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Claims  |
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What is claimed is:
1. A method of recording and modifying, a web browsing session, comprising:
a) logging one or more protocol calls generated during the web browsing
session;
b) storing the logged protocol calls in a first file according to a first
format;
c) associating a time stamp with at least one of the protocol calls;
d) determining at least one display time, merging the at least one display
time and the at least one logged protocol call to create a record having a
second format and storing the record in a session file;
e) setting a flag if the protocol call returns an error condition;
f) reading at least one record from the session file;
g) presenting the at least one session file record to a user;
h) modifying the at least one session file record, if a user modification
request has been received; and
i) writing the modified record back to the session file.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of inserting
annotation material into the session file.
3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of inserting at
least one block of annotation material into the session file, wherein each
block of annotation material is associated with one protocol call.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving
information specified by at least one of the protocol calls.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:
storing one or more files, wherein the files are received in response to
the one or more protocol calls; and
creating a list of the one or more files and including information in the
list of one or more files, relating each of the one or more files to the
protocol call which caused the one or more files to be downloaded.
6. A method of sharing a browsing session, the method comprising the steps
of:
a) issuing at least one protocol call;
b) storing a list of at least one protocol call;
c) setting a flag if the protocol call returns an error condition;
d) creating a session file; and
e) providing the session file to a user.
7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of storing a time
stamp with each entry in the list of protocol calls.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the time stamp represents the approximate
time that the protocol call was issued.
9. The method of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:
comparing a user selected threshold to a value indicative of the amount of
the requested page that has been received; and
setting the time stamp to be substantially equal to the time when the
amount of the requested page received is approximately equal to the user
selected threshold.
10. The method of claim 7, wherein the time stamp represents the
approximate time that a requested page is fully received.
11. The method of claim 6, further comprising the steps of applying filter
functions to the received files and generating filter flags indicative of
the filter function output.
12. The method of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:
determining an amount of time that a web page was displayed during the
browsing session; and
entering that amount in the session file.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of determining the amount of
time comprises the steps of:
obtaining the time stamp of a first entry in the list of protocol calls;
obtaining the time stamp of a next sequential entry in the list of protocol
calls; and
determining the difference between the time stamp of the first entry and
the time stamp of the next sequential entry.
14. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of annotating the
session file.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of annotating comprises the
step of inserting information into the session file.
16. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of annotating comprises the
step of inserting into the session file a pointer to information.
17. The method of claim 15, wherein the inserted information comprises
instructions to run two or more browsers concurrently during playback.
18. The method of claim 15, wherein the inserted information comprises
audio data.
19. The method of claim 15, wherein the inserted information comprises
video data.
20. The method of claim 15, wherein the inserted information comprises
graphics data.
21. A computer readable storage medium encoded with computer readable
program code, comprising
a) a means for causing a computer to issue at least one protocol call;
b) a means for causing the computer to store a list of at least one
protocol call;
c) a means for setting a flag if the protocol call returns an error
condition;
d) a means for causing the computer to create a session file; and
e) a means for causing the computer to provide the session file to a user.
22. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising a
means to cause the computer to store a time stamp with each entry in the
list of protocol calls.
23. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising:
a means to cause the computer to compare a user selected threshold to a
value indicative of an amount of the requested page that has been
received; and
a means to cause the computer to set the time stamp to be substantially
equal to the time at which the amount of the requested page received is
approximately equal to the user selected threshold.
24. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising a
means to cause the computer to determine an amount of time that a
requested page was displayed and to enter that amount in the session file.
25. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising a
means to cause the computer to annotate the session file.
26. A method of sharing a web browsing session, comprising:
a) accessing records of a session file, having a finite number of records;
b) generating a protocol call;
d) starting a timer;
e) determining if a pause command has been received;
f) stopping the timer if a pause has been specified;
g) restarting the stopped timer if a play command is received;
h) displaying, in a window, data associated with the protocol call;
i) displaying annotation data associated with the data associated with the
protocol call;
j) determining if the timer has expired;
k) if the timer has expired, determining if all the session file records
have been accessed; and
l) if all the session file records have not been accessed, repeating
actions (a)-(l).
