FR2837297A1 - Web document server and system for automatic dynamic generation of hypertext links to words or word groups within a document requested by a user terminal via browser software - Google Patents

Abstract

Web document server (3) has a document database (4) accessed by user terminals (5-7) via browser software. The documents are stored as text including tags controlling document display. The document server transmits requested documents to the terminals. A requested document can be processed so that a word/words are marked and can be replaced by a hypertext link to another document related to the marked word.

Description

SP 20500 DB

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  SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTING DIGITAL DOCUMENTS

  COMPRISING EXTENDED NAVIGATION FUNCTIONS.

  The present invention relates to the distribution of electronic documents. Wile applies in particular, but not exclusively, to what is called the

  electronic reading of documents or the electronic book.

  Most of the services accessible over the Internet provide multimedia documents, usually in the form of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) type structures with textual information and possibly audiovisual images and sequences, this information being structured with [ help with tags that may provide formatting and presentation commands. Some of these tags allow specifying links to other documents provided by the same or other services, these links being called "hypertext links". To visualize such documents on a computer screen, it is necessary to have a specific software called "browser" ("browser") which is designed to display the contents of the document while respecting the presentation commands provided by the tags, and execute the hypertext links by ordering the display of the document receiving the link, specified by the hypertext link, when the user for example designates with a mouse the hypertext link which is

  effect displays in a recognizable way.

  The texts displayed by a browser therefore contain only the hypertext links that are provided during the production of the document. It is not possible, therefore, to design any word of a text to access other

documents relating to the word design.

  To solve this problem, we can consider adding to existing navigation software a new function to transmit to a predefni server a word or group of words that the user has selected beforehand. This solution is unsatisfactory because it requires on the one hand to select beforehand the word or words to be transmitted to the server, and on the other hand, to update the entire browser software installed at this time. day, and therefore users who have not updated their software

  navigation can not have access to this new function.

  - 2 One can also envisage to realize this function by an auxiliary software which must be installed in the mobile memory of the terminal of the user and which

  is activated for example by a combination of keys on the keyboard and mouse.

  Once active, this software sends the string of characters that has been selected beforehand by the user to an Internet service whose address has been previously introduced in the configuration parameters of the software, and launches the Internet browser to display the page. transmitted in response by the

Internet specific service.

  This solution has the disadvantage of having to install a new software in the memory of the terminal of each user. As a result, the software must have been designed for each type of terminal that exists, and must be adapted to the operating system of the terminal. With the development of cellular telecommunications and the evolution of mobile terminals, the number of types of terminals likely to have access to the Internet, or networks of similar data transmission, is developing very rapidly. As a result, it is necessary to provide for many versions of the

  software, each of these versions being adapted to a type of terminal.

  The present invention aims to remove these drawbacks. This objective is achieved by the prediction of a digital document distribution system, comprising a plurality of terminals made available to users and connected to at least one digital data transmission network, a document server connected to the network of digital documents. transmission and has at least one documentary database giving access to a plurality of digital documents, the document server comprising means for transmitting to the terminals the digital documents requested by the users by means of their respective terminal, the documents accessible by the document base comprising textual information and tags defining, in particular, commands for structuring and presenting the textual information of the document, the textual information being displayed on the screen of the user terminals by means of a navigation software installed on the terminals and designed to execute the commands defined by the tags contained da ns the documents to display. According to the invention, the document server comprises means for applying a processing to each request document by a user before transmitting it to the user, this processing notably consisting in locating each word or group of textual information words of the document. , and insert in the document instead of each word of at least some of the words referenced hyperlinked tags to another document having a - 3

relationship with the word mark.

  Advantageously, each hypertext link inserted in a document requested by a user comprises a call command of a procedure with the call parameter of the procedure the word or group of words correspond to the hypertext link, activation by a user of a message. a hypertext link of a document displayed on a terminal, triggering the execution of the procedure by

the document server.

  Preferably, the server comprises means for triggering, following the activation by a user of a hypertext link of a document displayed on a terminal, a display processing by the user's terminal of a user. list of hypertext links to respective documents related to the word

  correspond to the hypertext link designated.

  According to one particularity of the invention, each hypertext link of the list displayed is a request to a respective database with the word being parameterized.

correspond to the hypertext link.

  According to another feature of the invention, the data bases specified in

  the hyperlinks of the displayed list are defined in a user profile.

  According to yet another particularity of the invention, the document server further comprises means for detecting a set of words such as linking words in the textual information of each document requested by a user and for not inserting a hypertext link. what instead of words

  different from the words of the moss set.

