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• US 6,820,236 B1
• Filed: 08/29/2000
• Issued: 11/16/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bates, Cary Lee, Santosuosso, John Matthew
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vaughn, Gregory J.
• Application Number:
  US09/650,501
• Time in Patent Office: 1,540 Days
• Field of Search: 715/500.1, 715/501.1, 715/513, 715/517, 715/518, 715/519, 715/526, 715/530, 715/506.1
• US Class Current: 715/236
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

A method of accessing remote electronic documents, such as those stored on a network, by recording link information regarding one or more document links embedded in an electronic document, selecting the electronic document for retrieval by the computer system, and displaying the link information on a display screen, prior to downloading the electronic document. The link information is recorded at an earlier time when the electronic document had previously been loaded into the document viewer. The link information can thus be displayed concurrently with the issuance of a request for the electronic document, so the user can see the link information as the document is downloading, and can further select a link contained within the displayed link information, prior to downloading the document. The link information may include a universal resource locator (URL) address associated with one of the document links, or a java applet identifier associated with one of the links. The link information can be updated if it has changed, after downloading the current version of the document.

Claims

1. A method of accessing electronic documents, comprising the steps of:

displaying a first electronic document to a user using a display screen of a computer system, said first electronic document being retrieved remotely over a network connected to said computer system;

storing, in a local storage area of said computer system, link information which is a link only version containing one or more document links embedded in an said first electronic document;

at a time subsequent to performing said displaying and storing steps, receiving a user selection selecting the first electronic document for retrieval remotely over said network by the computer system;

in response to said receiving a user selection selecting the first electronic document step, retrieving said link information from said local storage area to display the link information on a said display screen of the computer system, and issuing a request for the first electronic document to a said network connected to the computer system;

in response to displaying said link information receiving a user selection selecting a link of the displayed link information, said link identifying a second electronic document;

in response to receiving a user selection selecting a link, issuing a request for said second electronic document to said networks; and

in response to said issuing a request for the first electronic document step, downloading the first electronic document;

wherein said step of issuing a request for said second electronic document is performed before said step of downloading said first electronic document.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said storing step stores at least one universal resource locator address associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said storing step stores at least one java applet identifier associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of updating the link information after said downloading step.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said storing step stores at least one link label associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said storing step stores at least one document layout location associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said displaying step positions the one document link at the document layout location.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein said first and second electronic documents are web pages retrievable from the world wide web.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

storing, in said local storage area, link information regarding one or more document links embedded in said second electronic document, said storing step being performed before said step of receiving a user selection selecting the first electronic document for retrieval;

in response to said step of receiving a user selection selecting a link identifying a second electronic document, retrieving said link information regarding one or more document links embedded in said second electronic document from said local storage area to display the retrieved link information on said display screen of the computer system;

in response to displaying said link information regarding one or more document links embedded in said second electronic document, receiving a user selection selecting a link of the displayed link information, said link identifying a third electronic document;

in response to receiving a user selection selecting a link identifying a third electronic document, issuing a request for said third electronic document to said network;

in response to said issuing a request for the second electronic document step, downloading the second electronic document;

wherein said step of issuing a request for said third electronic document is performed before said step of downloading said first electronic document.

10. A computer program product embodied as a plurality of computer readable instructions stored on a storage medium, wherein said computer readable instructions, when executed by a computer system cause the computer system to perform the steps of:

displaying a first electronic document to a user using a display screen of said computer system, said first electronic document being retrieved remotely over a network connected to said computer system;

storing, in a local storage area of said computer system, link information which is a link only version containing one or more document links embedded in an said first electronic document;

at a time subsequent to performing said displaying and storing steps, receiving a user selection selecting the first electronic document for retrieval remotely over said network by the computer system;

in response to said receiving a user selection selecting the first electronic document step, retrieving said link information from said local storage area to display the link information on a said display screen of the computer system, and issuing a request for the first electronic document to a said network connected to the computer system;

in response to displaying said link information, receiving a user selection selecting a link of the displayed link information, said link identifying a second electronic document;

in response to receiving a user selection selecting a link, issuing a request for said second electronic document to said networks; and

in response to said issuing a request for the first electronic document step, receiving the downloaded first electronic document;

wherein said step of issuing a request for said second electronic document is performed before said step of receiving the downloaded first electronic document.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein said storing step stores at least one universal resource locator address associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

12. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein said storing step stores at least one java applet identifier associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

13. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein said instructions further cause said computer to perform the step of updating the link information after said step of downloading the first electronic document.

14. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein said storing step stores at least one link label associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

15. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein said storing step stores at least one document layout location associated with one of the document links embedded in the electronic document.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein said displaying step positions the one document link at the document layout location.

17. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein said first and second electronic documents are web pages retrievable from the world wide web.

18. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein said instruction further cause said computer to perform the steps of:

storing, in said local storage area, link information regarding one or more document links embedded in said second electronic document, said storing step being performed before said step of receiving a user selection selecting the first electronic document for retrieval;

in response to said step of receiving a user selection selecting a link identifying a second electronic document, retrieving said link information regarding one or more document links embedded in said second electronic document from said local storage area to display the retrieved link information on said display screen of the computer system;

in response to displaying said link information regarding one or more document links embedded in said second electronic document, receiving a user selection selecting a link of the displayed link information, said link identifying a third electronic document;

in response to receiving a user selection selecting a link identifying a third electronic document, issuing a request for said third electronic document to said network;

in response to said issuing a request for the second electronic document step, downloading the second electronic document;

wherein said step of issuing a request for said third electronic document is performed before said step of receiving the downloaded first electronic document.