27. The method of claim 26, further comprising:
prior to starting the timer, reading a timer policy and determining from
the timer policy a set of conditions, if any, for starting the timer.
28. The method of claim 26, further comprising:
subsequent to starting the timer, determining if the window has been
deactivated, stopping the timer if the window has been deactivated, and
restarting the stopped timer if the window is reactivated.
29. The method of claim 26, wherein expiration of the timer is
determinative of a length of time that the data associated with the
protocol call is to be displayed.
30. The method of claim 26, wherein the timer policy specifies that the
timer is to be started when the data associated with the protocol call is
completely displayed.
31. The method of claim 26, wherein the timer policy specifies that the
timer is to be started when the data associated with the protocol call is
partially displayed.
32. A computer readable storage medium encoded with computer readable
program code, comprising:
a) means for causing a computer to access records of a session file, having
a finite number of records;
b) means for causing a computer to generate a protocol call;
d) means for causing a computer to start a timer;
e) means for causing a computer to determine if a pause command has been
received;
f) means for causing a computer to stop the timer if a pause has been
specified;
g) means for causing a computer to restart the stopped timer if a play
command is received;
h) means for causing a computer to display, in a window, data associated
with the protocol call;
i) means for causing a computer to display annotation data associated with
the data associated with the protocol call;
j) means for causing a computer to determine if the timer has expired;
k) means for causing a computer to, if the timer has expired, determine if
all the session file records have been accessed; and
l) means for causing a computer to, if all the session file records have
not been accessed, repeat actions (a)-(l).
33. A method of sharing a browsing session in an active window, comprising:
a) accessing records of a session file, having a finite number of records;
b) generating a protocol call;
d) starting a timer;
e) determining if the window has been deactivated;
f) stopping the timer if the window has been deactivated;
g) restarting the stopped timer if the window is reactivated
h) displaying, in the window, data associated with the protocol call;
i) displaying annotation data associated with the data associated with the
protocol call;
j) determining if the timer has expired;
k) if the timer has expired, determining if all the session file records
have been accessed; and
l) if all the session file records have not been accessed, repeating
actions (a)-(l).
34. A computer readable storage medium encoded with computer readable
program code, comprising:
a) means for causing a computer to access records of a session file, having
a finite number of records;
b) means for causing a computer to generate a protocol call;
d) means for causing a computer to start a timer;
e) means for causing a computer to determine if the window has been
deactivated;
f) means for causing a computer to stop the timer if the window has been
deactivated;
g) means for causing a computer to restart the stopped timer if the window
is reactivated
h) means for causing a computer to display, in the window, data associated
with the protocol call;
i) means for causing a computer to display annotation data associated with
the data associated with the protocol call;
j) means for causing a computer to determine if the timer has expired;
k) means for causing a computer to, if the timer has expired, determine if
all the session file records have been accessed; and
l) means for causing a computer to, if all the session file records have
not been accessed, repeat actions (a)-(l). |
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Claims |
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Description |
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to social computing, and more
particularly to a method of capturing, editing and sharing a World Wide
Web browsing session.
2. Background
World Wide Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer
have mechanisms that cache web content to memory when it has been
retrieved. It is possible to save a web page that has been retrieved as a
hyper text mark up language (HTML) file complete with embedded images
through the use of an explicit save or edit command. During a session it
is possible to go explicitly to a page that has been previously visited.
However, the entire session cannot currently be saved and replayed at a
later time or shared with a friend. It is also not possible to annotate or
store personal comments about a page or set of pages that have been
visited.
What is needed is a method that captures a web browsing session for replay
at a later time. What is further needed is a method of editing and a
method of annotating a captured web browsing session.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the method of the present invention, a software program
is launched during a web browsing session. This program logs time stamped
copies of protocol calls and stores those calls to a call list file. Calls
that result in errors returned from the remote server or proxy are
flagged, and may optionally be retained, or automatically or manually
deleted. The program also creates a map file so as to keep information
needed to associate a protocol call to the file or files downloaded in
response to the protocol call. The program optionally stores to the
session file, either retrieved binary files or the commands used to
retrieve the binary files. Entries in the session file may be annotated
with text, graphics, audio, video or various combinations of these and
other media. The session file can be communicated to one or more users
that are remote temporally, geographically, or both. The session file
provides protocol calls to a user's local browser thus replaying the
recorded browsing session as edited or annotated.