  According to another particularity of the invention, the document server comprises means for detecting groups of predefined words in each document requested by a user, and for inserting a hypertext link.

  instead of each group of words detected.

  Advantageously, the document server comprises deactivation means controllable by each user for not executing the processing of insertion of hypertext links following the reception of a message.

document demand.

  According to yet another particularity of the invention, at least a part of the terminals wind mobile terminals connected to the document server by

  through a cellular telephone network.

  According to yet another feature of the invention, at least a portion of the wind terminals of the personal computer type, connected to the document server by

the intermediary of the Internet network.

  According to yet another particularity of the invention, at least part of the terminals wind mobile terminals connected to the document server by

  through a wireless local network.

  A preferred embodiment of the invention will be described hereinafter, by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: FIG. 1 schematically represents a document distribution system according to the invention, FIG. illustrates in the form of a flowchart the sequence of processing steps of a document, which are executed at the request of a user before transmission of the document to that c. FIG. 1 represents a digital document distribution system comprising a server 3 connected to a document base 4. The server 3 is connected to at least one data transmission network 1, 2, such as the Internet network, so as to enable has users equipped with terminals 5, 6, 7 to connect to server 3 and to access the document distribution service in base 4 or from other accessible sources

through the network 1, 2.

  The documentary database 4 contains in digital form in particular textual and multimedia documents containing text. Wile can also contain databases, dictionaries, encyclopedias, lexicons or glossaries, and lists of hypertext links to remote servers giving access to other documents or databases. The documents thus distributed may be articles from news agencies, newspaper articles, digital books, and, more generally, multimedia documents comprising text, images and possibly sound sequences and / or audiovisual. These documents are structured using a structuring language such as HTML or XML (Extensible Markup Language). The terminals may be personal computer type 7 connected to a display screen 9, a keyboard 8a and a mouse 8b. They can also be of the mobile telephone type 5 or personal assistant 6, equipped with means of communication with the server 3 via a cellular telephone network 1, for example of the GSM type ("Global System for Mobile Communications"), GPRS ("General Packet Radio Service "), or UMTS (" Universal Mobile Telecommunications System "). The communication between the terminals and the servo 3 can also be carried out via a wireless local area network WLAN ("Wireless Local Area Network"), for example

  complies with "Bluetooth" or 802 standards. l 1.

  The server 3 gives access to the documents of the base 4 by means of menus that are displayed on the screen of the user's terminal 5, 6, 7, these menus giving access to lists of documents. The selection of a document by the user triggers the procedure of adding hyperlinks such as

illustrated in Figure 2.

  This procedure is to find each word or term located outside of an HTML or XML tag, and to insert in the document instead of each word thus marked, a hyperlinked HTML or XML field allowing access to a document related to the word mark. Once everything

  the document is thus processed, it is transmitted to the user who requests it.

  The method according to the invention thus dynamically adds to a document hypertext links relate to all the words displayed on the main body of the document, at the moment when it is requested by a user, and in a manner that is totally transparent to the user. user who does not volt any changes when viewing the document by the standard browser software installs on his terminal. In this way, the user has a navigation function on all the terms (or only the significant terms) of the texts that he displays on his screen using his navigation software. He can thus by designing a poster word, consult another document relating to the - 6

  word design, then another, and this indefinitely.

  In addition, the addition of these hypertext links is performed by the document server and not by the user terminals. As a result, it is not necessary to previously install on the terminal of each user a particular software or an extension module of the navigation software. For example, an HTML document has the following form: <html> <head> <title> title </ title> <meta http-equiv = "Cortent-Type" content = "text / html; charset = iso-8859- 1 "> .. </ head> <body bgcolor =" #FFFFFF "leftmargin =" O "topmargin =" O "marginwidth =" O "marginheight =" O "text =" # 000000 "link =" # 000000 "vlink = "# 990066" alink = "# 990066> <p> <font face =" Arial "size =" 2 "> Info: 18hO7: Paris Stock Exchange: the CAC 40 ends on a drop of 0.68% a

4.347,05 points.

  </ font> </ p> </ body> </ html> Such a document includes tags that are processed, but not displayed by the Internet browser software. Each tag is marked with the characters "<" and ">". Some tags delimit fields in the document. In this case, they wind of the form "<XXX ...>" to mark the beginning of the field

  "XXX" and "</ XXX>" to mark the end of the field.

