Digital Equipment Corporation

Andrew D Brown

Jeffrey A Senn

Peter Lucas

Peter Lucus

A computer controlled information management system is disclosed, including one or more documents. Documents in the system consist of attributes, each attribute having a name and a value. Attributes that are permanently stored with a document are permanent attributes. Attributes which are created only when a document is currently being displayed are ephemeral attributes. Ephemeral attributes store information regarding the visual display of the documents. Ephemeral attributes may be converted into permanent attributes and stored with the documents after the user is done referencing or modifying them. Ephemeral attributes may also be transferred between multiple simultaneous users of a common document through system communications channels. Documents are stored in repositories for long term storage, and are only sent to a client user interface when needed. The repositories are typically on server devices or secondary storage, but may also be in the same unit as the server. Ephemeral attributes may be converted into permanent attributes and stored with their associated documents in the repositories.

Document display system using documents having ephemeral attributes for

A system for retrieval of documents in a client-server environment is disclosed. The system provides compatibility between an attribute based document display system and diverse query languages within remote document repositories. The system includes a local process running on a client module, and a remote process running within each document repository. Each remote process is designed for the particular model of computer used for the server. Each remote process executes a System Query Language (SQL) used by a particular database program running on the server. A particular server may have several database programs implemented thereon, and each database program has a dedicated remote process, where the remote process is matched to the particular database program. The local process on the user's workstation launches inquiries in a first format on the network. Each remote process receiving an inquiry translates the received inquiry into the System Query Language required by its server and its database program. When the database program returns a response to the System Query language inquiry, the remote process translates the response into the first format, and returns the response to the local process by transmitting a reply over the network.

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New York, NY, United States of America

Andrew D Brown