In an alternative embodiment a filter function is performed on information
returned in response to a protocol call. More particularly, information
returned in response to a protocol call is compared to one or more user
defined criteria, and one or more filter flags indicative of the results
of the comparison are generated and written to the call list file. These
flags can be used in a way similar to the error flags, such that the
information returned may optionally be retained, reordered according to a
weighting algorithm, or automatically or manually deleted.
Social computing is facilitated because the web session, either in its
original form, or with the annotational enhancements, can be shared by
other users who are remote geographically, temporally, or both.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1(a) is a block diagram showing the general architecture of the
present invention.
FIG. 1(b) shows a data structure format for the protocol call list file.
FIG. 1(c) shows a data structure format for a first type of session file
record.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the web browsing session
recording process.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the session editor.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the web browsing session
playback process.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Terminology
Browser refers to a program which allows a user to read HTML files and
information embedded in hypertext links in these files. The browser gives
some means of viewing the contents of local and remote files and of
navigating from one file to another using embedded hypertext links.
Browsers act as clients to remote web servers. Netscape Navigator
(Netscape Communications Corp., www.netscape.com) and Internet Explorer
(Microsoft Corporation, www.microsoft.com) are examples of browsers for
the World Wide Web. Browsers are sometimes referred to as web browsers.
Click refers to the user action of pressing a button on a mouse or other
pointing device. This typically generates an event, also specifying the
screen position of the cursor, which is then processed by a window manager
or application program.
HTML (also html) refers to a hypertext document format used on the World
wide Web. "Tags" are embedded in the text. A tag consists of a "<", a
"directive", zero or more parameters and a ">". Matched pairs of
directives, like "<title>" and "</title>" are used to delimit text which
is to appear in a special place or style.
Hyperlink refers to a reference (link) from some point in one hypertext
document to (some point in) another document or another place in the same
document. A browser usually displays a hyperlink in some distinguishing
way, e.g. in a different color, font or style. When a user activates the
link (e.g., by clicking on it with the mouse) the browser will display the
target of the link.
Hypertext refers to a collection of documents containing cross-references
or "links" which, with the aid of an interactive browser program, allow
the reader to move easily from one document to another.
HTTP (also http) refers to the client-server TCP/IP protocol used on the
World Wide Web for the exchange of HTML documents.
Mouse refers to a common kind of input device connected to a computer
system, also known as a pointing device. A mouse is moved over a flat
horizontal surface and includes some means of converting its position in
two dimensions into X-Y coordinates which the computer can read. The mouse
has one or more buttons whose state can also be read by the computer to
which it is attached. It is called a mouse because the wire connecting it
to the computer or keyboard looks like a mouse's tail. Trackballs and
joysticks are input devices with similar functionality. Wireless pointing
devices that communicate with a computer by, for example, infrared
signaling, are also available and provide functionality substantially
similar to that of the mouse.
Operating system refers generally to the low-level software which schedules
tasks, allocates storage, handles the interface to peripheral hardware and
presents a default interface to the user when no application program is
running.
Plug-in refers to a file containing data used to alter, enhance, or extend
the operation of a parent application program. For example, the Netscape
Navigator World-Wide Web browser supports plug-ins. A plug-in is specific
to a particular operating system and displays or interprets a particular
file format such as Shockwave, RealAudio, Adobe PDF, or Corel CMX. The
file to be displayed is included in a web page using an <EMBED ...> HTML
tag.
Proxy gateway refers to a computer and associated software which will pass
on a request for a URL from a World Wide Web browser to an outside server
and return the results. This provides a trusted agent that can access the
Internet on behalf of clients that are sealed off from the Internet. The
client's user is typically not aware of the proxy gateway.
