UTILIZING VIRTUAL FOLDERS
First Claim
1. A method of exposing items having associated metadata properties, the method comprising:
- receiving a first metadata property that describes at least a portion of file items including a first file item stored in a first physical location and a second file item stored in a second physical location;
within a database, searching for one or more items that have the first metadata property, the database storing metadata properties of a plurality of file items each of which is stored within one of a plurality of physical memory locations and storing a plurality of non-file items;
obtaining the one or more items that have the selected first metadata property, wherein file items are obtained from the corresponding physical memory location at which the file item is stored and non-file items are obtained from the database at which the non-file items are stored; and
providing within a file system user interface a first virtual folder that represents the one or more items that have the first metadata property, the first virtual folder exposing the first file item and the second file item despite physical locations of the first and second file items.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method utilizing virtual folders. The virtual folders expose regular files and folders to users in different views based on their metadata instead of the actual physical underlying file system structure on the disk. The virtual folders contain collections of items. The system includes a folder processor that obtains queries from a user and a relational database for storing information about the items. The folder processor first obtains a query from a user and passes the query to the relational database. The relational database provides results back to the folder processor, and based on the results from the relational database, the folder processor provides the results to the user as virtual folders. Users are able to work with the virtual folders through direct manipulation (e.g., clicking and dragging, copying, pasting, etc.).
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method of exposing items having associated metadata properties, the method comprising:
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receiving a first metadata property that describes at least a portion of file items including a first file item stored in a first physical location and a second file item stored in a second physical location; within a database, searching for one or more items that have the first metadata property, the database storing metadata properties of a plurality of file items each of which is stored within one of a plurality of physical memory locations and storing a plurality of non-file items; obtaining the one or more items that have the selected first metadata property, wherein file items are obtained from the corresponding physical memory location at which the file item is stored and non-file items are obtained from the database at which the non-file items are stored; and providing within a file system user interface a first virtual folder that represents the one or more items that have the first metadata property, the first virtual folder exposing the first file item and the second file item despite physical locations of the first and second file items. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of exposing items, the items having associated metadata properties, the method comprising:
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referencing a first metadata property that describes file items stored within a plurality of physical memory locations and non-file items stored within a database, the database storing metadata properties of the file items stored within the plurality of physical memory locations; searching in the database for one or more file items and one or more non-file items that have the selected first metadata property utilizing a computing process; obtaining the one or more file items and the one or more non-file items that have the selected first metadata property, wherein each of the one or more file items is obtained from a physical memory location at which the file item is stored and each of the one or more non-file items is obtained from the database at which the non-file item is stored; and providing within a file system user interface a first virtual folder that represents a collection of the one or more file items and the one or more non-file items that have the first metadata property, wherein the first virtual folder exposes the one or more file items and the one or more non-file items having the first metadata property despite physical locations of the items. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A non-volatile computer-readable storage medium having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for performing a computer-implemented method of exposing items having associated metadata properties, the method comprising:
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referencing a first metadata property, wherein the first metadata property describes one or more file items, each of the one or more file items comprising a file or a folder including a first file item stored in a first physical location and a second file item stored in a second physical location; searching for items, within a database, that have the first metadata property, the database storing metadata properties of the one or more file items that are stored within one or more physical memory locations and storing non-file items; drawing the items that have the first metadata property, wherein file items are drawn from the corresponding physical memory location at which the file item is stored and non-file items are drawn from the database at which the non-file items are stored; and providing a first virtual folder that represents a collection of items that have the first metadata property, the first virtual folder displaying the items despite physical locations of the items. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification