Method for extracting digests, reformatting, and automatic monitoring of structured online documents based on visual programming of document tree navigation and transformation

Abstract

A method for extracting digests, reformatting, and automatic monitoring of structured online documents based on visual programming of document tree navigation and transformation is provided for structured online documents such as HTML, XML, SGML document, or any other document that has internal structure that can be represented by a tree A digest of an online document is a collection of fragments of this document which are of interest to a user. The system is based on a technique whereby a user selects a fragment of an online document shown in a source window and copies this fragment to the target window that contains the reformatted digest. The system generates a sequence of web site navigation commands, online document tree navigation commands, and “Copy Fragment” commands that cause the assembly of the reformatted digest in the target window. The user can later ask the system to replay the generated commands, thus causing automatic creation of the reformatted digest of the changed version of the online document. Therefore, when content of the original document changes, the change is automatically propagated to the digest document. This allows implementation of a simple automatic monitoring of online documents or their reformatted digests. The digest document is usually much smaller than the original document, and usually it does not contain computationally intensive and bandwidth intensive multimedia elements such as graphics, sounds, applets, and scripts. This considerably lowers the bandwidth and processing power requirements for user agents that display document digests. Therefore digest documents can be displayed by user agents running on wireless and portable computing devices that have bandwidth and computational power limitations.

The invention is claimed as follows:  
     
         1 . A method for extracting digests from structured online documents and monitoring the said digests, comprising the steps of: 
 recording the script that consists of commands that include loading the online document in the source window, navigating the three of the source online document, and copying fragment of the online document to the target window;    saving the script in a computer-readable medium; and    replaying the script using a computer to automatically generate an updated target document from an updated source document.    
     
     
         2 . A method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the structured online document from which information is to be extracted include any document that has hierarchical internal structure that can be represented by a tree.  
     
     
         3 . A method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein method employs a visual programming technique.  
     
     
         4 . A method as claimed in  claim 3 , wherein the visual programming technique provides for at least two windows being logically present for each script: a first window as a source window and a second window as target window.  
     
     
         5 . A method as claimed in  claim 4 , wherein at time of script recording user can select a fragment of a source online document shown in a source window by clicking the said fragment and to request creation of a script that finds the selected fragment in the current and subsequent versions of the source document.  
     
     
         6 . A method as claimed in  claim 5 , wherein at the script creation time a sequence of commands that comprise the script that extracts the selected source document fragment is generated.  
     
     
         7 . A method as claimed in  claim 6 , wherein the generated sequence of commands includes document tree navigation commands that lead from the root node of the source document tree to the node of the source document tree that represents the fragment selected by user.  
     
     
         8 . A method as claimed in  claim 7 , wherein the generated sequence of commands further includes “Copy Fragment” command that causes transfer of contents of the selected source document fragment from the source window to the target window.  
     
     
         9 . A method as claimed in  claim 8 , wherein the visual programming technique allows for replaying of the memorized commands at a subsequent time to automatically create a digest of a new version of the specified online document.  
     
     
         10 . A method as claimed in  claim 9 , wherein the digest is typically smaller than the source online document from which it is made, and the digest is a fragment of a course document that is typically made by the user to omit unnecessary and irrelevant graphics and text elements often present in online document.  
     
     
         11 . A method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the script can be automatically replayed at predetermined time intervals.  
     
     
         12 . A method as claimed in  claim 1 , further comprising during the step of recording of commands to form a script, identifying a portion of at least one further structured document to be copied to the target document and identifying a placeholder in the target document to which the said fragment is to be copied.  
     
     
         13 . A method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the copied document fragment is represented by a node in a tree that represents a structured online document.  
     
     
         14 . A method as claimed in  claim 1 , further comprising during the step of recording of commands to form a script, recording navigation commands that navigate the structured document browser to the source structured document.  
     
     
         15 . A method for extracting digests from structured online documents, and automatic monitoring of the said digests based on visual programming of document tree navigation and transformation, whereby structured online document is any document that can be stored in a computer and that has a hierarchical structure that can be represented by a tree, comprising the steps of: 
 recording of commands to form a script that identifies a fragment of a structured document to be copied from source document to target document;    saving the said script in a computer-readable medium; and    replaying the script using a computer to automatically generate an updated target document from an updated source document.    
     
     
         16 . A method as claimed in  claim 15 , wherein a technique is provided whereby for each script at least two windows are logically present: a first window as a source window and a second window as a target window, and wherein the technique allows a user to select a fragment of an online document shown in a source window and to create a script that copies the selected fragment to the target window.  
     
     
         17 . A method as claimed in  claim 16 , wherein the technique generates a sequence of the source document tree navigation commands that lead from the root node of the source document tree to the node of the source document tree that represents the document fragment selected by user.  
     
     
         18 . A method as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the technique further includes “Copy Fragment” commands that cause the assembly of a document digest in the target window.  
     
     
         19 . A method as claimed in  claim 18 , wherein the technique enables replaying of the memorized commands at a subsequent time to create a digest of a new version of the specified online document.  
     
     
         20 . A method as claimed in  claim 19 , further comprising during the step of recording of commands to form a script, identifying a portion of at least one further structured source document to be copied to the target document.