Proxy server refers to a World Wide Web server which accepts URLs with a
special prefix. When it receives a request for such a URL, it strips off
the prefix and looks for the resulting URL in its local cache. If found,
it returns the document immediately, otherwise it fetches it from the
remote server, saves a copy in the cache and returns it to the requester.
The cache will usually have an expiry algorithm which flushes documents
according to their age, size, and access history.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator) refers to a draft standard for specifying an
object on the Internet, such as a file or newsgroup. URLs are used
extensively on the World Wide Web. They are used in HTML documents to
specify the target of a hyperlink. Background information on URLs may be
obtained from "http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html".
Web page refers to a block of data available on the World-Wide Web, and
identified by a URL. Each web page is usually stored on a server as a file
written in HTML, possibly referring to images which appear as part of the
page when it is displayed by a browser. A web page can also refer to other
web pages and Internet resources by including hypertext links. Each user
at a web site usually has their own home page. To "go to" a page actually
means to receive the information necessary to display a page.
Web server refers to a server process running at a web site which sends out
web pages in response to HTTP requests from remote browsers.
Web site refers to any computer on the Internet running a World Wide Web
server process. A particular web site is identified by the hostname part
of a URL.
World Wide Web refers to an Internet client-server hypertext distributed
information retrieval system which originated from the CERN High-Energy
Physics laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland. The client program is known
as a browser and runs on the user's computer. Documents represented as
hypertext objects in HTML format are presented to the user in a graphical
format by the browser. Hypertext links refer to other documents by their
URLs. These can refer to local or remote resources accessible via FTP,
Gopher, Telnet or news, as well as those available via the http protocol
used to transfer hypertext documents. The World Wide Web is alternatively
referred to as WWW, W3, or the Web.
Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented in
terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data
bits within a computer system. These algorithmic descriptions and
representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing
arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to other
skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a
self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps
are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities.
Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of
electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred,
combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at
times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals
as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the
like. It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar
terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and
are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless
specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussions,
it is to be appreciated that throughout the present invention, discussions
utilizing terms such as "processing" or "computing" or "calculating" or
"determining" or "displaying" or the like, refer to the action and
processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device,
that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic)
quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other
data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer
system memories or registers or other such information storage,
transmission or display devices.
General Architecture
Referring to FIG. 1(a), a general architecture for the present invention is
described. As discussed more fully below, some portions of FIG. 1(a)
represent information processing blocks, typically implemented as program
code, and other portions represent data. Typically, the present invention
is used in conjunction with a personal computer (PC).
A user provided input 110, is received and processed by a web browser 120.
Web browser 120 may access stored files 125 in the process of creating a
graphical presentation to the user of a hypertext object. Stored files 125
may be cached on the users local PC or on a proxy server. Those skilled in
the art will recognize that although graphical presentations are most
common, any means of communicating information may be used to present a
hypertext object to a user.
Web browser 120 typically passes a protocol call, such as a URL call, to a
network access processor 140. In accordance with the present invention, a
protocol call logger 130 directs a copy of the protocol call, along with a
time and date stamp be placed in a protocol call list file 150.
Files retrieved in response to the protocol calls may be stored locally,
typically as binary files. A file system activity monitor 135 keeps track
of which, if any, downloaded files are stored, together with the filenames
of the stored files. A map file 160 is created by file system activity
monitor 135. Map file 160 contains the information needed to associate the
filenames of the stored files to the protocol call which resulted in the
downloading of these files.
A merge processor 165 combines information from stored files 125, protocol
call list file 150, and map file 160, to produce a session file 170.
Session file 170 contains the information necessary to replay the browsing
session. That is, session file 170 specifies how to replay the browsing
session. A session editor 180 is used to modify session file 170.
Modifications of session file 170 include, but are not limited to,
changing the information regarding protocol calls, changing the amount of
time a web page is to be displayed, and adding instructions to display
annotational information in conjunction with the display of the web page.
Those skilled in the art will understand that "display" can include the
communication of text, graphics, video data, or the like, to a visually
perceivable output device, as well as the communication of audio
information to output devices that produce aurally perceivable output. In
accordance with the present invention, annotational information can be any
information in any form that can be communicated to the user. Annotational
material 185 may be supplied by direct user input, or by files stored
prior to editing session file 170, or a combination of both.