  The set of a document of type HTML is between two tags, namely a tag "<HTML>" from the beginning of document and a tag "</ HTML>" of document fn. Such a document then comprises a header portion delimited by the tags "<HEAD>" and "</ HEAD>" and a body part delimited by the tags "<BODY>" and "</ BODY>". The header of an HTML document defines general parameters including the display of the document, such as the title to display in the title bar of the window

  displayed by the Internet browser software.

  The method according to the invention consists in locating the text information that is in the body of the document, that is to say in the "BODY" field, outside of any HTML tag. Thus, in the above example, the text information is as follows: Info: 107: Paris Stock Exchange: the CAC 40 ends on a drop of 0.68% a

4.347, OS points.

  In accordance with the procedure illustrated in FIG. 2, the server reads each word of the document previously selected by the user in the database 4, the words of the document being constituted of alphabetic or numerical characters.

  separated by spacing or pitting character.

  If a new word is read in the document (step 12), the server 3 determines 13 whether it is a word in or out of a tag by retrieving as the document is read. start and end tag characters "<" and ">", and whether or not this word is in the body of the document by tagging the "<BODY>" and "</ BODY>" tags. If the word read is a text word outside a tag (between the signs ">" and "<") and in the body of the document, this word is inserted into a field "a" of type hyperlink " href "as follows: <a href- / read / page_transit. asp.?jjj=mot>mot </a> in which "/ fire / page transit. asp" is the URL ("Uniform Resource Locator") address of a "page_trarsit.asp" procedure that is spotted in a relative manner relative to the address of the document, and ".2jjj =" is the speciEcation of a parameter "jjj" call of the procedure "page_trarsit.asp", the parameter "7jj" being equal to the word read in the document inserted in the hypertext link This link has a second time the word "word" outside the

  tags to ensure that the term is displayed by the browser software.

  The word read at step 12 or the hyperlink field generated) step 1S is

copy 16 into a new file.

  An additional filter (step 14) can be provided to avoid inserting in a hypertext link all linking words, punctuation characters, and numbers, the non-addressing link words being determined according to a criterion of word length (for example less than three characters), or defined in a list to which the server 3 has access. Of course, if the documents to which the server has access can be in different languages, it is possible to provide a list of link words not to be processed by language, the server comprising means for determining the language of a document, for example in function of the number of occurrences of certain linking words in the

  document, or depending on the origin of the document.

  When, at step 12, the end of the document is reached, the new file that is transmitted to the user is not changed, except for the textual part or parts that have the following form: <p> <font = "Arial" size = "2"> <a href=/lire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=Info> Info </a>: 18hO7: <a href - / read / page_transit.asp.? Jjj = Exchange > </a> <a href=/lire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=Paris> Paris </a> Stock Exchange: the <a href=/lire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=CAC40> CAC 40 </ a> <a href=/lire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=termine> ends </a> on a <a href=/lire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=baisse> decline </a> of 0, 68 % a 4.347, 05

  <a href=/lire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=points> points </a>.

  </ font> </ p> .. In this new file, all the significant words of the text in the document have been inserted in hyperlinks, while all the punctuation characters ":", ".", the numbers "0, 68%", "4.347,05" and link words such as "from", "the", "on", "a", "a" are outside the fields

hypertext link.

  Of course, it is also possible to provide a less elaborate version of the system according to the invention in which a hypertext link is inserted in each word of text of at least two characters, in a document, including

including the linking words.

  The user's navigation software displays the file transmitted to the screen of the terminal 5, 6, 7. The transmitted file can advantageously include HTML command tags for the hyperlink field insertion processing to introduce no difference in the aspect of the document that is displayed by the browser software. Indeed, without these commands, the text associates with the hypertext links appears in the document displays in general

underlines and in another color.

  Once the transmitted file is displayed, the user can then designate, for example by means of a mouse, any word that has been previously inserted in a hyperlink field, this action triggering the user's browser the URL address "/7ire/page_transit.asp.?jjj=mot" mentioned in the hyperlink designe and ['execution by the server 3 of the procedure "page_transit.asp" with in

  set the user's desig- nated word.

  This procedure advantageously consists of executing a procedure involving a request to a database such as a dictionary or an encyclopedia

  electronic which displays the definition of the term passes in parameter.

  It is also possible to display an intermediate selection menu that offers the user the possibility of choosing a document or searching for the desired term. The documents thus proposed may be databases such as electronic dictionaries or encyclopaedias, providing the definition of the term "designate", or language dictionaries providing the translation of that term into a chosen language, or more generally any pre-defined list of terms. Documents in which the user wants to know

if the term designe is found.

