Abstract: A technique for modifying a web site generated in accordance with received data entry by: determining at least one characteristic of at least one web site dimension of the web site based on the data entry; generating a multi-dimensional description of the web site based on the determined characteristics; retrieving web site data according to the generated multi-dimensional description of the web site; generating the web site based upon the generated multi-dimensional description of the web site and the retrieved web site data; receiving modification data modifying at least one of the determined characteristics; and regenerating the description of the web site based upon the modified characteristics.

Abstract: An advertising information memory area for storing advertising information for displaying prescribed advertisement, and a label information memory area for storing label information for presenting a space for displaying advertisement, are provided. A personal computer refers the label information memory area and the advertising information memory area, synthesizes advertisement images and character strings based on the advertising information, and displays the same in the label image based on the label information. An advertising environment is provided which is highly effective in a personal computer environment.

Abstract: A system for automatically generating a style sheet includes a parser for generating a document type graph in accordance with an input structure, a graphical user interface tool for interactively mapping the document type graph to form a display template in accordance with user requirements and a script generator for generating and storing the style sheet in accordance with the graphical user interface and the design template.

Abstract: A system and method for generating multiple potential label positions for a polygon at run time, rather than selecting from pre-configured label positions. The present invention analyzes the visible portion of the polygon to generate potential label positions dynamically based on the visible portion of the polygon, rather than using pre-configured label positions. As many rectangles are created as can fit within the visible portion of the polygon, and which can support the placement of a label. The rectangles are sized in accordance with the size of the label to be displayed. Once the rectangles are created, the present invention allows for the selection of one of the rectangles as a preferred label position for the polygon. The present invention also allows for the generation of a form following baseline created by connecting the centerpoints of horizontally disposed rectangles, and then smoothing the resulting baseline until a desirable baseline is obtained.

Abstract: An apparatus for and method of utilizing an internet terminal coupled to the world wide web to access an existing proprietary data base management system having a dialog-based request format. The user request is received by a web server from the world wide web and converted into one or more sequenced data base management commands. These data base management commands are sequentially presented to the data base management system and the intermediate products stored. After all of the sequenced data base management commands have been executed, the web server combines the intermediate products to form a complete response to the initial user request. The response is transferred to the user over the world wide web as an HTML display page. The server automatically adds a footer text to the response if enabled by the system settings. The footer text may be created and modified from the internet terminal.

Abstract: A method and system for checking the validity of a sequence of input characters according to the syntactical rules of a selected language is provided. If an input character may not be appended to the previously input sequence according to the rules of the selected language, the newly input character may be prohibited from being appended to the sequence and displayed on the user's computer. Previously input and validated characters automatically may be replaced with a newly input character for formation and display of a valid sequence of characters containing the newly input character. A newly input character may be inserted between two characters of a previously validated sequence of characters. Previously input character sequences may be edited by determining the validity context of previously input sequences of characters.

Abstract: An expression editor for creating and editing mathematical formulas is implemented as a computer software program. Using the editor, a keyboard and mouse are used to perform actions that build and traverse mathematical structures with a single visual cue, either for the purpose of displaying mathematics in a document, performing a scientific computation, or any combination of the two.

Abstract: In one aspect, the invention encompasses a method of storing and retrieving a communication. A communication is stored in a database, and comprises a plurality of sub-components. The communication is stored utilizing software configured to save a plurality of machine-readable identifier codes associated with the communication in the database. The identifier codes identify different sub-components of the communication. Some of the sub-components of the communication are printed together with at least some of the identifier codes as a document. The document does not include all of the sub-components of the communication. The identifier codes are read from the document with a machine configured to extract the identifier codes from the machine-readable format. The identifier codes extracted by the machine are provided to a processor in data communication with the database. The processor is configured to identify all sub-components of the communication.

Abstract: A technique for modifying a web site generated in accordance with received data entry by: determining at least one characteristic of at least one web site dimension of the web site based on the data entry; generating a multi-dimensional description of the web site based on the determined characteristics; retrieving web site data according to the generated multi-dimensional description of the web site; generating the web site based upon the generated multi-dimensional description of the web site and the retrieved web site data; receiving modification data modifying at least one of the determined characteristics; and regenerating the description of the web site based upon the modified characteristics.

