Unified program for simultaneously displaying graphically-editable graphics presentation and linguistically-editable linguistic definition of the graphics presentation and for synchronizing the graphics presentation and the linguistic definition to one another

• US 7,237,193 B1
• Filed: 09/25/2002
• Issued: 06/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Gen Digital Inc.
• Original Assignee: Symantec Corporation (NortonLifeLock Inc.)
• Inventors: Ben-Romdhane, Sami, Zaky, Essam
• Primary Examiner(s): Paula; Cesar B
• Application Number:
  US10/255,310
• Time in Patent Office: 1,735 Days
• Field of Search: 715/513, 715/760, 715/531, 715/501.1
• US Class Current: 715/207
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

A web page development application provides simultaneous display of a browser view and the corresponding descriptor language source view. The application provides graphical editing of the browser view. The corresponding descriptor language source view is automatically generated so as to be consistent with the browser view upon prompting by the user. The web page development application allows separate editing of the browser view and corresponding descriptor language source view and cross-synchronization such that changes to one view will automatically update the other view when prompted by the user.

Claims

1. A method for generating a descriptor language representation of a graphics presentation through use of a presentation development application, comprising:

(a) using the presentation development application to generate a display of the graphics presentation;

(b) using the presentation development application to generate a simultaneous display of a descriptor language source view corresponding to the displayed graphics presentation; and

(c) using the presentation development application to maintain an optimized meta-structure for representing said graphics presentation, said optimized meta structure including;

a text storage component for containing text characters of said graphics view;

an HTML object array containing at least one object that is shared by a series of said text characters; and

a line array for representing a screen layout said line array including a character offset of last character in a given line, a pixel height of the line and a pointer to an entry in a line layout cache.

2. A method as in claim 1, further comprising:

(d) using the presentation development application to generate a first thread adapted to receive user input specifying a modification to be made to the displayed graphics presentation; and

(e) using the presentation development application to generate a second thread adapted to update the displayed graphics presentation in accordance with the received user input specifying said modification to the displayed graphics presentation, said second thread executing in parallel to said first thread;

wherein said second thread updates the displayed graphics presentation by operating on and modifying only those entries of said HTML object array and said line array of the optimized meta-structure that have been received by the first thread during receiving of user input.

3. A combined graphics and graphics descriptor development computer system for providing automated synchronization between a real time editable presentation of a graphics view and a real time editable display of a corresponding descriptor language view, said system comprising:

(a) an optimized meta-structure containing a real time editable, first representation of a current graphics view, where the first representation is automatically transformable into a displayed graphics view said optimized meta-structure including;

a text storage component for containing text characters of said graphics view;

an HTML object array containing at least one object that is shared by a series of said text characters; and

a line array for representing a screen layout, said line array including a character offset of last character in a given line, a pixel height of the line and a pointer to an entry in a line layout cache;

(b) a descriptor language character array containing a simultaneous editable, second representation of a current descriptor language view, where the second representation is automatically transformable into a displayed descriptor language view;

(c) a first translator for converting the second representation in the descriptor language character array of the current descriptor language view for storage in the optimized meta-structure as a correspondingly synchronized first representation of an updated graphics view that corresponds to said second representation of the current descriptor language view; and

(d) a second translator for converting the first representation in the optimized meta-structure of the current graphics view for storage in the descriptor language character array as a correspondingly synchronized second representation of an updated descriptor language view that corresponds to said first representation in the meta-structure of the current graphics view.

4. The development system of claim 3 wherein said meta-structure includes:

(a.1) a first array of one or more of object runs organized according to an object processing sequence of the current graphics view;

(a.2) a second array of one or more object attribute designators for designating object attributes to respective ones of displayable object runs of the first array; and

(a.3) a third array of one or more displayable line attribute designators for designating line attributes to respective ones of graphics view display lines, each graphics view display line containing parts or more of said displayable object runs of the first array, and the displayable line attribute designators including designators of display line height.

5. The development system of claim 4 wherein said object runs are selected from the group consisting of:

a text run, an image character, a separator line, a java applet, a radio button, a check box, and a table.

6. The development system of claim 4 wherein said object attribute designators are selected from the group consisting of:

image location, image width, image length, image border position, a pointer to an image, text face type, text color, text font, and separator line attributes.

7. A machine instructing apparatus for instructing an instructable machine to carry out within execution of one application program, a combined graphics and graphics descriptor developing process that provides for automated synchronization between a real time editable display of a graphics view and an editable display of a descriptor language view, said machine-implemented, developing process comprising:

(a) maintaining an optimized meta-structure that contains a real time editable representation of a current graphics view said optimized meta-structure including;

a text storage component for containing text characters of said graphics view;

an HTML object array containing at least one object that is shared by a series of said text characters; and

a line array for representing a screen layout, said line array including a character offset of last character in a given line, a pixel height of the line and a pointer to an entry in a line layout cache; and

(b) simultaneously maintaining a descriptor language character array that contains an editable representation of a current descriptor language view corresponding to the current graphics view.

8. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 7 wherein said developing process further comprises:

(c) converting the contents of the descriptor language character array for storage in the meta-structure as a correspondingly updated representation of the graphics view.

9. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 8 wherein said developing process further comprises:

(d) converting the contents of the meta-structure for storage in the descriptor language character array as a correspondingly updated representation of the descriptor language view.

10. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 9 wherein said step (d) of converting the contents of the meta-structure occurs in response to cuing of a stale descriptor language view.

11. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 8 wherein said step (c) of converting the contents of the descriptor language character array occurs in response to cuing of a stale graphics view.

12. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 7 wherein said developing process further comprises:

(c) converting the contents of the meta-structure for storage in the descriptor language character array as a correspondingly updated representation of the descriptor language view.

13. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 7 wherein said step (a) of maintaining a meta-structure includes:

(a.1) maintaining a first array of one or more of object runs organized according to an object processing sequence of the graphics view;

(a.2) simultaneously maintaining a second array of one or more object attribute designators which designate object attributes to respective ones of displayable object runs of the first array; and

(a.3) maintaining a third array of one or more displayable line attribute designators which designate line attributes to respective ones of graphics view display lines, each graphics view display line containing parts or more of said displayable object runs of the first array, and the displayable line attribute designators including designators of display line height.

14. The machine instructing apparatus of claim 13 wherein said substep (a.3) of maintaining the third array includes:

(a.3a) keeping track of new and/or resized display lines created in the updated graphics view as a result of real time edits made to a current representation of the graphics view or as a result of real time edits made to a current representation of the descriptor language view.

15. A machine-implemented method for changing in real time a browser view of a web page under development, said method comprising:

(a) presenting a browser view on a display;

(b) generating an input thread adapted for resizing a graphical object in the browser view in response to a cursor dragging operation within the browser view;

(c) updating the browser view in real time during the cursor dragging operation; and

(d) generating a formatter thread that executes in parallel to said input thread said formatter thread adapted to simultaneously update in real time and during the cursor dragging operation, an optimized meta-structure that corresponds to the browser view, where an updated meta-structure can be used to automatically generate descriptor language source code corresponding to the updated browser view and where said optimized meta-structure includes;

a text storage component for containing text characters of said graphics view;

an HTML object array containing at least one object that is shared by a series of said text characters; and

a line array for representing a screen layout said line array including a character offset of last character in a given line, a pixel height of the line and a pointer to an entry in a line layout cache that stores selected line layouts;

wherein said formatter thread operates on and modifies only those entries of said HTML object array and said line array that have been updated by the input thread during the cursor dragging operation.

16. The browser view changing method of claim 15 wherein the browser view updating step (c) includes:

(c.1) redrawing the graphical object in real time during the cursor dragging operation; and

(c.2) formatting and redrawing text surrounding the graphical object in real time during the cursor dragging operation.

17. The browser view changing method of claim 15 wherein the browser view updating step (c) includes:

(c.1) line formatting a contiguous set of display lines having modified contents, modified margins, or modified line ends; and

(c.2) drawing the line-formatted contiguous set of display lines.

18. The browser view changing method of claim 15 wherein the browser view updating step (c) includes:

(c.1) line formatting a contiguous set of display lines having modified contents, modified margins, or modified line ends; and

(c.2) re-drawing the line-formatted contiguous set of display lines; and

(c.3) moving display lines subsequent to the redrawn contiguous set of display lines to a new screen position.

19. A computer readable storage medium comprising:

computer readable program code embodied on said computer readable storage medium, said computer readable program code being structured for instructing an instructable machine to automatically generate a descriptor language representation of a graphics presentation under development, where said machine generation of the descriptor language representation comprises;

(a) displaying a graphics view;

(b) simultaneously displaying under a same application program, a descriptor language source view corresponding to the graphics view;

(c) maintaining an optimized meta-structure for representing said graphics view, said optimized meta-structure including;

a text storage component for containing text characters of said graphics view;

an HTML object array containing at least one object that is shared by a series of said text characters; and

a line array for representing a screen layout said line array including a character offset of last character in a given line, a pixel height of the line and a pointer to an entry in a line layout cache that stores selected line layouts;

(d) receiving user input presented through the graphics view and specifying modification to the graphics view;

(e) updating the optimized meta-structure to reflect said user input and modifications to the graphics view;

(f) processing said optimized meta-structure in order to generate an updated graphics view in response to the user input specifying modification to the graphics view; and

(g) updating under control of said same application program, the descriptor language source view in response to said updating of the graphics view.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein said step (e) of updating the descriptor language source view occurs in further response to receipt of a source view synchronization cue.

21. The computer readable storage medium of claim 20 wherein the source view synchronization cue consists of a single action selection of the source view via a mouse click, or depression of a pre-designated keyboard key, or a mouse selection of a pre-designated application control button.