System for transmission of embedded applications over a network

Abstract

A system and method for transmitting embedded applications over a network is disclosed, wherein a user of a computer-controlled network client, such as a remote control device used for controlling a network of computer-controlled home entertainment devices, or a Web browser running on a Web client, can request and receive compound documents that include embedded applications and/or data files that can only be processed (i.e., imaged or played) by handlers that are not resident on the client. In addition to embedded documents, the compound documents that are transmitted over the network can reference flat files (e.g, image, audio, or text files), and other compound documents. Whenever a client receives a compound document, the client determines whether it has access to all of the documents referenced in the compound document and, if not, requests the documents to which it does not have local access. So that the multiple documents embedded in a compound document can be simultaneously output by the client to a multimodal output device, the requestor includes a multi-tasking real-time kernel. This scheme allows a client user to download documents from a server that include embedded applications, which when executed on the client, allow the client to control the servers using commands downloaded from the servers.