  The list that is sent by the server 3 to the user is in the form of an HTML file containing a list of hypertext links to each of the documents where the server 3 must look for the term "designe". This list, which is constructed during the execution of the "page_transit.asp" procedure contained in each hyperlink inserted for each text word of the document, is of the following form: ... <a href = "redirect.asp . ft = l &amp; fd = l & fm = O & fa = O & variant = I & nbe = 20 & order = A & icons = l & mode = H & action = SEARCH & query = word "> Encyclopedia xxxx </a> <a href = "dho / search.asp? word = mot & id = l"> Translate to English with ^ y </a> <a href="dho/search.asp?word=mot&id=2"> Trad? Vire en Francais with yyyyy </a> - 10 Each link in this list contains the URL of the procedure to activate ("redirect.asp" or "search.asp") to search for the word "word" previously selected in the document, this address being followed by the call parameters of the procedure, including the term "word" to be searched for. Moreover, it may be interesting to establish a hypertext link not on a word but on a group of words in a document. For this purpose, the server 3 has access to lists of groups of words or expressions, for which a single link must

  be inserted in the documents to be processed.

  Thus, in the previous example, only one hyperlink was inserted for the

word group "CAC 40".

  Advantageously, at least some users of the document distribution service are previously registered with the service, in particular with a view to specifying a user profile containing the definition of usage parameters of the service. Each registered user can access his profile with a login and password assigned to him, and modify the defned parameters in the profile. For example, such a profile contains the list of documents that are displayed when a term in a document is

designated by the user.

  In addition, it can be predicted that this feature of adding hyperlinks to each transmitted document word, and displayed by the browser software, can be deactivated at the request of the user by changing the value of a parameter provided to a user. this effect in the profile thereof, which allows in particular to accelerate the transmission of a document, when the user does not wish

use this feature.

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Claims (7)

  1. A system for distributing digital documents, comprising a plurality of terminals (S. 6, 7) made available to users and connected to at least one network (1, 2) for transmitting digital data, a server (3 ) of documents connected to the transmission network and at least one documentary base (4) giving access to a plurality of digital documents, the document server comprising means for transmitting to the terminals the digital documents requested by the users by means of their terminal respective documents accessible by the document base including textual information and tags defining in particular commands for structuring and presentation of the textual information of the document, the textual information being displayed on the screen of the user terminals by means of a navigation software installs on the terminals and designed to execute the commands defined by the tags contained in the documents af file, characterized in that the server (3) of documents comprises means for applying a processing to each request document by a user before transmitting it to it, this processing consist in particular to identify each word or group of words of textual information of the document, and to insert in the document instead of each word at least a part of the words from the hyperlinked tags to another document related to the document. word mark.   2. System according to claim 1, characterized in that each hypertext link inserted into a document requested by a user comprises a call command of a procedure with the call parameter of the procedure the word or group of words correspond to the hypertext link, ['activation by a user of a hypertext link of a document displayed on a terminal, triggering the execution of the procedure by the server (3) of documents.   3. System according to claim 2, characterized in that the server (3) comprises means for triggering, following the activation by a user of a hypertext link of a document displayed on a terminal, a processing of display by the user's terminal of a list of hypertext links to respective documents having a report   with the word match the hypertext link designe.   4. System according to claim 3, characterized in that each hypertext link of the displayed list is a request to a respective database with the word corresponding to the hypertext link. S. System according to claim 4, characterized in that the data bases specified in the hypertext links   of the displayed list is defined in a user profile.   6. System according to one of claims l has S.   characterized in that the document server (3) further comprises means for detecting a set of words such as linking words in the textual information of each document requested by a user and for not inserting a hypertext link that the place of the words different from the words of ['moss set.   7. System according to one of claims 1 to 6,   characterized in that the document server (3) comprises means for detecting groups of predefined words in each document requested by a user, and for inserting a hypertext link in place of each group of documents. words detect.   8. System according to one of claims 1 to 7,   characterized in that the document server (3) comprises deactivation means controllable by each user for not executing the hypertext link insertion processing following the reception of a message. document demand.   9. System according to one of claims 1 to 8,   characterized in that at least a portion (S. 6) of the terminals wind mobile terminals connected to the server (3) of documents via a network of cellular telephonic (2).   lO. System according to one of Claims 1 to 9,   characterized in that at least a portion (7) of the wind terminals of the personal computer type, connected to the server (3) of documents via the Internet network (l). - 13   1. System according to one of claims 1 to 10,   characterized in that at the hands a part (S. 6) of the terminals wind mobile terminals connected to the server (3) of documents through a local network