Session file 170 may include the code necessary to generate protocol calls
from the information stored within the rest of session file 170.
Alternatively, a browser program may be equipped ahead of time with the
appropriate plug-in modules to read and process session file 170.
An illustrative data structure for protocol call list file 150 is described
with reference to FIG. 1(b). Records 171, 172, 173 each contain a protocol
call field, a filter flag field, an associated time stamp field, and an
error.sub.-- flag field. Record 174 contains a null character in the
protocol call field, a special time stamp indicating the window close time
of the last displayed web page, and a null character in the error.sub.--
flag field. The window close time stamp may alternatively be set to
approximately the time at which the user enters a "stop recording"
command. It will be understood that the order of the fields can be
selected arbitrarily, or in a specific order if the hardware and operating
system of the implementation platform provides an advantage to such a
specific order. In alternative embodiments of the present invention,
inclusion of either the filter flag field, the error flag field, or both
is optional.
An illustrative record format for session file 170 is described with
reference to FIG. 1(c). Record 175 contains a protocol call field, a
display time field, and one or more pointers to annotation material. The
protocol call field typically contains a URL. The annotation material may
be text, graphics, audio, video, or any other medium for communicating
information to a user, or some combination of the various media.
Annotation material may also be instructions to concurrently run one or
more additional browsers along with protocol calls to be issued by those
browsers. Typically, the annotation material is stored in one or more
files. Alternatively, annotation material may be directly incorporated
into session file 170, rather than pointers to the annotation material.
Since a session file typically contains a plurality of protocol calls,
each representative of associated pages, there are therefore typically a
plurality of blocks of annotation material (or annotation pointers), each
block also associated with those specific pages.
The display time field contains the information regarding the amount of
time that a particular page should be displayed. The display time is
computed by determining the difference between two consecutive time stamps
in protocol call list file 150. Generally, the i.sup.th display time
equals the i+1.sup.th time stamp minus the i.sup.th time stamp. For
example, the values for the display time fields for each of the URLs shown
in FIG. 1(b) would be determined as follows:
display.sub.-- time.sub.-- 1=time.sub.-- stamp.sub.-- 2-time.sub.--
stamp.sub.-- 1;
display.sub.-- time.sub.-- 2=time.sub.-- stamp.sub.-- 3-time.sub.--
stamp.sub.-- 2; and
display.sub.-- time.sub.-- n=window.sub.-- close.sub.-- time-time.sub.--
stamp.sub.-- n
Recording a browsing session
Referring to FIG. 2, a process 200 for recording a browsing session is
described.
In a step 210 the user selects record mode. This selection enables the
recordation of protocol calls, such as URL calls in a file. An alternative
term for recordation in this context is logging.
In a step 220 the user selects various options to be used during the
recording process. These options are sometimes referred to as preferences
or features. For example, when a protocol call results in an error being
returned, a user selected option can determine whether the errors are to
be recorded, automatically deleted, or the user prompted for real time
input as to whether to keep or discard the error page. Another example of
a user selectable option is the value of a received-page-threshold at
which a timer is to start, or a time stamp is to be applied. Timer and
time stamp details are provided below. The aggregation of selected
features is sometimes referred to as the configuration, and the step of
selecting is sometimes referred to as configuring. Alternatively, the
configuration process can be done prior to initiating the recording of a
browsing session. A still further alternative is to provide the recording
process with a default configuration, so that a user does not need to
enter configuration data.
In a step 225 determination is a made as to whether a command to stop
recording has been entered. If the stop command has not been entered then
in a step 230 the user enters a request for a file or a web page. This is
typically done by clicking on a hyperlink, but can also be done by
expressly entering a URL. The recording process then continues with step
240, as described below.
