Multimedia data publishing system

• US 20060253493A1
• Filed: 04/07/2006
• Published: 11/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: OP3FT
• Original Assignee: STG Interactive
• Inventors: Grimbert, Amaury, Tamas, Alexis
• Granted Patent: US 7,774,358 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/912 Applications of a database

Abstract

This present invention concerns a multimedia data publishing system comprising a server connected to a computer network and a plurality of host terminals connected to the said computer network, where the server comprising a database in which digital files are saved containing descriptors of multimedia pages, and a program for management of the database and of the exchanges with the host terminals, the host terminals being equipped with a random access memory for temporarily saving digital files downloaded from the database of the server, and a navigation software for the visual representation of the pages relating to the descriptors of a downloaded file, characterized in that at least some digital files include descriptors of at least two visual representations of a given digital file.

Claims

1-25. -25. (canceled)

26. A multimedia data publication process comprising:

saving digital files on a server;

transmitting the digital files to a host terminal, in accordance with queries emitted by navigation software on the host terminal; and

displaying a page corresponding to the digital file;

wherein the digital files are saved on the server in the form of a single file for each page displayed, and wherein each of the files includes;

a definition of resources intended to be represented during the display on the host terminal, the resources being defined independently of their dimension, positioning, orientation, and processing and graphical effects;

a definition of the shape of a page display window on the host terminal by a combination of graphical shapes, the graphical shapes each being constructed from one or more resources;

a description of a graphical organization of content of the page by superimposition of graphical contents, where each of the graphical contents are constructed from one or more resources;

interactive buttons;

elements relating to reloading the page displayed, and loading a new page and the elements used to control relations between the host terminal and the server on which the digital file is saved,

the display of the page being carried out by the navigation software installed on the host terminal according to the content of the single digital file transmitted by the server, and to specific settings chosen by a user allowing the display with a plurality of visual representations for each of the pages.

27. The process according to claim 26, wherein the pages are grouped into sets of pages that include a home page that can be accessed via a single address through the navigation software, with the other pages of a set being accessible only through information contained in the home page or in another page of the set.

28. The process according to claim 26, wherein the navigation software includes a complete Unicode character font which is independent of character fonts held on the host terminal.

29. The process according to claim 26, wherein displaying the page by the navigation software includes a representation or omission of certain graphical contents of the page and inclusion or omission of selected graphical shapes of the page, depending on interpreted data of the digital file and specific settings chosen by the user.

30. The process according to claim 26, wherein selected graphical contents constituting an interactive button on the page have conditions of representation or omission according to interpreted data of the digital file and a position indicated by a pointing device in relation to a zone of the interactive button on the page.

31. The process according to claim 26, wherein the digital file includes an identifier which the navigation software sends to the server in a query to display a new page, allowing one to create, maintain or progress through a session.

32. The process according to claim 31, wherein the navigation software allows the identifier to be preserved in memory on closure of a page display window.

33. The process according to claim 26, wherein the digital file includes a description of an image resource saved on the server containing the digital file, the image resource being saved in a specific format and transmitted by the serve to the host terminal according to a query emitted by the navigation software.

34. The process according to claim 33, wherein the digital file includes instructions controlling loading into cache memory or deletion from cache memory of the image resource on the host terminal.

35. The process according to claim 34, wherein the digital file includes instructions controlling transmission of information by the navigation software to an external server.

36. The process according to claim 26, wherein the navigation software controls simultaneous display of several distinct sets of pages in different display windows.

37. The process according to claim 26, wherein the navigation software controls display of a page display window on top of windows of other applications open on the host terminal.

38. The process according to claim 26, wherein component elements of the page are described, during construction of the digital file, by:

pixels and a geometrical appearance for images, graphical shapes defined by parameters and sequences of Unicode characters for the text;

a relative dimension and position of each of the elements in relation to a page display window;

instructions concerning processing and effects to be performed on the resources, graphical shapes and graphical contents, when displaying the page;

conditions for representation, inclusion or omission of the elements,

where the elements are fully described in the digital file, and the digital file contains all layout and formatting rules without resorting to additional files.

39. The process according to claim 26, wherein displaying the page by the navigation software comprising constructing a display of content of the page and of a shape of a page display window, by calculating position, dimension and orientation of the graphical contents and the graphical shapes, their superimposition and their combination, in relation to a dimension of the page display window, and by application of processing and effects corresponding to the instructions, where the calculations, processing and effects are refreshed during re-dimensioning of the page display window.

40. The process according to claim 39, further comprising stages for pre-calculation of the data for reference dimensions, and for re-sampling, by interpolation, for the intermediate display dimensions.

41. The process according to claim 39, wherein the elements can be recalculated conditionally according to events on the host terminal, such as passage of a cursor of a pointing device to modify appearance of one or more elements described in the page, in an interactive manner.

42. A multimedia data publishing system comprising:

a server connected to a computer network;

a plurality of host terminals connected to the computer network, the host terminals being equipped with a random access memory for temporarily saving a digital file and associated resources downloaded from the server; and

navigation software for visual representation of pages,

wherein each of the pages corresponds to a single digital file that includes;

a definition of the resources intended to be represented during the display on the host terminal, the resources being defined independently of their dimension, positioning, orientation and processing and graphical effects;

a definition of the shape of a page display window on the host terminal by a combination of graphical shapes, where the graphical shapes are each constructed from one or more resources;

a description of a graphical organization of the content of the page by superimposition of graphical contents, where each of the graphical contents is constructed from one or more resources;

interactive buttons;

elements relating to reloading the page displayed, and loading a new page and the elements used to control relations between the host terminal and the server on which the digital file is saved,

the display of the page being carried out by the navigation software installed on the host terminal according to the content of the single digital file transmitted by the server, and to specific settings chosen by a user allowing the display with a plurality of visual representations for each of the pages.

43. The system according to claim 42, wherein one of the visual representations corresponds to a representation producing a display of the page with greater dimensions than that of a second representation included in the same digital file.

44. The system according to claim 42, wherein the digital file corresponding to a page also includes resources for switching between different visual representations included in the same file.

45. The system according to claim 44, wherein the switching resource is composed of detection of an action on a key of a pointing device, when the latter designates an inactive zone of a representation generated by the digital file.

46. The system according to claim 42, wherein the digital file contains descriptors of geometrical shape of a display area of the representation.

47. The system according to claim 42, wherein the files contain descriptors for loading and automatically representing at least one other page.

48. The system according to claim 42, wherein the files contain descriptors for loading and representing a plurality of interactive layers represented in a common display area.

49. The system according to claim 42, wherein the content base is composed of content files or digital files having a structure that includes at least one of:

a window opening tag;

a tag preceding a zone containing instructions for calling resources in memory;

a tag preceding a zone containing instructions for processing the resources;

one or more tags preceding a zone containing descriptions of the visual objects; and

a closure tag.

50. The system according to claim 49, wherein each file includes a single description tag of associated visual objects (resources), and descriptions of objects include conditional appearance indicators, where the indicators correspond to visual representations.