System and method of processing documents with document proxies5638504Abstract An object-oriented document architecture provides system level support for document processing features from within an active document utilizing a novel technique termed a proxy. A proxy integrates external document management functions simultaneously and seamlessly into the standard operating system document processing commands. The system utilizes a revolutionary object-oriented framework system to provide an interface facilitating document access and editing functions from within a document or other active application. Claims Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent is: Description COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION
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typedef char* ClassName;
class TTypeDescription {
public:
TTypeDescription(ClassName className);
virtual Boolean IsA(const TTypeDescription& baseType);
};
Boolean operator==(const TTypeDescription& left, const TTypeDescription&
right);
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A TTypeDescription object encodes the type identity for a specific class. For instance, in order to create a value encoding the type of a class called TText, one can create a type description instance as follows: TTypeDescription("TText"). TTypeDescriptions can be compared by the equality operator (==) to see if they represent the same class. Advanced implementation may provide a method "IsA()" which can be used to check if one type is a subclass of another type. I.e., if aType is a TTypeDescription for a class TA and bType is a TTypeDescriptin for a class TB, then bType.IsA(aType) returns TRUE if B is a subclass of A and return FALSE otherwise. The description below only strictly depends on the presence of the equality comparison; the "IsA()" function is mentioned as a common and useful elaboration. Next, we describe the software-object embodiment of the entity that is "dragged" in a drag-and-drop interaction. All such objects are instances of subclasses of the abstract class TDraggedRepresentation, which is shown directly below.
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class TDraggedRepresentation {
public:
virtual void GetAvailableTypes(TListOf<TTypeDescription>& result) const
0;
};
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For instance, in order to arrange for a drag-and-drop interaction to carry a piece of text as its data, one can provide a subclass TDraggedRepresentationForText which is shown directly below.
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class TDraggedRepresentationForText : public TDraggedRepresentation {
public:
virtual void GetAvailableTypes(TListOf<TTypeDescription>& result)
const;
//Overridden to return "TText" as the available type.
virtual void GetTextData(TText& result) const;
private:
TText fTextData;
};
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A class named TText which holds a piece of text data and provides the interface for operations on that piece of text data. It is useful to support the ability to manage an abstract collection of TDraggedRepresentation objects, possibly simultaneously holding instances of different subclasses (by "abstract", we mean that the object is accessed or managed through an abstract interface like TDraggedRepresentation rather than by a concrete subclass interface like TDraggedRepresentationForText). Since the content data and the protocol to access it is introduced by the subclass (e.g., TDraggedRepresentationForText), it is useful for the client of an abstract collection of TDraggedRepresentation objects to be able to query an instance for its content data type. This is supported by the virtual GetAvailableTypes() member function of TDraggedRepresentation. For instance, the subclass TDraggedRepresentationForText can override this member function to return TTypeDescription("TText") to signify that it makes TText data available. In the depicted form, GetAvailableTypes() is allowed to return a list of available types via a list data structure TListOf<TTypeDescription> which is a simple ordered list of TTypeDescriptions based on a template of the form is commonly seen in many support libraries (the detailed interface is unimportant here). Given this information plus a convention for associating the content type with the TDraggedRepresentation subclass that carries that data, the client can cast the abstract object to the concrete subclass type and then call subclass member functions to access the specific content data. The desktop system is in a state receptive to a drag-and-drop interaction by having active graphical objects displayed on the screen which publish themselves to the system as targets capable of accepting objects that are dragged to them and dropped. FIG. 4 is a schematic that depicts a desktop screen in accordance with a preferred embodiment. FIG. 5 is a schematic with drop-accepting objects or target regions highlighted in accordance with a preferred embodiment. A graphical object in the preferred embodiment publishes itself to the system as a drop-accepting target as a subclass of class MDropAcceptor, shown directly below.