If a determination is made in step 225 that a stop command has been
entered, then in a step 235 the contents of protocol call file 150 and the
contents of map file 160 are used by merge processor 165 to synthesize
session file 170. Merge processor 165 can be activated either by a
specific user command, or by terminating the browsing session. If a user
chooses to activate the merge process prior to ending the browsing
session, then the user may optionally elect to continue the recording
process so as to either append further recordation to the existing session
file or to direct further recordation to a new session file. Subsequently,
in a step 237 the recording of the browsing session is terminated.
In a step 240 the browser outputs a protocol call, typically a URL call.
In a step 250 the protocol call logger places a time stamped copy of the
protocol call in the call list file.
In a step 255 a determination is made as to whether one or more files have
been downloaded in response to a protocol call. If no downloaded files
have been stored locally, then the browsing session continues with the
user entering additional commands or requests. The information typically
returned in response to a protocol call is a web page. A more general
expression for this information is a requested page, since web page
typically refers to html format files, while the present invention is not
limited to html format files or browsers.
If a downloaded file has been stored locally then, in a step 260 an entry
is made in map file 160 to indicate files which have been received and
stored in response to user requests. Since a user may rename a file when
it is stored locally, it is useful to provide this mapping function to
facilitate later recall of the stored files.
In an alternative embodiment a filter function is performed on information
returned, that is downloaded, in response to a protocol call. This
downloaded, information is compared to one or more user defined criteria.
One or more filter flags indicative of the results of the comparison are
generated and written to the call list file. These flags represent the
output of the filter function, and can be used in a way similar to the
error flags. The information returned may optionally be retained,
reordered according to a weighting algorithm, or automatically or manually
deleted. The filtering function can act as an information bandpass filter
in which downloaded information is identified as information that is to be
accepted by merge processor 165 for inclusion in session file 170.
Alternatively this can be viewed as an information bandstop filter in
which downloaded information is identified as information that is to be
rejected by merger processor 165. The filtering process can be simple or
complex; it can be defined by a user; or pre-determined and installed as a
plug-in. Filtering can be done based on any suitable criteria, for
example, but not limited to, the source of the information, the length of
the information, the date of the information, the content of the
information, and so on.
The time stamp, mentioned above, can be set to be approximately the time of
the protocol call, or approximately when the requested page is partially
received and displayed, or approximately when the requested page is fully
received and displayed. As to setting the time to be approximately when
the requested page is partially received and displayed, a user selectable
threshold can be set. For example, the threshold can be set to be when the
requested page is 85% complete. Those skilled in the art will understand
that a page may be fully received and yet not fully displayed due to
limitations associated with the user's display device, or choice of window
display size.
In a step 235 the contents of protocol call file 150 and the contents of
map file 160 are used by merge processor 165 to synthesize session file
170. Merge processor 165 can be activated either by a specific user
command, or by terminating the browsing session. If a user chooses to
activate the merge process prior to ending the browsing session, then the
user may optionally elect to continue the recording process so as to
either append further recordation to the existing session file or to
direct further recordation to a new session file.
Editing a recorded browsing session
Referring to FIG. 3, a process 300 for editing a web browsing session is
described.
Session editor 180 is a tool for modifying the session file. Modifications
of session file 170 include, but are not limited to, changing the
information regarding protocol calls, changing the amount of time a web
page is to be displayed, and adding instructions to display annotational
information in conjunction with the display of a web page, html file, or
other object. In an alternative embodiment session editor 180 also
determines if annotation material, for example an audio or video clip,
takes longer to play back than the display time associated with a
particular protocol call, by comparing the display time field in the
session file with a play back time field associated with the annotation
material. If the annotation material play back time is greater than the
display time set in the session file, than session editor 180 substitutes
the greater value for the lesser value. In this way the presentation of
the annotation material is not cut short.
In a step 310 a record is read from session file 170. In a step 320 a
determination is made as to whether the end of session file 170 has been
reached. If the end of session file 170 has been reached then in a step
330, editing process 300 terminates.
If the end of session file has not been reached then in a step 340, the
contents of the record are presented to the user. Typically this is
accomplished by means of a graphical user interface.
In a step 350 a determination is made as whether the user is providing
instruction to annotate session file 170. If no annotation is to be made
to the current record then control returns to step 310 to read another
r | | |
