Method of managing attributes and system of managing same   

Abstract: A method of associating attributes with an information element adapted to be individually or collectively retrievable on a basis of at least one of the attributes is presented. Attributes adapted to have a direct attribute configuration, when associated with the information element for characterizing the information element, and a bridge attribute configuration, when associated with the information element for providing a link between the information element and another information element without characterizing the information element it is associated therewith; and associating an attribute from the plurality of attributes with an information element, the associated attribute being in one of the direct attribute configuration and the bridge attribute configuration is also hereby provided.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present invention relates to and claims priority from and is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/40,773, filed Mar. 9, 2009, entitled DOCUMENTS DISCRIMINATION SYSTEM AND METHOD THEREOF, which claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application Ser. 61/034,625, filed Mar. 7, 2008, entitled INTERFACE, U.S. provisional patent application Ser. 61/096,655, filed Sep. 12, 2008, entitled INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TOOL, all these documents are incorporated herein by reference. The present invention also relates to United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2007/0214169 A1, published Sep. 13, 2007, entitled MULTI-DIMENSIONAL LOCATING SYSTEM AND METHOD and relates to United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2007/0271508 A1, published Nov. 22, 2007, entitled MULTI-DIMENSIONAL LOCATING SYSTEM AND METHOD. All these documents are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to a computer system and more specifically to a user interface providing methods that facilitate information management and organization. More precisely, the present invention relates to attributes association with information elements and documents.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2007/0214169 A1, published on Sep. 13, 2007 teaches a Multi-dimensional locating system and method (title). United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2007/0271508 A1, published on Nov. 22, 2007 teaches a Multi-dimensional locating system and method (title). Both patent applications teach ways of managing and displaying documents on arrays of documents. What is taught in these documents have deficiencies.

For instance, one of the deficiencies becomes apparent when a first array of documents presents a group of documents having various attributes (or tags, categories . . . ) associated therewith. When selecting an attribute, either by selecting the attribute, or a document to select an attribute associated therewith, a second array of documents is enabled and displayed. The second array of documents, being either displayed non-parallel or parallel with the first array of documents, groups documents from the first array of documents having the selected attribute in common. Some documents from the first array of documents associated with the selected attribute will therefore appear a second time on the second array of documents. Displaying many times the same documents on different arrays of documents might be confusing for a user.

Another deficiency becomes apparent when a user wants to infer the attribute(s), value or the status of a document just by seeing a document. A document can be associated with a color associated therewith, however, the information transmitted by a color is not enough to properly translate more complex status or value of a document.

The meaning of a color or a pattern associated with a document is arbitrary. It might be desirable to use a color and a pattern that are already known in a complete non-analogous field and use the color and the pattern with documents to reduce the effort required to understand the meaning inferred by colors and patterns associated with documents.

Another deficiency becomes apparent when attributes, or tags, are used to categorize documents according to subjects, topics, categories or other means for linking to documents additional related information or documents. Attributes are associated with documents to categorize the documents and create a link among documents sharing the same attribute. This could be called a first-degree relationship. Thus, attributes are used to retrieve documents associated therewith. So, by selecting an attribute it is possible to retrieve the documents having the selected attribute associated therewith.

In certain circumstances it could be useful to draw a link between two documents, inter alia, that don\'t share a common attribute. It is therefore desirable to have a way to connect one document to another document despite they are not sharing any common attributes.

Another deficiency becomes apparent when multiple attributes are associated with documents. It can easily become time consuming to individually associate a plurality of attributes with documents.

One other deficiency becomes apparent when multiple attributes having substantially similar meaning are used. A query based on a specific attribute is unlikely to retrieve documents associated with another attribute despite the other attribute has a substantially similar meaning.

The prior art computer systems or computer interfaces have not provided solutions to deal with the aforementioned deficiencies and each of these deficiencies in the prior art yield a demand for an improved information managing system and method using an intuitive and natural way to visually present information as well as improved ways to manage associations between the documents.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding to the reader. This summary is not an exhaustive or limiting overview of the disclosure. The summary is not provided to identify key and, or critical elements of the invention, delineate the scope of the invention, or limit the scope of the invention in any way. Its sole purpose is to present some of the objects and aspects disclosed in a simplified form, as an introduction to the more detailed description that is presented later.

