RICH TEXT HANDLING FOR A WEB APPLICATION

• US 20110055690A1
• Filed: 11/05/2010
• Published: 03/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: WASON, James R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,709 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/257
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/157 using dictionaries or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/232 Orthographic correction, e.g. spell checking or vowelisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/242 Dictionaries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A method and apparatus for representing and controlling documents including rich text for Web based applications and browsers is provided so that editing of rich text can be facilitated within the browsers. The rich text is represented in a memory structure so that various formats may be flexible maintained. Text, images, tables, links and the like are represented in the memory structure, which may be maintained in databases for eventual editing. A controller class and subsidiary classes represent the rich text and provide methods to convert html to the memory structure and back, representing the rich text in a relational database, retrieving the rich text from a relational database, and presenting the rich text for editing. A spell checking facility for the rich text is included.

Claims

1. A method of providing a spellchecker function for use with documents having rich text, the method comprising:

initializing a dictionary containing words;

creating at least one signature for each dictionary word;

keying the at least one signature to the dictionary word;

determining that a word is misspelled by checking the dictionary for the misspelled word resulting in a null value;

creating at least one signature associated with the misspelled word;

searching the dictionary using the at least one signature associated with the misspelled word and dictionary word to locate at least one replacement word with the same at least one signature; and

providing the at least one replacement word in the document having rich text.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one signature associated with the misspelled word and for each dictionary word is provided by extracting one or more letters and combining the one or more letters.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the extracting one or more letters and combining step is provided according to at least one of the following:

a) when the dictionary word or misspelled word is less than three characters, the at least one signature is the dictionary word or misspelled word itself,

b) when the length of each of the dictionary word or misspelled word is greater than eight characters, one signature is the first half of the word,

c) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word is eight the first three and last three characters are each signatures,

d) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word is between four and seven, the first two characters and last two characters are each signatures,

e) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word equals four, the first two characters plus the last character is the signature,

f) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word is greater than four, the first four and the last four characters are each signatures, and

g) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word equals four, the first character plus the last two characters is a signature.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing step includes providing more than one replacement words in an ordered list for selection, wherein the more than one replacement words are ordered based upon a score.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracting one or more letters and combining step is provided according to:

a) when the dictionary word or misspelled word is less than three characters, the at least one signature is the dictionary word or misspelled word itself,

b) when the length of each of the dictionary word or misspelled word is greater than eight characters, one signature is the first half of the word,

c) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word is eight the first three and last three characters are each signatures,

d) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word is between four and seven, the first two characters and last two characters are each signatures,

e) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word equals four, the first two characters plus the last character is the signature,

f) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word is greater than four, the first four and the last four characters are each signatures, and

g) when the length of the dictionary word or misspelled word equals four, the first character plus the last two characters is a signature.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting a spell check panel that displays spelling alternatives to a misspelled word associated with the document having rich text.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising searching the dictionary to locate one or more words for presentation in the spell check panel.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the creating at least one signature for each dictionary word includes one or more words in the dictionary each have one or more associated signatures to aid in locating a match for the misspelled word.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the dictionary is created from word lists then instantiated and serialized, wherein a structure of the dictionary is a hashtable, and each word is assigned a set of signatures.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein each word is added to a list keyed by each of its signatures.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein each word has a primary signature.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the primary signature includes a plurality of letters.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein a word is checked for correctness initially by determining if it is a member of the list for its primary signature.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein if a word is not correctly spelled, replacements are determined by using all its signatures of the word to find words in the list for those signatures.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein when a word is checked for correctness, it is first checked to see if it is present in the list for its primary signature and, if it is not, then the word is not spelled correctly and a substitution list is created for the word which includes creating a set of signatures for the misspelled word, finding all the words in the lists keyed by those signatures, and then selecting best matches to the word in question.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the best matches are ranked.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the ranking is accomplished by creating a common list of all the potential replacements, and each word receives a score representing how many times the word appeared on a signature list.