Strategies for simultaneous peripheral operations on-line using hierarchically structured job information

• US 8,363,232 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2004
• Issued: 01/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sedky, Khaled S., Yue, Feng, Singh, Harvinder P., Foehr, Oliver H., Emerson, Daniel F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Rudolph, Vincent
• Application Number:
  US10/938,476
• Publication Number:
  US 20050249536A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,063 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 358/1.13
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2206/1514 Sub-job
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1203 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. print management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1206 resulting in increased flexibility in input data format or job format or job type
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1244 Job translation or job parsing, e.g. page banding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1246 by handling markup languages, e.g. XSL, XML, HTML
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1276 within a printer driver, e.g. driver resides either on a server or on a client

Abstract

Spooling strategies are described for producing job information that conforms to a hierarchical structure, and then storing the job information in a spool storage. The job information is then retrieved from the spool storage and consumed. The structured job information includes a multi-level hierarchy of nodes, including a job level that represents the entire job, a document level that represents a document to be processed within the job; a rendition level that represents a rendition of the document to be processed; and a page level that represents a page associated with the rendition. The hierarchical structure can also include resource nodes and metadata nodes associated with any level of the hierarchy, respectively representing resources and metadata. The hierarchy can optionally be composed using one or more selection and sequence parts. Program logic implements the production and consumption of the job information by providing a collection of logic modules for selectively adding and retrieving elements to the hierarchically structure. The program logic also provides logic for enumerating the contents of the job information and for signaling the occurrence of various events associated with the processing of the job information.

Claims

1. A computer readable memory device, comprising:

a data structure stored on said computer readable memory device, said data structure specifying job information to be processed by a spooling module, the data structure including a plurality of nodes organized into a hierarchical arrangement representing different aspects of the job information, the plurality of nodes in a format that is consumable by the spooling module without further conversion, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise;

at least one job node located as the top-most node of the hierarchical arrangement representing an entire job to be processed by the spooling module;

a plurality of rendition nodes in a format that is consumable by the spooling module and representing renditions of a document to be processed by the spooling module, each rendition comprising a different version of the document, and wherein the plurality of rendition nodes comprising at least a black and white rendition node or a color node, a language node, a page size rendition node, a content type rendition node, and a font type rendition node; and

at least one selector node that functions to select among at least two aspects of the job information.

2. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise at least one document node representing the document to be processed by the spooling module.

3. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise at least one page node representing a page to be processed by the spooling module.

4. The computer readable memory device of claim 3, wherein said at least one page node comprises a fixed page node that defines a page subject to prescribed rules.

5. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise at least one resource node representing a resource to be processed by the spooling module.

6. The computer readable memory device of claim 5, wherein at least one node in the hierarchy represents an aspect of the job information that utilizes the resource represented by said least one resource node, and wherein said at least one node that utilizes the resource comprises reference information that links to said at least one resource node.

7. The computer readable memory device of claim 6, wherein the reference information comprises Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is stored as metadata associated with said at least one node that utilizes the resource.

8. The computer readable memory device of claim 5, wherein the resource node represents a common resource that can be shared by at least one other node in the data structure.

9. The computer readable memory device of claim 5, wherein the resource node represents an image resource to be processed by the spooling module.

10. The computer readable memory device of claim 5, wherein the resource node represents a font resource to be processed by the spooling module.

11. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the job information comprises metadata associated with at least one node in the data structure.

12. The computer readable memory device of claim 11, wherein the metadata comprises reference information which links said at least one node to another node in the data structure.

13. The computer readable memory device of claim 12, wherein said other node is associated with a resource.

14. The computer readable memory device of claim 11, wherein the metadata comprises ticket information which defines a manner in which at least part of the job information is to be processed upon consumption.

15. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise at least one sequence node that functions to bind together at least two aspects of the job information.

16. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise at least one fixed panel node that functions to bind together at least two pages of the job information in a manner subject to prescribed rules.

17. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise:

at least one job node representing an entire job to be processed by the spooling module;

at least one document node representing the document to be processed, within the job, by the spooling module; and

at least one page node representing a page associated with the rendition to be processed by the spooling module.

18. The computer readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise at least one resource node associated with at least one of:

said at least one job node;

said at least one document node;

said at least one rendition node;

or

said at least one page node.

19. The computer readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the job information comprises metadata associated with at least one of:

said at least one job node;

said at least one document node;

said at least one rendition node;

or

said at least one page node.

20. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise:

at least one selector node that functions to select among at least two aspects of the job information;

at least one sequence node that functions to bind together at least two aspects of the job information;

at least one fixed panel node that functions to bind together at least two pages of the job information in a manner subject to prescribed rules; and

at least one fixed page node that defines a page subject to prescribed rules.

21. The computer readable memory device of claim 1, wherein the computer readable memory device is a spool storage device.

22. A computer implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a spooling module, an input data structure comprising job information from an application, the input data structure having a particular format;

processing the input data structure, on a processing device programmed by a spooling module of the computer, to generate an output data structure including a plurality of nodes organized into a hierarchical arrangement representing different aspects of the job information, the plurality of nodes in a format that is consumable by the spooling module without further conversion, and the nodes comprise;

a plurality of rendition nodes representing renditions of a document to be processed by the spooling module, wherein a first rendition comprises a first version of a document and a second rendition comprises a second version of the document, and wherein the plurality of rendition nodes comprising at least a black and white rendition node or a color rendition node, a language rendition node, a page size rendition node, a content type rendition node, and a font type rendition node; and

sending the output data structure from the processing, the output data structure being in the particular format of the input data structure.

23. The computer implemented method of claim 22, wherein the processing is responsive to the nodes, and the nodes comprise:

at least one job node representing an entire job to be processed by the spooling module;

at least one document node representing the document to be processed, within the job, by the spooling module;

or

at least one page node representing a page associated with the rendition to be processed by the spooling module.

24. The computer implemented method of claim 23, wherein the nodes comprise at least one resource node associated with at least one of:

said at least one job node;

said at least one document node;

said at least one rendition node;

or said at least one page node.

25. The computer implemented method of claim 23, wherein the nodes comprise at least one metadata node associated with at least one of:

said at least one job node;

said at least one document node;

said at least one rendition node;

or said at least one page node.

26. The computer implemented method of claim 22, wherein the nodes comprise:

at least one selector node that functions to select among at least two aspects of the job information;

at least one sequence node that functions to bind together at least two aspects of the job information;

at least one fixed panel node that functions to bind together at least two pages of the job information in a manner subject to prescribed rules;

or

at least one fixed page node that defines a page subject to prescribed rules.

27. A system comprising:

a memory;

multiple spooling entities, wherein each of the spooling entities function to consume a package of job information via a processor coupled to the memory;

an application module coupled to the spooling entities for editing one or more documents and converting the document into the package of job information;

a spool storage for storing the package of job information on the memory;

the package of job information stored in the spool storage includes a plurality of nodes organized into a hierarchical arrangement representing different aspects of the job information, the plurality of nodes in a format that is consumable by the spooling entities without further conversion and the nodes comprising;

at least one job node located as the top-most node of the hierarchical arrangement representing an entire job to be processed by the spooling entity;

at least one document node representing a document of the one or more documents to be processed within the job;

a plurality of rendition nodes for each document node, the rendition nodes representing renditions of the document to be processed by the spooling entity, wherein each rendition comprises a different version of the document, the plurality of rendition nodes comprising at least a black and white rendition node, a color rendition node, a first language rendition node, a second language rendition node, a first page size rendition node, a second page size rendition node, a first content type rendition node, a second content type rendition node, a first font type rendition node, and a second font type rendition node;

the package of job information further comprising rendition node pairs, the rendition node pairs representing a color aspect including a black and white mode and a color mode, a language aspect including a first language and a second language, a page size aspect including a first page size and a second page size, a content aspect including a first content type and a second content type, and a font aspect including a first font type and a second font type; and

a selector node that functions to select among the aspects of the rendition node pairs.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the nodes comprise:

at least one page node representing a page associated with the rendition to be processed by the spooling module.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the nodes comprise at least one resource node associated with at least one of:

said at least one job node;

said at least one document node;

said at least one rendition node;

or

said at least one page node.

30. The system of claim 28, wherein the nodes comprise at least one metadata node associated with at least one of:

said at least one job node;

said at least one document node;

said at least one rendition node;

or

said at least one page node.

31. The system of claim 27, wherein the nodes comprise:

at least one sequence node that functions to bind together at least two aspects of the job information;

at least one fixed panel node that functions to bind together at least two pages of the job information in a manner subject to prescribed rules;

or

at least one fixed page node that defines a page subject to prescribed rules.

32. The system of claim 27, wherein the nodes comprise:

at least one sequence node that functions to bind together at least two aspects of the job information;

at least one fixed panel node that functions to bind together at least two pages of the job information in a manner subject to prescribed rules; and

at least one fixed page node that defines a page subject to prescribed rules.