The word “document” is used throughout the present specification to facilitate its readability. It is nonetheless not intended to restrict or limit the scope of the present specification to documents. The present specification is mainly directed to computer systems and provides improvements that are useable for managing documents, electronic documents, menu items, application windows and other user-selectable elements displayed on a user graphical interface. The applicant therefore reserves the rights to define claimed subject matters to, inter alia, the above identified elements that could be represented on a user-graphical interface.

The present specification refers to “arrays of documents” although arrays of documents can have various forms. In an embodiment the array of documents can have a substantially linear shape disposing documents along a timeline. In another possible embodiment the array can be a curved line along which documents are displayed. Alternatively, the array can dispose documents on a matrix having a plurality of columns and rows.

Methods of managing information and graphical user interfaces are carried on by computer-readable instructions that are enabled on a computer. Nowadays computers are used everywhere; they come in various shapes and devices. Computers are so popular, inter alia, because they transform into a variety of dedicated purpose computers depending on the instructions they use. De facto, a general purpose computer is of little help until it has dedicated useful instructions defining its functioning. Once it uses dedicated instructions defining its functions, the dedicated purpose computer is adapted to manage data, to transform graphical rendering of information, to exchange data, in other words the computer using dedicated instructions is material in the transformation of data, the management of the process of transformation and the graphical representation of the process of transformation and the result of the process of transformation for a user to appreciate and, possibly, act upon.

It is therefore one object of the present specification to improve at least one of the aforementioned deficiencies.

One object of the present specification provides an improved method for managing information on a computer system.

Another object of the present specification provides an improved user graphical user interface for managing information.

One other object of the present specification provides an improved computer system adapted to manage information.

An object of the present specification provides an improved graphical representation of documents that appears on more than one array of documents.

Another object of the present specification provides an improved graphical document representation capable of providing additional meaning associated therewith.

One other object of the present specification provides a method for drawing links between documents that don\'t commonly share an attribute.

It is one aspect of the specification to provide a discriminative visual feature to documents from a first array of documents that will also be displayed on the second array of documents when displaying the second array of documents.

An aspect of the present specification provides a discriminative visual feature for identifying which documents from a first array of documents will be copied on a second array of documents so that it becomes apparent for a user that the same document is displayed simultaneously more than one time to prevent confusion.

An aspect of the present specification provides a discriminative visual feature adapted to identify documents displayed on a first array of documents that will also be displayed on a second array of documents. The discriminative visual feature being enabled either 1) before the second array of documents is displayed, 2) at the same time the second array of documents is displayed or 3) after the second array of documents is displayed.

One aspect of the present specification provides a discriminative visual feature that is, individually or in combination, a document color, a document texture, a document frame, a document animation or a transition animation applied to the documents present on both the first array of document and the second array of documents.

Another aspect of the present specification provides an animation adapted to illustrate copying of documents into document copies to be displayed on other arrays of documents. The copying being preferably shown simultaneously when the additional arrays of documents are displayed.

It is one object of the present specification provides a plurality of pattern codes adapted to be associated with documents. Each of the pattern code has a meaning associated therewith allowing a viewer to infer the meaning associated with the pattern that is combined with a document.

An additional object of the specification provides a method to associate attributes with color codes and/or pattern codes adapted to be applied to documents.

One additional object of the present invention provides color codes and/or pattern codes that are adapted to be associated with attributes, an association of a specific arrangement of color codes and/or pattern codes being associated to more than a single attribute.

One aspect of the present specification provides a graphical pattern code providing attribute-related meaning to a document to which it is associated so that a viewer can infers the attribute associated therewith out reading the attributes when seeing the document.

Another aspect of the present specification provides color codes and pattern codes that are analogous to colors and patterns distinguishing values of poker chips (or token).

An aspect of the present specification provides document quantification associated with a color code and/or a pattern code that is analogous to poker chips values.

Another aspect of the present specification provides a set of color codes and/or a set of pattern codes associated with incremental values; each of the color codes and each of the pattern codes being adapted to be associated, individually or collectively, with documents to graphically illustrate the value of each document.

One aspect of the present specification provides an icon size, a thumbnail size and a document size representing one document over various strength of zoom; each of the icon size, the thumbnail size and the document size being adapted to illustrate a color code and/or a pattern code adapted to its respective size.

Another aspect of the present specification provides a color code and/or a pattern code associated with an attribute, the color code and/or the pattern code being adapted to be graphically associated with documents associated with the attribute in a way that an observer can infer which attribute is associated with a document without reading.

