Borland International, Inc.

Inprise Corporation

Conrad Herrmann

Lloyd Tabb

Randolph T Solton

Raymond S Kiuchi

A development system is described which provides a form-based development environment for partitioning an application such that it can be seamlessly integrated into corporate Webs (i.e., 'intranets'). A form is implemented as an 'application page' and published as an ActiveX object. Specifically, a new 'application' page MIME type is defined: application/x-appdoc. This contains information necessary to create a document (e.g., Microsoft ActiveX Document) locally but, in addition, also includes information necessary to find and download the program code for rendering the view of the document. If the program code is already present locally, it need only be downloaded for purpose of updating the local copy. Once a form is built into an ActiveX object and digitally signed, it can be downloaded to a client and run in a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

System for internet-based delivery of computer applications

A system of the present invention includes a relational database management system (RDBMS) having a hypertext report writing module. Methods are described for automatically recognizing relations between reports which are generated from the same or related database tables. The system automatically embeds (or assists the user in embedding) appropriate hypertext links so that information from one report may be cross-referenced immediately with information in another, related report. Drill-down hypertext reports of increasing level of detail are illustrated. In addition to drill-down reports, the system may create comprehensive hypertext reports for automatically tying together information which is related through underlying table relations but which ordinarily appears in different reports. By automatically placing hypertext links or cross-indexes between reports, the system ties together relatable information into a single, cross-indexed hypertext report.

Methods for hypertext reporting in a relational database management

A client/server system providing methods of utilizing information stored locally on a client even after the client has modified data on the server is described. A client stores data from the server in a local 'read-only' buffer(s), to speed up access to the data and reduce network traffic. Since the buffer is treated as a 'read only' buffer, no locks are taken out at the server by the client. Accesses to particular data records are satisfied by looking first to the local buffer or cache. The client may proceed to modify the data records and commit changes back to the server. Moreover, the client updates or 'writes through' the 'read-only' buffer(s) with the changes so that the local buffer remains valid. The methods of updating data stored locally on the client provide significant performance increases as the client does not have to refresh data from the server.

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Soquel, CA, United States of America

Conrad Herrmann