Generating multimedia documents

• US 6,061,696 A
• Filed: 04/28/1997
• Issued: 05/09/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lee, Richard Daniel, Feder, Adam B., Myers, Robert K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kulik, Paul V.
• Application Number:
  US08/845,858
• Time in Patent Office: 1,107 Days
• Field of Search: 707/501, 707/513, 707/515, 707/516, 707/523, 345/335, 345/336, 709/302, 709/303
• US Class Current: 715/209
• 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

Multimedia documents, for example, HTML pages, are created by a user in a graphic development environment running on a computer system by representing an object (e.g., an image) in a standard format while enabling the user to view and manipulate the object in a rich, native format which is different from the standard format. After the user has manipulated the object as desired, the native format representation of the object is automatically converted to the standard format and is used to represent the object in the multimedia document.

Claims

1. A method performed on a computer system of generating multimedia documents, the method comprising:

representing an object in a multimedia document using a standard format;

enabling the object to be manipulated in a native format different from the standard format;

receiving configuration parameters from a user; and

upon an occurrence of a predetermined event, converting the native format to the standard format based on the received configuration parameters.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying the object in the multimedia document using the converted standard format.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating a local file representative of the object in the converted standard format.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising displaying the object in the multimedia document using the local file.

5. The method of claim 3 further comprising maintaining an original file representative of the object in the native format.

6. The method of claim 1 in which the representing comprises treating the object as an inline image in the multimedia document.

7. The method of claim 1 in which the representing comprises treating the object as an inline plug-in in the multimedia document.

8. The method of claim 1 in which the representing comprises treating the object as an inline applet in the multimedia document.

9. The method of claim 1 in which the enabling comprises invoking an editing environment.

10. The method of claim 1 in which the enabling comprises invoking an external application associated with the native format.

11. The method of claim 10 in which the invoking comprises starting the external application from within another application.

12. The method of claim 1 in which the converting comprises translating from the native format to a web-publishable format.

13. The method of claim 1 in which the converting comprises translating from a format associated with a first media type to a format associated with another media type different from the first media type.

14. The method of claim 1 in which the converting comprises translating from a movie format to an image format.

15. The method of claim 1 in which the predetermined event comprises a save operation.

16. The method of claim 1 in which the converting comprises transforming a native format representation of the object to a standard format representation of the object upon detecting that a save operation has been performed.

17. The method of claim 1 in which the converting comprises generating a local file in the standard format based on a source file in the native format.

18. The method of claim 1 in which the standard format is web-publishable.

19. The method of claim 18 in which the native format is web-publishable.

20. The method of claim 1 in which the native format represents a functionally richer format than the standard format.

21. The method of claim 1 in which the object comprises one or more of the following media types:

image, text, movie, plug-in, virtual world, applet, and sound.

22. A method of generating multimedia documents on a computer system, the method comprising:

providing an author with an interactive graphic development environment for developing a multimedia document that includes an object represented in a standard format;

in response to input from the author, invoking from within the graphic development environment an application that enables the object to be manipulated in a native format different from the standard format;

automatically converting a representation of the object from the native format to the standard format upon detecting that a predetermined operation has been performed by the application; and

concurrently maintaining at least two files representative of the object including a first file in which the object is represented in the native format and at least one other file in which the object is represented in the standard format.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising displaying the object in the standard format within a multimedia document.

24. The method of claim 22 in which the invocation of an application for manipulating the object and the automatic conversion between different representations of the object could be repeated such that one converted representation of the object is manipulated and converted to another converted representation.

25. The method of claim 24 in which the invoking and converting are repeated a plurality of times.

26. A multimedia document development system comprising:

multiple representations of a multimedia component including a standard-format representation and a native-format representation;

a graphical environment for constructing a multimedia document using multimedia components in their respective standard formats;

helper applications invocable from within the graphical environment for manipulating the multimedia components in their respective native formats; and

a conversion process for automatically converting a native-format representation of a multimedia component to a standard-format representation of a multimedia component in response to a recognition that a new native-format representation of a multimedia component has been generated.

27. The system of claim 26 in which the recognition of a new native-format representation arises when a helper application performs a save operation.

28. Computer software for a multimedia development system, the computer software residing on a computer-readable medium and comprising instructions for causing a computer to perform the following operations:

display a media object in a standard format;

invoke a helper application that allows a user to manipulate the media object in a native format different from the standard format;

monitor for the existence of a new native-format version of the media object;

upon detecting the existence of a new native-format version of the media object, convert the new native-format version of the media object to a new standard-format version of the media object; and

display the new standard-format version of the media object.

29. The computer software of claim 28 further comprising instructions to maintain multiple files representative of the media object in different formats.

30. The computer software of claim 28 further comprising instructions to enable the user to specify helper applications.

31. The computer software of claim 28 further comprising instructions to enable the user to specify the standard format and the native format of a media object.

32. A computer-based method for use with an object included in a multimedia document within an editing environment associated with a common file format, the object being associated with an application program having a different native file format, the method comprising:

maintaining two files representative of the object, one file in the common file format, the other file in the different native format; and

synchronizing content of the two files in response to work done on the document by a user working in the editing environment.

33. A computer-implemented method of developing multimedia documents, the method comprising:

representing a plurality of media elements in a multimedia document using one or more standard formats recognized by a first editor application;

enabling at least one of the media elements in the multimedia document to be edited by another editor application in a native format different from the media element'"'"'s standard format; and

upon occurrence of a predetermined event, converting the media element'"'"'s native format to the media element'"'"'s standard format.

34. The method of claim 33 in which the predetermined event comprises a save operation performed by the other editor application.

35. The method of claim 33 which the predetermined event comprises a recognition that a new native-format representation of the media element exists.

36. The method of claim 33 further comprising maintaining at least two files representative of the media element including a first file in which the media element is represented in the native format and at least one other file in which the media element is represented in the standard format.

37. The method of claim 33 in which the enabling comprises:

automatically identifying file types of a file associated with the native format of the object using file typing rules;

determining the file associated with the standard format of the object; and

enabling appropriate editor applications based on the file types.

38. The method of claim 33 in which the converting is based on default conversion parameters.

39. The method of claim 33 in which the converting is based on user-specific conversion parameters.