One other aspect of the present specification provides a color code and/or a pattern code adapted to use, inter alia, a main color, a secondary color, a main shape and a secondary shape in association with attributes that can be associated with documents.

An additional aspect of the specification provides a value associated with color codes and/or pattern codes applied to documents. Variations in colors or in patterns meaning variation in value.

One object of the invention is to group at least two attributes/values, used to categorize documents together, when the at least two attributes/values are considered to be analogous, to use the group of attributes/values in a search despite the at least two attributes/values are not selected by a user to perform the search.

An aspect of the present specification provides the ability to group a plurality of attributes/values having analogous meaning and to use one attribute/value from the group of attributes/values to generate a search that will also automatically consider the other attributes/values from the group of attributes/values in the search.

One aspect of the specification provides a method to associate a plurality of attributes/values together such that a single-attribute/value based search performed by a user also provides search results also having the remaining attributes/values of the plurality of attributes/values.

Another aspect of the specification provides a visual distinctive feature adapted to be associated with attributes/values that are in a group of associated attributes/values so that they are discriminated in a list of attributes/values.

One other aspect of the present invention provides sharing of group of attributes among users.

One object of the specification provides a group of attributes/values adapted to be offered to a user when a document in inserted in a database; the attributes/values can be deleted, modified and other attributes/values can be added to the document when the group of attributes/values is offered.

Another object of the specification is to reduce the time required to properly associate attributes/values to documents by providing a group of attributes/values instead of selecting each relevant attributes/value independently.

One other object of the specification provides at least one master attribute/value a group of attributes/values; the group of attributes/values being offered to the user when one of the at least one master attribute/value is selected to be associated with the a document.

An aspect of the specification provides a dialogue on a user graphical interface adapted to display a group of attributes/values potentially relevant to a document when the document is categorized.

Another aspect of the specification provides a mechanism in a computer system adapted to propose to a user groups of potentially relevant attributes/values to be associated with documents; the selected group of potentially relevant attributes/values proposed to a user being based on the selection of a master attribute.

One another aspect of the specification provides a plurality of master attributes in a same group of attributes/values, a selection of each of the master attributes enabling the display of a dialogue containing the group of attributes/values.

Another aspect of the specification provides access and/or sharing rights of each group of attributes.

One object of the specification provides a means for associating documents having no common attributes.

An aspect of the present specification provides attributes and bridge attributes (indirect attribute) associable with a document.

Another aspect of the specification provides an interface capable of displaying a document associated with attributes (direct attributes) and/or associated with bridge attributes (indirect attributes). The direct attributes categorizing the document, and the bridge attributes, not categorizing the document but categorizing another document, provides a bridge to the other document(s) from the document.

An aspect of the present specification provides a graphical association between a bridge attribute and a document.

One other aspect of the present specification provides a bridge between a document and a related document not sharing the same attributes.

Another aspect of the present specification provides instructions to a computer system to associate an attribute and a bridge attribute to a document.

Another aspect of the present specification provides instructions to a computer system to access a first document from a second document by selecting a bridge attribute associated with the first document and not categorizing the second document, the bridge attribute being an attribute categorizing the first document.

These and other advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and the attached drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary computer network;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary computer network;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary computer system;

FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic exemplary embodiment of non-parallel arrays of documents with emphasis added on repeating documents thereon;

FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic exemplary embodiment of substantially parallel arrays of documents with emphasis added on repeating documents thereon;

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary poker token;

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary icon representing a document with color-coding thereon;

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary thumbnail representing a document with color-coding thereon;

FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary document with color-coding thereon;

FIG. 10 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of documents with attributes associated therewith;

FIG. 11 illustrates an exemplary of associated attributes;

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary query using associated attributes, despite a single attribute has been selected, to build the query and provide results;

FIG. 13 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a module-based system adapted to manage and use grouped attributes;

FIG. 14 illustrates an exemplary flow chart of steps performed during the creation of a group of attributes;

FIG. 15 illustrates an exemplary flow chart of steps performed during the association of attributes from a group of attributes with a document(s);

FIG. 16 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a master attribute adapted to associated its related group of attributes with a document;

FIG. 17 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a plurality of attributes from a group of attributes associated with a document;

FIG. 18 illustrates an exemplary dialogue adapted to allow the management of a group of attributes;

FIG. 19 illustrates an exemplary dialogue adapted to allow the management of access rights related to groups of attributes;

