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Desktop, stream-based, information management system

  • US 7,849,105 B2
  • Filed: 03/14/2008
  • Issued: 12/07/2010
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/28/1996
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A method of operating a computer system comprising:

  • providing the computer system with documents in respective formats according to respective different applications through which the provided documents are generated or modified, which formats differ from one of the documents to another for at least some of the provided documents, said provided documents being delivered to the computer system or generated by the computer system;

    said computer system being configured to automatically generate and store in computer storage respective representations of said documents provided thereto, thereby forming a main collection of document representations corresponding to a man collection of said documents;

    said computer system automatically generating and storing said main collection of document representations without requiring the user to designate a directory structure, a physical location for storage of document representations of corresponding documents, or another pre-imposed document categorization structure for each of said document representations or documents;

    selectively displaying on a computer screen graphical depictions of only a portion of the main collection of document representations, corresponding to only a portion of the main collection of documents, wherein the displayed graphical depictions of only a portion of said main collection of document representations comprise a display of partly overlapping, receding graphical depictions of document representations;

    said automatically generated and stored document representations being in an essentially consistent format despite differences in format from one to another of the documents corresponding thereto;

    said automatically generated and stored representations of said documents including respective automatically generated time indicators associated with the documents corresponding to said representations;

    said automatically generated and stored main collection of document representations being unbounded in time and size and being configured to include documents associated with time indicators related to future times as well as to past and present times;

    said automatically generated and stored main collection of document representations requiring no fixed beginning or end and being non-transitory and selectively searchable by the computer system;

    said computer system automatically maintaining the main collection of document representations live, dynamic and persistent by being responsive to subsequent events to expand said main collection of document representations by automatically generating and incorporating therein, in said computer storage, additional document representations of additional documents corresponding thereto that are subsequently delivered to or generated by the computer system;

    said additional document representations also including automatically generated respective time indicators associated with the subsequently delivered or generated documents;

    providing selected search criteria;

    causing said computer system to search at least one of said main collection of document representations and said main collection of documents according to said search criteria, to provide search results, and to utilize said search results to generate a sub-collection of document representations related to a respective sub-collection of documents that comprise a subset of the main collection of documents;

    said computer system automatically maintaining said sub-collection of document representations live, dynamic and persistent, and being responsive to subsequent events to expand said sub-collection of document representations by automatically incorporating therein document representations of documents that are subsequently delivered to or generated by the computer system and meet said search criteria;

    selectively displaying on a computer screen graphical depictions of only a portion of the sub-collection of document representations, corresponding to only a portion of said sub-collection of documents, wherein the displayed graphical depictions of said portion of said sub-collection of document representations comprise a display of partly overlapping, receding graphical depictions;

    automatically showing on the display screen a display of a glance view of a displayed graphical depiction while showing other displayed graphical depictions as a display of partly overlapping and receding graphical depictions;

    said glance view being an abbreviated version of the document representation or document corresponding to the graphical depiction and being indicative of content thereof; and

    said showing of the glance view occurring in response to a user designation, with an input device, of a screen area associated with the graphical depiction, without requiring dwelling of a cursor for at least about a second on a selected area of the screen associated with the currently displayed collection or sub-collection of graphical depictions in order to enable said showing of the glance view.

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