Apple Inc.

Andrew Michael Daniels

Peter K Edberg

John I McConnell

William James Saunders

John Harvey, Iii

Yung-Fong Frank Tang

David G Opstad

Deborah Eileen Goldsmith

Andrew Wilson

An automatic method and apparatus for providing services on a computer system. A set of services is established providing different functionality for the computer system. With each of the set of services an attribute is stored for identifying characteristics of the function of each of the set of services. Then, the first set of services can be retrieved by a first set of attributes which is specified irrespective of any locales which may be defined in the computer system. Thus, characteristics or attributes of most importance to a service may be used to describe it and used for retrieval of such services. The establishing of the first set of services includes building a structure which references each of the first set of services. Retrieving may include maintaining a reference to one of the services in the structure and iterating through the structure in order to retrieve a subsequent one of the services. An iterator may be created which is used to iterate though the database of services and provide the services to application or system programs.

Retrieval of services by attribute

A font synchronization system ensures that fonts which are specified in the creation of a document are the same as those that are employed in the subsequent handling and printing of the document. Each font that is utilized within a document, or available in a printing system, is characterized by a font reference that unambiguously identifies significant features of the font. Font references associated with a document are compared with those available on a computer resource, to see if two fonts are the same in all significant respects. If the fonts are not the same, the comparison process identifies the areas of difference between them, so that a determination can be made whether such differences are critical to the appearance of the document. A number of font references are encapsulated within a font profile, to identify the fonts that are available for use within a particular environment, such as a service bureau. The font profiles can be employed by document creators to limit their choices for fonts to those which will be ultimately available when the document is printed.

Font management system that provides for synchronization of fonts among resources

Text objects having a primary data portion in which is stored text characters and associated encoding information, and an annotation portion in which is stored attribute information such as style and language identifiers, is described. The encoding information is stored within a run header in the primary data portion and both the run header and attribute header refer to the text characters to thereby define a text run. Also described are operations for manipulating the text objects of the invention and for creating and deleting annotations. The operations for manipulating the text objects of the invention include installing text within a text object, copying text in a text object, replacing text in a text object, writing text in a text object and imaging text in a text object for display.

Method and apparatus for managing text objects for providing text to be

A character code conversion system that provides round trip fidelity, while ensuring that the resulting character codes are interchangeable with other platforms. The code conversion system is able to map a single source character or a sequence of characters to either a single target character or a sequence of target characters. With round trip fidelity, source text can be converted to target text and then back again to the original source text. The interchangability is ensured by maximizing the use of standard target characters, and by minimizing the use of private characters. The code conversion is particularly useful for converting to/from Unicode characters from/to other character sets.

Unicode converter

A code conversion system that takes direction into consideration when converting characters from a source character encoding to a target character encoding is disclosed. The code conversion system is able to map a single source character or a sequence of characters to either a single target character or a sequence of target characters. By determining or resolving the direction of the characters being converted, the code conversion system can then utilize the determined or resolved direction of the characters to ensure that the correct mapping to the target character encoding is obtained.

Bidirectional code converter

A code conversion system that takes context into consideration when converting characters from a source character encoding to a target character encoding. The code conversion system is able to map a single source character or a sequence of characters to either a single target character or a sequence of target characters. By determining the context of the characters, the code conversion system can then utilize the determined context of the characters to ensure that the correct mapping to the target encoding is obtained.

Context-based code convertor

A method and apparatus in a computer system for providing localized services on a computer system. Responsive to a request from a first process requesting a first international function, a database is scanned for a first service which provides the first international function. The database is arranged by locale. If the first service does exist in a first locale in the database, then a second locale in the database is scaned for the first service. If the second locale contains the first service then the first service is retrieved and made available to the first process. Thus, services for first process may span locale boundaries in the database wherein the first process references at least two services which reside in at least two of the locales. The functions include sorting service functions, formatting service functions.

Growing community of inventors

Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

Andrew Michael Daniels