FIG. 20 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a module-based system adapted to manage and use bridge attributes;

FIG. 21 illustrates an exemplary flow chart of steps performed to associate direct and bridge attributes to document(s);

FIG. 22 illustrates an exemplary flow chart of steps performed to retrieve documents based, at least in part, on direct and bridge attributes to document(s);

FIG. 23 illustrates a list of attributes;

FIG. 24 illustrates two documents with one respective attribute associated therewith;

FIG. 25 illustrates two documents of FIG. 23 with bridge attribute E associated with document (1);

FIG. 26 illustrates a plurality of documents with respective attributes associated therewith;

FIG. 27 illustrates the plurality of documents of FIG. 25 with bridge attributes E and F associated with document (1); and

FIG. 28 illustrates the plurality of documents of FIG. 26 with additional bridge attributes associated with documents (1), (2) and (3).

The present invention is now described with reference to the figures. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention by way of embodiment(s). It may be evident, however, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate describing the present invention.

The features provided in this specification mainly, but might not exclusively, relate to principles of computer software and machine-readable code/instructions adapted to instruct a computer, many computers or other machines adapted to use the instructions to provide material effects on a display, or other means enabling human-computer interactions to manage documents, menus, user-selectable elements and other computer files. These code/instructions are preferably stored on a machine-readable medium to be read and acted upon to with a computer or a machine having the appropriate code/instructions reading capability.

Exemplary Network

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary network 10 in which a system and a method, consistent with the present invention, may be implemented. The network 10 may include multiple client devices 12 connected to multiple servers 14, 16, 18 via a network 20. The network 20 may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a phone network, such as the Public Switched Phone Network (PSTN), an intranet, the Internet, Wi-Fi, WiMAX or a combination of networks. Two client devices 12 and three servers 14, 16, 18 have been illustrated as connected to network 20 for simplicity. In practice, there may be more or less client devices and servers 14, 16, 18. Also, in some instances, a client 12 device may perform the functions of a server 14, 16, 18 and a server 14, 16, 18 may perform the functions of a client 12 device.

The client devices 12 may include devices, such as mainframes, minicomputers, personal computers, laptops, personal digital assistants, phones, or the like, capable of connecting to the network 20. The client devices 12 may transmit data over the network 20 or receive data from the network 20 via a wired, wireless, or optical connection.

The servers 14, 16, 18 may include one or more types of computer system, such as a mainframe, minicomputer, or personal computer, capable of connecting to the network 20 to enable servers 14, 16, 18 to communicate with the client devices 12. In alternative implementations, the servers 14, 16, 18 may include mechanisms for directly connecting to one or more client devices 12. The servers 14, 16, 18 may transmit data over the network 20 or receive data from the network 20 via a wired, wireless, or optical connection.

In an implementation consistent with the present invention illustratively embodied herein, the server 14 may include a search engine 22 usable by the client devices 12. The servers 14, 16, 18 may store documents, such as web pages, accessible by the client devices 12.

With reference to FIG. 2, a network 20 includes the content cloud 30, a content database 32, content devices 34-38, and other devices 40-48. The network mediator 28 enables network devices 32-48 to communicate with each other without pre-configuring each device. The content cloud 30 represent a content source such as the Internet, where content exists at various locations across the globe that could be reached through a wired connection and/or with a wireless connection. The content includes multimedia content such as audio and video. The mediator 28 allows the content cloud to provide content to devices 34-48. The content database 32 is a storage device that maintains content. The content database 32 may be a stand-alone device on an external communication network. The mediator 28 communicates with the content database 32 to access and retrieve content. The content devices 34-48 include intelligent devices, such as, for example, personal computers, laptops, cell phones and personal digital assistants. The content devices 34-48 are capable or storing content data. The devices 34-48 are intelligent devices that receive content from other content devices 30-48. However, the devices 30-48 can also operate as servers to distribute content to other client devices.

Exemplary Client Architecture

The following discussion provides a brief, general description of an exemplary computer apparatus in which at least some aspects of the present invention may be implemented. The present invention will be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computerized device. However, the methods of the present invention may be affected by other apparatus. Program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, applets, WEB 2.0 type of evolved networked centered applications, etc. that perform a task(s) or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that at least some aspects of the present invention may be practiced with other configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor system, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network computers, minicomputers, set top boxes, mainframe computers, gaming console and the like. At least some aspects of the present invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices linked through a communications network as exemplified in FIG. 2. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in local and/or remote memory storage devices.

