Abstract: An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Abstract: An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Abstract: An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Abstract: A collaboration system synchronizes an application or applications running on one or more computer systems. Each of the applications has a local data copy and the applications commence operation by creating consistent local copies from a common third copy. The consistency is maintained by distributing address space independent selections and commands to each application as they are entered at a controlling system. The selections and commands are generated by directly manipulating a presentation of each local data copy. When a selection and command arrive at a destination, the selection is used to find and selection the data and the command is applied to the data located by the selection.

Abstract: A technique for providing routing of various multimedia events throughout the course of a multimedia presentation using a computer with a storage and a display. A variety of multimedia objects are defined in the storage and grouped in logical relationships to enable multimedia presentations. A display is used to create the presentations interactively by positioning objects representative of the multimedia events and joining them with geometric figures, such as line segments. Each object can then be directly manipulated via a mouse or other pointing device to position a multimedia object to a particular position, or adjust the playback rate of a multimedia object.

Abstract: An object-oriented window manager provides coordination between window displays generated by separate application programs by computing and storing the visible area of each application window each time displayed windows are changed. Each application program directly communicates with the screen buffer memory in order to redraw portions of the screen corresponding to its display area using the visible area computed by the window manager. Each application program communicates with the object-oriented window manager by creating a window object which provides flexible display capabilities that are transparent to the application program. Several techniques are used to decrease the visible area computation time. First, as mentioned above a copy of the visible area is stored or “cached” in each window object. This copy can be used if the application program needs to redraw the window area and the visible area has not been changed.

Abstract: An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Abstract: A collaboration system synchronizes an application or applications running on one or more computer systems. Each of the applications has a local data copy and the applications commence operation by creating consistent local copies from a common third copy. The consistency is maintained by distributing address space independent selections and commands to each application as they are entered at a controlling system. The selections and commands are generated by directly manipulating a presentation of each local data copy. When a selection and command arrive at a destination, the selection is used to find and selection the data and the command is applied to the data located by the selection.

Abstract: A technique for providing routing of various multimedia events throughout the course of a multimedia presentation using a computer with a storage and a display. A variety of multimedia objects are defined in the storage and grouped in logical relationships to enable multimedia presentations. A display is used to create the presentations interactively by positioning objects representative of the multimedia events and joining them with geometric figures, such as line segments. Each object can then be directly manipulated via a mouse or other pointing device to position a multimedia object to a particular position, or adjust the playback rate of a multimedia object.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for an object-oriented framework system. The system uses an innovative framework architecture to provide concurrent access to a framework application by multiple users. The users can collaborate over the application and jointly produce a finished product. Model tracking is used to track commands and apply them in a consistent manner throughout the system.

Abstract: An event notification system for propagating object-change information. The notification system supports change notification without queues in an object-based application or operating system and can be scaled to propagate large numbers of events among a large plurality of objects. The event notification system interconnects a plurality of event source and event receiver objects. Any object, such as a command object, may operate as either an event receiver object, an event source object or both. A notification object is created by a source object to transport, from a source to a receiver, descriptive information about a change, which includes a particular receiver object method and a pointer to the source object that sent the notification. A receiver object must register with a connection object its “interest” in receiving notification of changes; specifying both the event type and the particular source object of interest.

Abstract: A technique for providing routing of various multimedia events throughout the course of a multimedia presentation using a computer with a storage and a display. A variety of multimedia objects are defined in the storage and grouped in logical relationships to enable multimedia presentations. A display is used to create the presentations interactively by positioning objects representative of the multimedia events and joining them with geometric figures, such as line segments. Each object can then be directly manipulated via a mouse or other pointing device to position a multimedia object to a particular position, or adjust the playback rate of a multimedia object.

Abstract: A system for connecting a video object to various multimedia objects to enable an object-oriented simulation of a multimedia presentation using a computer with a storage and a display. A plurality of multimedia objects are created on the display including at least one connection object and at least one video object in the storage. Multimedia objects are displayed on the display, including at least one video object. The multimedia object and the video object are connected, and information is routed via the connection between the multimedia object and the video object to create a multimedia presentation.

Abstract: On a multi-node client server network, a client node obtains access to remote services by means of a communications directory service located in each node of the network. The communications directory service includes a tree structure to which existing directory services and other network services can be added. The tree structure has a plurality of nodes each of which includes specific methods that query and browse the associated directory service if such actions are supported by the underlying service. The communications directory service further includes shared libraries which store a service object associated with each service offered on the network. The service object, in turn, includes the service exchange address and communication link configuration information. A client desiring to access a remote service retrieves the appropriate service object from the communications directory service and uses the service object to set up the communications path.

Abstract: An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for an innovative object oriented framework system is disclosed. The system uses an innovative framework architecture to provide the first object oriented operating system.

Abstract: A set of stream writer and reader classes and methods enable object frameworks to communicate with each other despite problems with missing classes due to mismatched versions. The stream writers are modified to deal with a new version of a class that extends from a class in an existing version by writing alternate object information compatible with the existing version when the future object class information is streamed. In this manner, alternate object information is written for each older version. The information for each of the alternate objects corresponding to each older version is added after the existing object information as an extension with the length of the extension written at the beginning. The stream readers are modified so that when an older version stream reader reads the object information and does not understand the first alternate object (which might correspond to a later version), it skips the length specified for that extension and reads the second alternate object.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for a menu based system containing size and location information is disclosed. Each menu contains a list of menu items containing a command and variables that reflect the command's current appearance. This includes status information determinative of the menu item's state (enabled/disabled), its name, its associated graphic, and whether its appearance is currently valid. Each of these were initialized when the menu item was created. The invention creates a menu item from a command, where a menu item is another object data structure containing a command sequence. The menu item is added to a list of menu items, and initialized as an invalid appearance. Later when the menu item is selected from a pull down menu, the appearance state is recomputed based on the system state.

Abstract: The invention is a translation framework which performs data conversions in an object oriented environment from clipboards, drag, and drop tend entire files and entire objects into compound documents. There are three primary classes: the translator, the translator surrogates, and the translation query. Translators are heavy objects that may include the translator's shared library and supporting libraries. The framework uses light weight surrogate translators as stand-ins for translators. The surrogates do not pull in the translators unless there is a request to do an actual translation. When a translation is requested, the translator must be streamed into the address space of the repeating client. Clients desiring a document object be translated for inclusion in a compound document interact with the framework by using queries to access a translation surrogate.

Abstract: The system of the present invention provides a mechanism for executing a script sequence containing a plurality of commands and associated time for executing the commands. The system allows a user of the script sequence to specify an arbitrary time, either forward or backward from a current time, and the result of the execution reflects the cumulative effects of executing the script sequence from the beginning up to the arbitrary time. The system provides for a skip ahead mechanism in which commands are executed without waiting for the occurrence of their associated time. The system also provides for rewind and key-frame features.