Advanced JAVA rich text format generator

• US 20040093560A1
• Filed: 11/12/2002
• Published: 05/13/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Communications Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Monterrosas, Andres Alfonso
• Granted Patent: US 7,222,298 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

A Java based report generator for creating advanced graphics and text documents in Rich Text Format (RTF) is disclosed. An application program may generate a RTF document in one or multiple files using the present invention to produce displays and reports that are more complex than can be produced using standard Java. The provided class definitions allows a combination of text or graphics to be generated with flexible controls for general formatting and positioning of the application data and header information. The documents can be seen from several operating systems. The report generator models the application data in a tree structure and accepts a wide variety of formatting controls to produce drawings, text boxes, application data, paragraph format controls, etc.

Claims

1. A method for generating an advanced text and graphical output where the output is created according to Rich Text Format (RTF), the method comprising the steps of:

providing a report generator having a class hierarchy which is representative of segmental structures of a RTF document;

passing application data from an application to the report generator to initialize portions of the class hierarchy;

passing format control data from the application to the report generator to initialize portions of the class hierarchy; and

creating a structured document in RTF based on the initialized portions of the class hierarchy.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of instantiating the class hierarchy.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the passing application data step comprises passing at least one of text data and graphical data.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the application data represents information produced by the application and incorporated into the RTF document, the application data including one of status information, historical information, measurement information, and message information.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the format control data comprises at least one of position information, size information, font information, color information, texture information, foreground information, page break information, bolding information, and shape information.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the structured document is a report having graphical and textual objects independent of each other.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the class hierarchy is a pre-defined class hierarchy and when instantiated comprises a ROOT node, an INFO node, a BODY node, and a TAIL node, wherein the ROOT node is the RTF document.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein:

the INFO node defines a title; and

the TAIL node is a leaf node which delimits the RTF document.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the BODY node further comprises a SECTION HEAD node.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the SECTION HEAD node further comprises at least one of a HEADINGS node and a LINK OF CONTENT node, wherein the LINKOF CONTENT node comprises one or more HYPERLINK nodes.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein the BODY node further comprises one or more instances of a SECTION node.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein at least one of the SECTION HEAD node and the one or more instances of a SECTION node further comprises one or more instances of a PARAGRAPH node.

13. The method according to claim 11, wherein the one or more instances of the SECTION node includes one or more instances of a HEADINGS node.

14. The method according to claim 12, wherein the one or more instances of a PARAGRAPH node comprises at least one of a DRAWING node, a TEXT PARAGRAPH node, and a TABLE node.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the DRAWING node includes at least one of a LINE node, POLYGON node, and a TEXTBOX node.

16. The method according to claim 14, wherein the TEXT PARAGRAGH node comprises at least one TEXT FORMAT node, wherein the at least one TEXT FORMAT node comprises at least one of a format control node for formatting text and graphics.

17. The method according to claim 14, wherein the TABLE node comprises one or more TABLE ROW nodes and wherein the one or more TABLE ROW nodes comprises one or more CELL nodes.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein the one or more CELL nodes comprises at least one of a TEXT FORMAT node, a TEXT node, and a GIFT node.

19. A method for generating an advanced text and graphical output where the output is created according to Rich Text Format (RTF), the method comprising the steps of:

providing a report generator having a class hierarchy which is representative of a RTF document structure;

instantiating the class hierarchy;

passing application data from an application to the report generator to initialize the class hierarchy;

passing format control data from the application to the report generator to initialize the class hierarchy; and

creating in at least one file a structured document in RTF format based on the initialized class hierarchy.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the class hierarchy includes a ROOT node, an INFO node, a BODY node, and a TAIL node.

21. A system for generating an advanced text and graphical output wherein the output is created according to Rich Text Format (RTF) from commands provided by the system and used by a software application program, the system comprising:

a component for instantiating a class tree structure according to a pre-defined class;

a component for initializing objects of the class tree structure with data provided by the software application program, the data indicative of report contents and format;

a component for formatting a document in RTF format based upon the initialized objects of the class tree structure; and

a component for creating one or more RTF documents in at least one file according to the contents of the initialized objects.

22. A means for generating an advanced text and graphical output wherein the output is created according to Rich Text Format (RTF) from commands executed by an application, the means comprising:

means for passing application data from the application to a report generator according to a pre-defined class hierarchy;

means for passing format control data from the application to the report generator according to a pre-defined class hierarchy; and

means for creating a document in RTF format using the application data and format control data to compose the RTF document in at least one file.

23. The means according to claim 22, wherein said means resides in one of a computer memory, a disk, floppy diskette, tape, digital video disc (DVD), and a CD-ROM.