With reference to FIG. 3, an exemplary apparatus 100 for implementing at least some aspects of the present invention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer 120 or in the form of a computerized portable apparatus. The computer 120 may include a processing unit 121, a system memory 122, and a system bus 123 that couples various system components, including the system memory 122, to the processing unit 121. The system bus 123 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory may include read only memory (ROM) 124 and/or random access memory (RAM) 125. A basic input/output system 126 (BIOS), containing basic routines that help to transfer data between elements within the computer 120, such as during start-up, may be stored in ROM 124. The computer 120 may also include a hard disk drive 127 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, (not shown), a magnetic disk drive 128 for reading from or writing to a (e.g., removable) magnetic disk 129, and an optical disk drive 130 for reading from or writing to a removable (magneto) optical disk 131 such as a compact disk or other (magneto) optical media. The hard disk drive 127, magnetic disk drive 128, and (magneto) optical disk drive 130 may be coupled with the system bus 123 by a hard disk drive interface 132, a magnetic disk drive interface 133, and a (magneto) optical drive interface 134, respectively. The drives and their associated storage media provide nonvolatile (or persistent) storage of machine readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer 120. Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a hard disk, a removable magnetic disk 129 and a removable optical disk 131, these skilled in the art will appreciate that other types of storage media, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROM), remote cloud storage and the like, may be used instead of, or in addition to, the storage devices introduced above.

A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk 127, magnetic disk 129, (magneto) optical disk 131, ROM 124 or RAM 125, such as an operating system 135 (for example, Windows® NT® 4.0, sold by Microsoft® Corporation of Redmond, Wash.), one or more application programs 136, other program modules 137 (such as “Alice”, which is a research system developed by the User Interface Group at Carnegie Mellon University available at www.Alice.org, OpenGL from Silicon Graphics Inc. of Mountain View Calif., or Direct 3D from Microsoft Corp. of Bellevue Wash.), and/or program data 138 for example.

A user may enter commands and data into the computer 120 through input devices, such as a keyboard 140, a camera 141 and pointing device 142 for example. Other input devices (not shown) such as a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, a touch sensitive screen, accelerometers adapted to sense movements of the user or movements of a device, or the like may also be included. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 121 through a serial port interface 146 coupled to the system bus. However, input devices may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, a game port, blue tooth connection or a universal serial bus (USB). For example, since the bandwidth of the camera 141 may be too great for the serial port, the video camera 141 may be coupled with the system bus 123 via a video capture card (not shown). The video monitor 147 or other type of display device may also be connected to the system bus 123 via an interface, such as a video adapter 148 for example. The video adapter 148 may include a graphics accelerator. One or more speaker 162 may be connected to the system bus 123 via a sound card 161 (e.g., a wave table synthesizer such as product number AWE64 Gold Card from Creative® Labs of Milpitas, Calif.). In addition to the monitor 147 and speaker(s) 162, the computer 120 may include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as a printer, a hi-definition television and a scanner for example. As an alternative or an addition to the video monitor 147, a stereo video output device, such as a head mounted display or LCD shutter glasses for example, could be used.

The computer 120 may operate in a networked environment which defines logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 149. The remote computer 149 may be another computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and may include many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer 120. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 3 include a local area network (LAN) 151 and a wide area network (WAN) 152, an intranet and the Internet.

When used in a LAN, the computer 120 may be connected to the LAN 151 through a network interface adapter (or “NIC”) 153. When used in a WAN, such as the Internet, the computer 120 may include a modem 154 or other means for establishing communications over the wide area network 152 (e.g. Wi-Fi, WinMax). The modem 154, which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus 123 via the serial port interface 146 or another type of port interface. In a networked environment, at least some of the program modules depicted relative to the computer 120 may be stored in the remote memory storage device. The network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.

Visual Document Attribute Discrimination

Referring to FIG. 4, is illustrated a first array of documents 200 comprising a group of documents 202, 204, 206, 208, 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220, 222 disposed along a chronological order 230 on a graphical user interface adapted to manage documents.

Each document is associated with related attributes or tags, or keywords. In the present embodiment, each attribute is illustratively represented with a capital letter A, B, C, D or E. An attribute is selected, most likely by a user, from all the attributes associated with at least one of the documents present on the first array of documents 200. For instance, attribute E is selected. Documents 206, 212, 216, 220, 222 are illustratively associated with the selected attribute (i.e. attribute E). The document from which attribute E is selected acts as intersecting document. Alternatively, another document could be used as intersecting document although it makes sense to use the document from which the attribute has been selected.

