Multimedia information add-on system

• US 5,666,542 A
• Filed: 03/24/1994
• Issued: 09/09/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Katai, Yoshiyuki, Kogure, Toshifumi, Watanabe, Toshio, Yamazaki, Mitsuyoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Feild, Joseph H.
• Application Number:
  US08/216,964
• Time in Patent Office: 1,265 Days
• Field of Search: 395/144-149, 395/154, 395/155-157, 395/161, 395/600, 395/762, 395/806, 395/807, 395/761, 395/779, 395/782, 395/340, 345/23, 345/25, 345/119, 345/141, 348/563-565
• US Class Current: 715/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/00 General purpose image data processing

Abstract

Defined information is generated for each of screen information, layout information, and media information in response to an operator'"'"'s entry when an environment is defined. When a change is monitored in predetermined position information using a screen monitoring unit during the actual operation, a character string to be displayed with media information is extracted according to the contents of the defined information. After media information corresponding to the character string, that is, the name of layout to be used and actual media information is obtained, and the position and size of a frame and the display format of the media are further obtained, each depending on the name of layout to be used, media information corresponding to the character string to be displayed with media information is displayed. Thus, character string information can be displayed with multimedia information added together only by mounting the multimedia information add-on system without restructuring an existing system.

Claims

1. A multimedia information add-on system comprising:

screen monitoring means for detecting that an object character string is displayed on a display device by a character displaying system;

defined information means for storing a plurality of character strings and plural pieces of multimedia associated with each of the plurality of character strings; and

multimedia information outputting means for retrieving from said defined information means multimedia information which corresponds to the object character string detected by said screen monitoring means, and for displaying the retrieved multimedia information at a predetermined position on the display device, wherein said multimedia information add-on system is different from the character displaying system, and is added to the character displaying system.

2. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 1, wherein said screen monitoring means detects that the specified information is displayed at a specified position on the display device, and wherein said multimedia information outputting means comprises:

media display information control means for receiving the specified information from said screen monitoring means and reading the multimedia information which corresponds to the specified information from said defined information means; and

media display control means for outputting for display to said display device the multimedia information read from said media display information control means.

3. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of multimedia information stored in said defined information means includes layout information for use in a designation of a displaying format of multimedia information to be displayed, and actual multimedia information to be displayed.

4. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 3, wherein

said media display control means displays actual information in a layout specified by the layout information.

5. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 1, wherein

said screen monitoring means detects a character code outputted by the character displaying system.

6. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 1, wherein said screen monitoring means monitors screen information for use in a determination of a necessity to refresh the screen, positions for character strings to be displayed with the multimedia information is extracted, and for monitoring the character strings.

7. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 1, wherein

said character displaying system comprises a computer system;

and

said screen monitoring means comprises a software driver for displaying and outputting data from said computer system to the display device.

8. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 1, wherein an execution result of a first task performed by said character displaying system is detected by a second task performed by said character displaying system to output the multimedia information which corresponds to the specified information.

9. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 8, wherein said character displaying system retrieves a data base by executing the first task, said second task detects that a result of the retrieval is displayed in a first window, and wherein the multimedia information which corresponds to the specified information is outputted to a second window.

10. A multimedia information add-on system for displaying multimedia information corresponding to a character string, comprising:

screen information generating means for generating, as defined screen information based on operator-inputted information at a setting of an environment, screen information for use in determining a necessity to refresh a screen of a display device, said screen being displayed by the character displaying system, and for generating information on a position at which the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information is extracted;

layout information generating means for determining, as defined layout information based on operator-inputted information at the setting of the environment, a position of a frame in which the multimedia information is displayed, a size of a frame, and a display format of the multimedia information;

multimedia information generating means for generating, as defined multimedia information based on operator-inputted information at the setting of the environment and based on the information on the position at which the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information is extracted, layout information and actual information on the multimedia information to be displayed;

screen monitoring means for monitoring the screen and extracting the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information according to preliminarily defined contents when an information change in at least one of the screen information and the information on the position at which the character string to be displayed with multimedia information is extracted is detected;

multimedia display information control means for retrieving, from the defined layout information and the defined multimedia information, information on the layout and multimedia information corresponding to the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information extracted from said screen monitoring means; and

multimedia display control means for analyzing information obtained from said multimedia display information control means and displaying the multimedia information on a display screen, wherein said multimedia information add-on system is configured to be attached to said character displaying system, without modifying said character displaying system.

11. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, further comprising

means for defining the screen information for use in the determination of the necessity to refresh the screen of the display device and for defining the information on a position at which the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information is extracted, said means for defining setting a coordinate in a specified range of an area on a display screen, wherein a field specified with the coordinate is designated as a screen field position, said screen field position identifying the position at which the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information is extracted.

12. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, wherein means for determining a necessity to refresh the screen monitors the character string in a specified range of an area indicating the position of the screen field on the display screen, and determines the necessity to refresh of the screen according to a change in the character string.

13. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, wherein the character string to be displayed with the multimedia information is extracted by extracting a selected character string within a predetermined range of coordinates indicating a position at which the selected character string is extracted on the display screen.

14. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, further comprising means for preliminarily setting, as defined layout information, a position and size of the frame and a display format of the multimedia information to be displayed in the frame,

wherein said means for preliminarily setting sets the position and size of the frame for each display format of a plurality of display formats, and sets the display format of the multimedia information for each type of information to be displayed in the frame.

15. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, further comprising means for preliminarily setting, as the defined multimedia information the layout information and the actual information on the multimedia information to be displayed sets a layout to be used for each character string to be displayed with the multimedia information, and sets a name of a file in which actual data of each type of multimedia information to be displayed in the frame of the layout are stored.

16. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, wherein said media display information control means receives character-string-to-be-displayed-with-media information from said screen monitoring means, searches the defined layout to be used corresponding to the character string information, retrieves the frame information depending on the display format, also retrieves the actual multimedia information for each type of multimedia information to be displayed in the frame, further retrieves the display position and size of the frame, and the information on the display format of the multimedia information displayed in the frame, and outputs the information to said multimedia display control means.

17. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 10, wherein a window display system is operated by a second task, different from a first task operated by said character displaying system.

18. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 17, wherein

said character displaying system monitors a first window, of said window display system and outputs the multimedia information corresponding to the predetermined information on a second window when the predetermined information is displayed on the first window.

19. A multimedia information add-on system for displaying multimedia information corresponding to predetermined information, said system comprising:

screen monitoring means for detecting that specified information is displayed by a character displaying system at a specified position on a screen of a display device;

defined information means for storing preliminarily defined screen monitoring information for use in a determination as to whether or not the specified information has been displayed at the specified position on the screen of the display device, and for storing preliminarily defined multimedia information to be added to the specified information; and

multimedia information outputting means for retrieving from said defined information means multimedia information corresponding to the specified information, wherein

said specified information is detected to be displayed at the specified position on the screen of the display device; and

said multimedia information corresponding to the specified information is retrieved for display from said defined information means.

20. A multimedia information add-on system, said system comprising:

a management information table containing multimedia information associated with each character string to be displayed on a screen by a character display system; and

a tool having a tool name and containing information regarding a media type, for detecting the character string displayed by the character display system, and retrieving corresponding multimedia information from said management information table using the detected character string as a key, without modifying the designated character string.

21. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 20, wherein

selecting a character string as a key on the screen specifies multimedia information to be displayed;

in response to said specification of media information the tool name and the information regarding the media type corresponding to the selected multimedia information associated with the selected character string as a key are specified in said management information table, and the media specified as being associated with the media name are stored.

22. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 20, wherein

said plurality of tools for outputting the multimedia information include image displaying tools, voice outputting tools, character outputting tools, and procedure tools.

23. The multimedia information add-on system according to claim 20, wherein

the character string as a key is specified in said management information table, as corresponding to a tool name and media type.