying a list of documents selected from a plurality of documents found in the search step based on the priority order determined in the determination step,

wherein when documents having the same contents have been found in the search step, a document having a highest priority order is displayed in the list in the display step.

10. A computer program stored in a computer-readable storage medium, the program causing an image forming apparatus to execute:

a function selection step of causing a user to select a function to be executed by the image forming apparatus;

a determination step of determining a priority order of a document based on the selected function, a storage location of the document, and attribute information of the document;

a search step of searching for a document based on the selected function; and

a display step of displaying a list of documents selected from a plurality of documents found in the search step based on the priority order determined in the determination step,

wherein when documents having the same contents have been found in the search step, a document having a highest priority order is displayed in the list in the display step.