Thus, attribute E is selected and document 212 is the intersecting document intervening between both arrays of documents 200, 300. The intersecting document 212 is located at the intersection of both arrays of documents 200, 300 to graphically put emphasis on the relationship between both arrays of documents 200, 300. A bold frame 240 or other visually discriminating element, optionally, illustrates that the selected attribute has been selected from this particular document 212.

The second array of documents 300 is created, simultaneously or consecutively with the display of the first array of documents 200, showing the documents from the first array of documents 200 that have the selected attribute E associated therewith. In other words, documents 206, 212, 216, 220 and 222 are search results obtained with the query “attribute E” disposed on the second document array 300 along the chronological order 232. As it can be appreciated, documents 206, 212, 216, 220 and 222 are copied on both arrays of documents 200, 300 where document 206 is copied and shown as document 302, document 212 is copied as document 304 (the same document used as intersecting document 212 therefore used a single time by both arrays of documents 200, 300), document 216 is document 306, document 220 is document 308 and document 222 is document 310.

Since documents 206, 216, 220, 222 are copied on both arrays of documents 200, 300 it could be confusing for a user to see the same documents 206, 216, 220 and 222 displayed at two different places, e.g. displayed on both array of documents 200 and array of documents 300. Or, it could be useful to a user to see where is copied a document of interest.

In order to identify and discriminate the documents on the first document array 200 that will be found on the second array of documents 300, a discrimination visual feature 250 is applied to the documents 206, 212, 216, 220, 222 and similarly applied to the documents 302, 304, 306, 308, 310 displayed on the second array of documents 300. In the present situation the illustrative discriminative visual feature darkens 250 the relevant documents as shown on FIG. 4. The discriminative visual feature 250 assists an observer, or a user of the system, to infer which documents from the first array of documents 200 will also appear on the second array of documents 300 and where it will appear so that a quick relation can be established between the duplicated documents 206, 216, 220 and 222. Document 212 is a special case and is darken 250 for a reason of consistency despite it is not duplicated for obvious reasons.

It might be desirable that the discriminating visual feature 250 be applied (or enabled) to the documents having the attribute E associated therewith on the first array of documents 200, then, display the second array of documents 300 with the duplicated documents 206, 216, 220 and 222. Then, enable the discriminating visual feature to be displayed with documents 302, 304, 306, 308, 310 on the second array of documents 300.

The discriminating visual feature 250 can appear for a limited lapse of time at the moment the second array of documents 300 is displayed so that an observer, or a user, could see which documents from the first array of documents 200 will also appear on the second array of documents 300. The discriminating visual feature 250 will disappear after a pre-selected delay is expired. Conversely, discriminating visual features 250, such as a document color, a document frame and a document texture applied to the documents to be duplicated, can remain associated with the subject documents as long as the second array of documents 300 is displayed. Conversely, the discriminating visual features 250 can remain visible for a predetermined amount of time and then disappear.

The discriminating visual feature 250 could be a color applied to the documents, a border around the documents, animations, an alteration of a portion of the documents, an animation showing a movement 260 of each documents having the E attribute from the first array of documents 200 to their respective position on the second array of documents 300. The display of the discriminating visual feature 250 can be made with an animation 260 literally moving, or copying, documents 206, 216, 220, 222 from the first array of documents 200 to their respective locations on the second array of documents 300.

Any visual means capable of discriminating the documents from a user point of view so that the user can see which documents from the first array of documents 200 will be, or is, duplicated on the second array of documents 300 is encompassed by the present specification. Also, more than two arrays of documents can be involved into the use of the discriminating visual features.

Referring now to FIG. 5 where are provided three parallel arrays of documents 330, 340, 350. The first array of documents 330 displays a group of documents 332 having a respective selection of attributes A, B, C, D, E and F associated therewith. Attribute E, in relation with all attributes associated with the first array of documents 330 or in relation with a particular document from the first array of documents 330 or from a list of attributes is selected and leads to the creation of array of documents 340 displaying only documents having the attribute E. The discriminating visual feature 250 is applied so that an observer, or a user, would see which documents from the first array of documents 330 are associated with the attribute E and are to be duplicated on the second array of documents 340 when the attribute E is selected and the second array of documents 340, displaying only the documents 334, 336, 338 associated with the attribute E, is created and displayed. As explained above, but this time in respect to substantially parallel arrays of documents, this application of discriminating visual feature 250 helps preventing any confusion occurring with the duplication of a number of documents. The second array of documents 340, thus, displays a group of documents 342 having the attribute E in common.