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class MDropAcceptor : public MDragAndDropEventHandler {
public:
MDropAcceptor(TView* view);
virtual Boolean ChoosePreferredType(
TListOf<TTypeDescription> &availableTypes,
TTypeDescription& chosenType) = 0;
virtual void AcceptDrop(TGPoint whereDropped,
const TTypeDescription &theType,
const TDraggedRepresentation&
chosenrePresentation) = 0;
virtual void Drop(TDropEvent& event);
virtual void DragEnter(TDragEnterEvent& event);
virtual void DragExit(TDragExitEvent& event);
virtual void DragMove(TDragMoveEvent& event);
};
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MDropAcceptor provides two, pure virtual member functions which the subclasser implements to define part of the drop acceptance behavior: ChoosePreferredType() is a member function which receives a list of candidate representation types (e.g. representations of an item that is being dragged) and which is implemented to return TRUE along with the most preferred type in the parameter chosenType or FALSE if there is nothing in the list that is acceptable. AcceptDrop() is the member function that is called to cause the MDropAcceptor subclass to accept a representation of an item that is dropped on it (of a representation type previously chosen as acceptable in ChoosePreferredType()). (The TGPoint parameter is explained below). MDropAcceptor is a subclass of MDragAndDropEventHandler, whose function will be developed in the descriptions below. We assume a system facility for managing the activity and visibility of event-handling graphical objects which appear on the desktop, e.g. by having the objects be members of an active graphical object hierarchy (e.g. a window management system); we will call the class of participating event-handling graphical objects TView. TView objects encode their graphical orientation (size, shape, location), have the ability to draw themselves (e.g. to support requests from the system to update a portion of the screen they are visible on), and have the ability to receive and handle a multitude of events, some of which are described below. A complete drop accepting graphical object is defined by subclassing from a TView and MDropAcceptor (or subclasses of them). FIG. 6 is a Booch diagram depicting this processing in accordance with a preferred embodiment. As described above, MDropAcceptor is subclassed to specify the representation type acceptability of a drop acceptor. Subclassing from TView completes the picture by providing the following: It specifies the graphical orientation of the drop accepting target as a region of the screen; it serves to define the object's graphical appearance, especially to convey that it is an entity that the user can drag and drop something to (for instance, by looking like a folder icon); lastly it serves to make the connection to the system's source of events, which as we will see below is used to implement several important mechanisms. The whereDropped parameter in AcceptDrop() is of a system type TGPoint which records a 2-D coordinate point value, and in this member function it is used to specify where on the drop accepting view the dragged item was dropped. Returning to FIG. 4, the state of the system is that there are several drop accepting view subclasses (subclassed from both TView and MDropAcceptor) which are active and visible on the desktop screen. Each drop accepting view instance publishes itself as a drop acceptance target of a certain graphical orientation and has the ability to accept a certain types of dragged representations. A system that is in a state receptive for a drag-and-drop interaction is shown in FIG. 4, i.e. in a state where a dragged item can be dropped on something, and all the parts that make up that state. A description of the side of the interaction that provides the item that is dragged is provided next. A graphical object which makes a draggable available sees the initiation of a user's drag gesture as input from the mouse device, i.e. as events from the mouse device. In the system implementing the preferred embodiment, objects which are receivers of mouse input events are subclasses of MMouseEventHandler shown directly below.
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class MMouseEventHandler {
public:
MMouseEventHandler(TView* view);
virtual Boolean MouseDown(TMouseDownEvent& event) = 0;
virtual Boolean MouseUp(TMouseUpEvent& event) = 0;
virtual Boolean StartMouseEntryEvents( );
virtual Boolean StopMouseEntryEvents( );
virtual Boolean MouseEntered(TMouseEnteredEvent& event) = 0;
virtual Boolean MouseExited(TMouseExited& event) = 0;
virtual Boolean StartMouseMovedEvents( );
virtual Boolean StopMouseEntryEvents( );
virtual Boolean MouseMoved(TMouseMovedEvent& event) = 0;
};
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MMouseEventHandler has member functions for receiving events for each mouse action named by a member function. MouseDown() and MouseUp() are called to handle events corresponding to the user depressing and releasing the mouse button, respectively. MouseEntered() and MouseExited() are described below. MouseMoved is called in response to an event corresponding to any positional change of the mouse. Since it is not appropriate for all mouse event handler existing at a given time to be getting reports of all mouse motions all the time, there is a method StartMouseMovedEvents() and StopMouseMovedEvents() to selectively start and stop the reception of MouseMoved events in an MMouseMovedHandler. A complete mouse-input responsive graphical object is defined by subclassing from TView and MMouseEventHandler (or subclasses of them) and illustrated in FIG. 7 which presents the logic utilizing a Booch diagram depicting a "mouse event handling view" as a subclass of TView and MMouseEventHandler. The C++ code to implement this function is provided directly below.
