Digital system for organizing diverse information

• US 8,751,918 B2
• Filed: 04/17/2008
• Issued: 06/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sirius-Beta Corporation
• Original Assignee: EARL Industries LLC
• Inventors: Goranson, Ted, Schachman, Tobias
• Primary Examiner(s): Hutton, Jr., Doung
• Assistant Examiner(s): Garmon, Brian
• Application Number:
  US12/105,143
• Publication Number:
  US 20080288856A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,245 Days
• Field of Search: 715/208, 715/760, 707/702, 707/726
• US Class Current: 715/208
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking

Abstract

A system for creating links among diverse elements in order to convey a variety of logical relationships. The system uses a unique approach to browser development in order to allow for the delayed transformation of data which has undergone either a change to its actual value, or a change in its relationship to other data. Linked data is left unevaluated until a user desires to view the data through a user interface. This delayed evaluation conserves bandwidth and system resources, and further enables the system to more efficiently create, organize, and maintain relationships between large volumes of diverse elements.

Claims

1. A method for organizing diverse data within a computer processing environment comprising:

entering diverse data into a computer processing environment;

forming a plurality of composite type-links, the formation comprising;

designating a source element by an address string that is a pointer to an eXtensible Markup Language node;

designating a target element by an address string that is a pointer to an eXtensible Markup Language node;

creating a type-link that relates the source element to the target element by an address string that is a pointer to an eXtensible Markup Language node;

defining characteristics of the type-link that define how changes to the source element and target element impact the target element and source element, respectively;

defining characteristics of the type-link, and

propagating changes between the source elements and the target elements by conducting delayed eXtensible Stylesheet Language transformations, wherein changes indicated by composite type-links are not evaluated until there is a change to a source element corresponding to a respective type-link, and the kernel will only re-compute eXtensible Stylesheet Language transformations dependent on the source element corresponding to the respective type-link, and

wherein, for at least a first one of the plurality of composite type-links, the respective source element is a type-link of at least a second one of the plurality of composite type-links.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein at least a portion of the diverse data is html formatted data pulled from an internet source.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the defining characteristics of the type-link comprises accessing a context control menu and selecting a pre-configured type-link configuration.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein designating at least one of the source element and the target element comprises hovering a pointer over an expansion control to expand an outline, thereby exposing at least one of the source element and the target element.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising re-defining the configuration of the type-link by hovering a pointer over the type-link to induce the appearance of a type-link menu for selecting an alternative type-link configuration.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising viewing a composite type-link of the plurality of composite type-links by conducting a user-definable action to activate a composite type-link viewing mode for selecting, modifying, and deleting composite type-links.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising sorting the composite type-link viewing mode by at least one of type-link type, type-link author, type-link creation date, type-link modification date, type-link priority, and type-link relationship to other type-links.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising viewing a composite type-link of the plurality of composite type-links by conducting a user-definable action to activate a composite type-link outline viewing mode for selecting, modifying, and deleting composite type-links.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining a system of type-link indicators for placing with at least one of the source elements and the target elements, the type-link indicators enabling identification of the composite type-link when at least one of the source elements and target elements are not visible on a user interface.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising organizing the diverse data into an outline.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein changes indicated by the composite type-link are not evaluated until there is a user selection of a source element corresponding to a type-link.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

forming at least one composite type-link that is a complex composite type-link comprising;

designating a first composite type-link that is the source element;

designating a second composite type-link that is the target element; and

creating a type-link relating the first composite type-link and the second composite type-link.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the forming at least one composite type-link that is a complex composite type-link comprises designating one of the composite type-links to have a first configuration type, and designating the second of the composite type-links to have a second configuration type.

14. A computerized system for organizing diverse data within a computer processing environment comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a plurality of composite type-links, each composite type-link comprising;

a source element;

a target element;

a type-link for relating the source element to the target element wherein the type-link has user-definable parameters, and wherein a user-elected relationship defines how changes to the source element and target element are made based on changes made to the target element and source element, respectively,

wherein each of the source element, the target element, and the type-link is an address string that is a pointer to an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) node;

a processor providing a user interface for displaying the plurality of composite type-links on a display device; and

a kernel that propagates changes between the source elements and the target elements, and conducts delayed eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) transformations wherein changes indicated by composite type-links are not evaluated until there is a change to a source element corresponding to a respective type-link, and the kernel will only re-compute the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) transformations dependent on the source element corresponding to the respective type-link,

wherein, for at least a first one of the plurality of composite type-links, the respective source element is a type-link of at least a second one of the plurality of composite type-links.

15. The system as in claim 14 further comprising a kernel, the kernel further comprising:

a type-link cache for retrieving all the type-links to or from the source elements and the target elements, and

a plurality of separate type-link caches for retrieving all the type-links to or from a given element.

16. The system as in claim 14 wherein the changes to the source elements or target elements are effected by an eXtensible Markup Language element for delayed evaluation, the element being saved to enable future propagation of changes.

17. The system as in claim 14 wherein the user interface for displaying the composite type-links displays information in both eXtensible HyperText Markup Language and Scalable Vector Graphics.

18. The system as in claim 14 further comprising user action commands.

19. The system as in claim 14 further comprising:

a display for

displaying a plurality of panes each containing source elements and target elements in an outline,

displaying type-links as lines between the source elements and the target elements,

and displaying a type-link menu containing type-link categories based on the characteristics of a pane,

wherein, when there are multiple type-links between source elements and target element, the display is configured to display an indication of the multiple type-links; and

event listeners designed to capture a user'"'"'s interaction with the user interface, wherein, when a user selects a type-link category from the type-link menu, the system is configured to display a prompt for entry of parameters.

20. The system as in claim 14 further comprising a transformation for forming the composite type-link.

21. The system as in claim 14 wherein at least one of the source element and the target element exists in an outline.

22. The system as in claim 14 wherein at least one composite type-link is a complex composite type-link comprising:

a first composite type-link that is the source element;

a second composite type-link that is the target element;

and a type-link relating the first composite type-link and the second composite type-link.

23. The system as in claim 22 wherein the complex composite type-link structure comprises multiple dependent composite type-links, and wherein the multiple dependent composite type-links undergo delayed evaluation.