Xerox Corporation

James P Dourish

Warren Keith Edwards

Anthony George LaMarca

Michael P Salisbury

John Ogden Lamping

James Douglass Thornton

Douglas Brian Terry

Karin Petersen

Marvin Michael Theimer

Daniel C Swinehart

Michael F Salisbury

Karin Peterson

Anthony G Lamarca

Mark Spiteri

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents according to properties attached to the documents. Applications which function based on hierarchical path names communicate to the document management system through a translator. A tag is inserted into the path of a document to identify the document and represent a dynamic collection. The same tag is inserted into the path of files which support the document so that the supporting files are related to the document by the path tag. In this manner, the document management system identifies and locates all documents which are related to each other based on the tag. Thus, an application is provided with all related files even though the application may not know where the files are actually stored or retrieved from.

Tagging related files in a document management system

An active annotation mechanism detects annotations on a document which may be in the form of in-line annotations and out-of-band annotations, which may be inputted through a variety of input devices. The active annotation mechanism detects the annotations added to a document and determines whether the annotation of the document requires further action or whether the annotation is simply commentaries on the text, a note of other related items, etc. When it is determined that annotations require further action, the annotation is detected. The active annotation will carry an indication of an activity to be carried out, or a parameter that configures the activity, or both. The active annotation which has been detected, is then carried out by the document management system.

Active annotation mechanism for document management systems

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents according to properties attached to the documents. A property attachment mechanism allows an application to attach arbitrary static and active properties to a document. The active properties include executable code which perform document management functions to control the state and behavior of the document in response to a triggering event. In this manner, the state and behavior of the document is provided to a user and is accurately maintained even when the application is not running.

Extending application behavior through active properties attached to a document in a document management system

Epidemic-style update communications facilities are used in conjunction with multicast update communications facilities in weakly-consistent, replicated data storage systems. Epidemic-style communications handle a wide variety of failures at multiple levels of the system using a single, very robust, but also relatively high-latency mechanism. Multicast communication offers much quicker propagation but less fault tolerance using a different mechanism. The epidemic-style communications and multicast communications, combined for use in weakly consistent replicated database systems obtain a design that offers the benefits of both individual approaches.

Multicast-enhanced update propagation in a weakly-consistant, replicated data storage system

A virtual document generated within the environment of a document management system. The document management system provides for the separation of the document content from properties which describe the content. Bit providers are implemented to retrieve the content for a document in a manner such that the document is unaware of the location of the content which is retrieved. Generation of a virtual document recognizes that a one-to-one correlation between a document and the contents which make up that document are not required. Therefore, content for a single DMS document may be dispersed across numerous storage repositories. Alternatively, a virtual document may be a sub-portion of a file on a single repository, or a combination of such contents.

Virtual documents generated via combined documents or portions of documents retrieved from data repositories

A molecular document comprised of atomic documents located in a document management system is provided. The molecular document is generated within the environment of a document management system which separates the content of a document from the properties which are used to describe the document. The document management system further includes bit providers which retrieve the content portion of the document and deliver it to the document. The bit provider of the present invention is a specialized bit provider having the capability of retrieving full-fledged DMS-type documents. Particularly, the atomic documents of the present invention are stand-alone fully functional DMS-type documents which become the content of the molecular document. A user of the DMS is unaware of the fact that a document retrieved is, in fact, a molecular document.

Atomic and molecular documents

A mechanism and method for translating between two incompatible document management systems whereby the identity of a document is maintained. The mechanism and method allows for the maintaining of information related to an original document to reconstruct the original document which was deleted. The maintained information including name information, location information and characteristic information. The characteristic information being properties which are attached to a document in a document management system which separates the content from properties of the document.

Maintaining document identity across hierarchy and non-hierarchy file systems

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents in accordance with document properties. A property attachment mechanism allows a user to define and attach static properties and/or active properties to a document. The active properties include executable code which control the behavior of the document contents. Upon transferring a document to another user, system, or environment, the document management system combines the document content and properties as a self-contained document which can interpret and manipulate its own contents. In this manner, a receiving user does not require additional applications in order to manipulate the document contents into a usable format. The self-contained document interprets and manipulates itself using its active properties to provide a useful document to the receiving user.

Self-contained document management based on document properties

A user-level controlled mechanism is interposed into a read/write path of a computer system. The mechanism can be implemented as properties attached to documents. Documents having properties attached thereto have the capability of separating the content of the document from the properties which describe the document. This separation of the document content from its properties allows for a user-level access and control of the properties thereby allowing a user flexibility in organizing, storing and retrieving documents. The mechanism allows a user to arrange collections of documents wherein a single document may appear in multiple collections. The properties of the present invention are user and document specific in the sense that they are associated with the user which attached the properties and are directed to control of specific documents.

User level controlled mechanism inter-positioned in a read/write path of a property-based document management system

In a computer system having a number of applications and storage repositories using protocols which are different from each other, a document management system is interposed into a content and/or property read/write path of the computer system. The document management system provides for attachment of properties to documents, which allow for separating the content of the document from the properties which describe the document. This separation of the document content from its properties allows for a user level access and control of documents providing for flexibility in organizing, storing and retrieving documents. Further, interface mechanisms are provided which allow the different applications and storage repositories to interact with the document management system. The interface mechanisms include translators and bit providers. The bit providers are configured with the translators and mechanisms to retrieve document content from the different storage repositories and to deliver the document content to a requesting document. The foregoing configuration allows a user to arrange collections of documents irrespective of where the document content is stored. The properties are user and document specific in the sense that they are associated with the user which attached the properties and are directed to control of specific documents.

Property based mechanism for flexibility supporting front-end and back-end components having different communication protocols

A mechanism is provided which allows a user to enhance the functionalities of system operations in a computer system that were traditionally encapsulated within the computer system, and outside the control of the user. The user is provided with the ability to build arbitrary, extensible behaviors and to have those behaviors executed on low level computer system processes after the user issues an operation request through a known input device. The mechanism may be implemented as properties which are integrated on a content and/or property read write path of the computer system.

User level accessing of low-level computer system operations.

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents according to properties attached to the documents. A property attachment mechanism allows a user to attach arbitrary static and active properties to a document. The active properties include executable code which dynamically change system configuration of the document in response to a triggering event which is predefined by the user. The present invention eliminates the generally tedious and error-prone process of configuring and reconfiguring an existing system configuration in response to new or changing user needs.

Active properties for dynamic document management system configuration

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents according to properties attached to the documents. A property attachment mechanism allows a user to attach arbitrary static and active properties to a document. The active properties include executable code which activates an external service in response to a triggering event which is predefined by the user, such as an operation performed on the document. When the operation is applied to the document, the operation is compared to the active properties of the document to determine if it is a triggering event. If an active property is triggered, its code is executed which automatically invokes an external service that executes independently from the operation. The results of the service are sent back to the document management system and the operation is then continued. In this manner, a user interacts directly with a document rather than locating, loading and executing an external service to be applied to the document. The user and/or other applications are unaware of the external service being processed.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

James P Dourish