The same principle is applied to the third array of documents 350 that displays a group of documents 352, 354, 356 having the attribute F in common. A logic similar to the logic described in respect with attribute E applies here where a discriminating visual feature 252 put a X on the documents having the attribute F that will be duplicated on the third array of documents 350 grouping the documents having the attribute F in common. Similarly discriminating visual feature 252 marks the documents having the attribute F that are displayed on the third array of documents 350 grouping the documents having the attribute F in common.

Here again, the application of the discriminating visual feature 352 can be made with an animation 260 clearly moving, or copying, documents 352, 354, 356 from the first array of documents 330 to their respective locations on the third array of documents 352.

The illustrative embodiments presented herein are presenting three arrays of documents 330, 340, 350. However, the present specification does not intend to limit the number of arrays displayed consecutively or simultaneously.

Document Color Coding

As mentioned above, discriminative visual features 250, 252 are useful to distinguish documents from other documents that do not share some specific attribute, or tag, or key word.

Documents can be reduced and magnified in size according to the number of documents desired to be seen at one time on a display. When the document is too small to appreciate its details it is convenient to use colors, shapes and patterns associated to different meanings, attributes and/or tags so that a viewer can infer the associated meaning without having to magnify the document. More than one attribute can be represented by an arrangement of shape and colors. Various colors, shapes and patterns could be used and the scope of the present application does not intend to limit their possible variations.

It is desirable be inspired by color and pattern coding associated with something already well known in a non-analogous field to represent one attribute of a combination of attributes. One possible option is to see what is done in the field of poker where colors and patterns are used to distinguish the chips used in the game as opposed to real money. The colors and patterns are intended to be easily recognizable a chip\'s value when the chip is seen from its face and from its side without reading the actual writing on it.

Typically colors found in home sets of poker chips include red, white, blue and sometimes black; however, more recently a wide assortment of colors has become readily available.

$2.50 chips are almost exclusively used for blackjack tables, since a “natural” (a 21 on the first two cards dealt to a player) typically pays 3:2 and most wagers are in increments of $5. However, the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. has used pink chips in $7.50-$15 and $10-$20 poker games. Low-denomination yellow chips can vary in value: $20 by statute in Atlantic City and Illinois (which also uses “mustard yellow” $0.50 chips); $5 at most Southern California poker rooms; $2 at Foxwoods\' poker room in Ledyard, Conn. and at Casino del Sol in Tucson, Ariz.; and $0.50 at Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, Wis. Blue chips are occasionally used for $10, most notably by statute in Atlantic City. In Las Vegas and California, most casinos use blue or white for $1 chips, though many Vegas tables now use $1 metal tokens in lieu of chips. Many casinos have coinless slot machines, and this practice reduces costs by limiting $1 chips to the craps tables, where such chips are necessary.

Chips are commonly available in $1000 denominations, depending on the wagering limits of the casino in question. Such chips are often yellow or orange and of a large size. Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and other areas, which permit high wagers typically, have chips available in $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, and higher denominations; the colors for these vary widely.

1000 and higher range).

In many places, gaming boards regulate the color and size of casino chips for consistency. All states require that casino chips have a unique combination of edge (e.g. side) spots for identification, the name and location of the casino and the chip\'s value, if any, impressed, printed, or molded onto the obverse and reverse of the token. Notably, Nevada has no regulations on color; this is why Nevada casinos may use white, blue, or gray as $1, though $5 and higher are almost always consistently colored.

Referring to FIG. 6, The color and shape used on poker chips 400 are distinguishable when the chip is seen from its face 402 and from its side 404.

A possible standard, for example, could use the following color-coding scheme illustrated in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Poker chips 400 colors 406, 408 and shape 412 values Secondary color 408 and Denomination Main color 406 secondary shape 412 $0.50 Dark yellow None $1 White None $2.50 Pink Round black $5 Red Square yellow $10 Blue Round white $20 Bright yellow Square black $25 Green Round yellow $100 Black Square white $500 Purple Rectangle white $1000 Fire orange Lozenge black $5000 Gray Triangle red

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