Image file management apparatus and method, program, and storage medium

• US 7,448,001 B2
• Filed: 08/25/2005
• Issued: 11/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Miyazaki, Shigeyuki, Kitamaru, Yoshinobu
• Primary Examiner(s): BAUTISTA, XIOMARA L
• Application Number:
  US11/210,778
• Publication Number:
  US 20060044416A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,167 Days
• Field of Search: 715/719, 715/764, 715/822, 715/823, 715/835, 715/838, 715/853, 715/854, 707/1, 707/104.1, 707/200, 707/205
• US Class Current: 715/853
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

An object of this invention is to easily identify an image file transferred from an image input apparatus and saved in an image file management apparatus. In an image file management method of saving an image file transferred from an image input apparatus in a folder created in accordance with the photographing date information of the image file, when transferred image files include one kind of photographing date, one kind of folder to save the image files is displayed on a screen as a current folder. When a plurality of kinds of photographing dates are present, a folder of an upper hierarchy which includes a plurality of folders created in correspondence with the plurality of kinds of photographing dates is displayed on the screen as the current folder.

Claims

1. An image file management apparatus for saving a plurality of image files in accordance with attribute information of the image files in response to a saving operation of the plurality of image files, comprising:

a saving unit configured to save the plurality of image files in accordance with attribute information of the image files;

a setting unit configured to automatically set a folder as a selected folder in accordance with a saving destination of the saved image files;

a display control unit configured to control to distinguishably display the folder, which is set as the selected folder by said setting unit, on a screen,

wherein in response to saving the plurality of image files in one folder, in accordance with attribute information of the image files, said setting unit sets the one folder as the selected folder, and in response to saving the plurality of image files in a plurality of folders, in accordance with attribute information of the image files, said setting unit sets a folder of an upper hierarchy which includes the plurality of folders as the selected folder.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the attribute information of the image file is photographing date information.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image files are image files input from an image input apparatus.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein images input from the image input apparatus are displayed on the screen so as to discriminate the image from another image.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein all images saved in the image file management apparatus are displayed.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the folder of the upper hierarchy which includes the plurality of folders is a folder common to hierarchies above the plurality of folders.

7. An image file management method of saving a plurality of image files in accordance with attribute information of the image files, in response to a saving operation of the plurality of image files, comprising:

saving the plurality of image files in accordance with attribute information of the image files;

automatically setting a folder as a selected folder in accordance with a saving destination of the saved image files;

controlling to distinguishably display the folder, which is set as the selected folder, on a screen,

wherein in response to saving the plurality of image files in one folder, in accordance with attribute information of the image files, the one folder is set as the selected folder, and in response to saving the plurality of image files in a plurality of folders, in accordance with attribute information of the image files, a folder of an upper hierarchy which includes the plurality of folders is set as the selected folder.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the attribute information of the image files is photographing date information.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the image files is an image files input from an image input apparatus.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein images input from the image input apparatus is displayed on the screen so as to discriminate the image from another image.

11. The method according to claim 7, wherein all images saved in the image file management apparatus are displayed.

12. The method according to claim 7, wherein the folder of the upper hierarchy which includes the plurality of folders is a folder common to hierarchies above the plurality of folders.

13. A computer-executable program stored on a computer-readable storage medium, said computer-executable program being executable by a computer so as to control the computer to execute an image file management method of claim 7.

14. A computer-readable storage medium storing a computer-executable program of claim 13.