Editing of a superblock data structure

• US 4,723,211 A
• Filed: 08/30/1984
• Issued: 02/02/1988
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/1984
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Barker, Barbara A., McCaskill, Rex A., Hernandez, Irene H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Harkcom, Gary V.
• Assistant Examiner(s): NOT, DEFINED
• Application Number:
  US06/645,630
• Time in Patent Office: 1,251 Days
• Field of Search: 364/200, 364/300, 364/900 MS File, 364/523, 354/7, 354/8, 354/9, 400/61, 400/83, 340/721, 340/747
• US Class Current: 715/210
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

Improvements in an application composite eidtor for compound documents containing not only text but also graphics and tables facilitate the manipulation of object sets in the formatting algorithm. The editor works with a page layout philosophy wherein data objects reside on the page and data resides in the data objects. All pages reside within a document object, and some data objects may have additional objects within them. Objects are data-specific entities that the user can manipulate on the page. All objects exist within a specified boundary on the page, and this boundary is defined as an object set boundary. Object sets may be moved into positions on the page such that more than one object set is occupying a single displayable are on the page. Such an arrangement of objects creates a structure called a superblock. A superblock is any displayable area containing two or more object sets positioned so that the object sets overlap one another, reside side-by-side or extend above or below one another. A text object set may not be overlapped by any other object set. Although the superblock is itself a complex structure, the creation of this structure by the editor greatly simplifies integration of different data types on the page for the user and allows the user to manipulate a group of object sets within a single displayable area on the page with relative ease. Moreover, formatting of the document is facilitated by the editor since the superblock is treated as an object set without taking into consideration the complexity inside the superblock structure except when a page end decision must be made.

Claims

1. In an integrated multiple data editor of the type which produces a compound document having diverse text and/or nontext objects positioned on the same page or on the preceding or succeeding page of the document, said editor manipulating object sets containing said objects wherein each object set has a data structure for its type including data which points to the previous and next object sets and each object set data structure has a unique identification used in paging data, said object sets each having objects of the same type residing therein and being delineated by displayable icons indicating the object set type, the method of editing a superblock data structure which has been previously created to contain two or more object set data structures for object sets positioned so that object sets overlap one another, reside side-by-side or extend above or below one another so that the document may be formatted by manipulating the superblock data structure as a single entity as if it were an object set data structure without taking into consideration the complexity inside the superblock data structure except when a page end decision must be made, said superblock data structure being delineated by a single displayed superblock icon, the method of editing said superblock data structure comprising the steps of:

registering the selection of a displayed superblock icon, and in response to the selection of the displayed superblock icon,

displaying commands which are applicable to editing the superblock data structure as a whole and also displaying the icons of the object set data structures within the superblock data structure,

registering the selection of either a command for editing the superblock data structure as a whole or of a displayed icon of an object set data structure within the superblock data structure which is to be edited, and if a displayed icon of an object set data structure within the superblock data structure is selected,

displaying commands which are applicable to editing the data structure of the selected object set type,

registering the selection of a command for editing the data structure of the selected object set, and

performing an editing function on the superblock data structure as a whole according to a selected command for editing the superblock data structure or, if a command for editing the data structure of a selected object set is selected, performing an editing function on the selected object set data structure according to the selected command.

2. The method of editing said superblock data structure in an integrated computer editor as recited in claim 1 wherein each of the steps of registering a selection is performed by the step of receiving an input from a pointing device which is pointed at a displayed command or icon.

3. The method of editing said superblock data structure in an integrated multiple data editor as recited in claim 1 wherein the method of editing further comprises the steps of:

determining if a page break occurs within a superblock data structure, and if it does,

determining if the superblock data structure can be split between pages.

4. The method of editing said superblock data structure in an integrated multiple data editor as recited in claim 3 further comprising the step of defining a keep function for a superblock data structure as being either true or false, and said method of editing further comprises the steps of:

detecting whether the keep function is true, and if the keep function is true,

prevention the superblock data structure from being split across two pages, otherwise,

examining the internal data structure of the superblock data structure to determine where the superblock data structure can be split when a page end decision must be made.

5. The method of editing a superblock data structure in an integrated multiple data editor as recited in claim 4 wherein if it is determined that the superblock data structure cannot be split between pages, then performing the additional steps of building and displaying a message to the user explaining why the superblock data structure cannot be split and recommmending editing steps that, if taken, will allow the superblock data structure to be split between pages.