Abstract: An authoring environment for producing content for an on-line system is described. This environment includes a story editor which can save files in a Multimedia Document Format (MDF) file. A MDF file is an OLE storage wherein one storage object holds text of the content in a Multimedia Publishing Markup Language. Other parts of the MDF file include storages for holding content search terms and storages for embedded objects.

Abstract: A method and system for creating hyperlinks and hyperlinked documents from the direct manipulation of information in a hypermedia processing system, or the like, in a fashion that requires little effort on the part of the user. A user can effortlessly create hyperlinks and hyperlinked documents in one seamless motion by simply pressing a predetermined key while dragging and dropping source-visual elements such as a text element onto target visual elements such as another text element. The method and system is defined herein as a “drag and link” operation, enabling the user to create hyperlinks and hyperlinked documents from the direct manipulation of information with the familiar ease of the conventional drag and drop operation.

Abstract: A method and device for describing a complex color raster image as a collection of objects in a hierarchical and device independent format. The purpose of structured imaging (SI) is to expand the scope of a raster image to a collection of individually manipulable component objects. An SI is a hierarchical description of a single output image raster which may be used as one component of a page in a structured document. Objects contributing to the output raster may originate from text, graphics, other rasters or a combination thereof, and all maintain their heritage for selectability and modification. The SI describes not only the source data but also the image processing operations required for rendering the output raster. SI technology supports re-editability, customization and enhancement, automatic image assembly and high performance imaging. Thus, such a model has implications not only in an image editing and processing arena, but also in the filing and printing services used for image handling.

Abstract: A method, system, and article of manufacture for generating a list of candidate objects for a requested object. An identifier for the requested object is accepted, wherein the identifier comprises a target string. A list of candidate objects is generated when the requested object cannot be found by performing a hierarchical string match for the target string against a set of source strings using multi-path dynamic programming, wherein the set of source strings represent a set of objects from which the list of candidate objects is generated.

Abstract: A method and system for generating a weight for phrases within each document in a collection of documents. Each document has terms such as words and numbers. Each phrase comprises component terms. Each term frequency represents the number of occurrences of a term in a document, and the phrase frequency represents the number of occurrences of a phrase in a document. To generate the weight, the weighting system first estimates a document frequency for the phrase by multiplying an estimated phrase probability of the phrase times the number of documents that contain each component term. The estimated phrase probability is an estimation of the probability that any phrase in documents that contain each component term is the phrase whose weight is to be estimated. The document frequency is the number of the documents that contain the phrase. The weighting system then estimates a total phrase frequency for the phrase as the average phrase frequency for the phrase times the estimated document frequency for the phrase.

Abstract: A Web crawler application takes advantage of a document store's ability to provide a content identifier (CID) having a value that is a unique function of the physical storage location of a data object or document, such as a Web page. In operation, the crawler first tries to fetch the CID for a document. If the CID attribute is not supported by the document store, the crawler fetches the document, filters it to obtain a hash function, and commits the document to an index if the hash function is not present in a history table. If the CID is available from the document store, the CID is fetched from the document store. The crawler then determines whether the CID is present in the history table, which indicates whether an identical copy of the document in question has already been indexed under a different URL.

Abstract: A system for exchanging and merging messages over a network includes a server accessible by a plurality of remote browsers for transmitting a template including fields for information entry and a business system accessible by the server for generating a return document pursuant to information entered in the template on the browsers. The business system includes a first parser for receiving a document from a browser, the document including information about data characteristics of information entered into the template, and a second parser for receiving information about data characteristics to provide a return template. A merging algorithm is implemented to merge the document with the return template for providing a return document to the browser having portions of the return template with data entered therein.

Abstract: A method and system for detecting the presence of a plug-in on a client computer; and if the plug-in is not present, downloading the plug-in to the client computer; loading the plug-in into a browser running on the client computer and processing events generated on the client computer using the code contained in the plug-in.