Abstract: When a user selects an arbitrary symbol 75 (word, phrase, sentence, graphic, image, etc.) from an arbitrary application 3 on a client computer 3, and copies this symbol 75 to a clipboard 79, a linker 23, being a terminate-and-stay-resident-type process, automatically captures that symbol 81 from the clipboard 79. Similarly, when a user types at a keyboard from an arbitrary application 207, those typed characters are first passed to an input method editor 201, where they are temporarily stored within a buffer 211, and when the user enters a prescribed “okay” key sequence the characters within that buffer 211 are converted as necessary and passed to the application 207, but if the user enters a prescribed “link” key sequence, a character string determining component 213 of the input method editor 201 passes the characters within the buffer 211 to a linker 209. In either case, the linker 23 sends the captured symbol to a URL server 5.

Abstract: The invention provides a control apparatus for starting application software on a computer, which can consolidate a variety of application interfaces and address a user's needs. The control apparatus includes an application start portion for starting one or more specified applications, an application registration portion for registering information relating to started applications as one group, an application start information storage portion for storing information for starting a registered application, and an application group start portion for searching the application start information storage portion based on an entered symbol and starting one or more corresponding applications. Usually, applications are started and terminated through an operating system, but with the present invention, they are started and terminated through a control window.