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class TDragAndDropInteractor {
public:
TDragAndDropInteractor(TListOf<TDraggedRepresentation>,
MGraphic* adoptedDragGraphic);
virtual void DropAt(const TGPoint &where);
virtual void DragAt(const TGPoint &where);
};
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As described above, MMouseEventHandler is subclassed to specify an object's response to mouse events. Subclassing from TView completes the picture by providing the following information. It serves to specify the graphical orientation of the region of the screen that is sensitive to mouse event handling by the object. It serves to define the object's graphical appearance, especially to convey that it is an entity that the user can drag away and drop on something (for instance, by looking like an icon). Finally, it manages the connection to the system's source of events, in this case mouse device events. For our purposes here, if suffices to characterize a mouse event (of the various kinds mentioned in the figures: TMouseDownEvent, TMouseUpEvent, etc.) as an object that encodes an event type (a "mouse down" event vs a "mouse up") and a location of the cursor when the event occurred. This most commercially available system that have facilities for events of this type have this character, and therefore the details should be familiar to those skilled in the art of engineering such systems. In a mouse event handling view, a subclass of TView and MMouseEventHandler, the MMouseEventHandler member function StartMouseEntryEvents() is available for turning on the reception of events which report that the mouse has entered and exited the region of the desktop that the view extends over. These events are received view the member functions MouseEntered() and MouseExited(). StopMouseEntryEvents() stops the reception of these events. The detailed processing for a typical drag-and-drop interaction is presented below. A drag-and-drop interaction involves two event-handling graphical objects on the desktop. One of them, the drag source, is an mouse event handling view. The other, the drop acceptor, is a drop accepting view. The drop acceptor could be any one of the drop acceptors in a system state, for example the printer icon, like that depicted in FIG. 4. The complete interaction involves the following steps: 1) The user moves the cursor to what is represented as a draggable entity inside the drag source object. For instance, this might be a draggable icon object inside of a containing window. 2) The user depresses the mouse button (and doesn't let up). 3) The system determines, by comparing the location of the event with the visible mouse event handling views present on the desktop, which mouse event handling view the event geometrically contained in, in other words which view object was "hit". 4) The system posts a TMouseDownEvent in the event queue associated with the hit view. 5) The thread of execution handling the events in that queue handles the event by calling the member function MouseDown() on the hit mouse event handling view object. 6) As the hit view is publishing a draggable entity (as are assuming in this example interaction), it determines that the cursor position of the mouse down event is geometrically contained on a draggable entity that it is graphically presenting. 7) The drag source creates (or in general, provides) one or more TDraggedRepresentation subclass objects to represent an item that is logically being dragged by the user. The specific example dealing with the proxy below addresses how this is done for a particular application of drag-and-drop. 8) The drag source instantiates an object support by the system implementing the preferred embodiment called TDragAndDropInteractor. The creation and maintenance of TDragAndDropInteractor is how it is expressed to the system that a drag-and-drop interaction has started and is going on. TDragAndDropInteractor accepts in its constructor a list of one or more TDraggedRepresentation subclasses provided (created in the previous step). In the particular design described here, we have the TDragAndDropInteractor's constructor also taking a graphic object (a subclass of MGraphic, an assumed abstract system interface for a passive graphic object). This is used by the implementation of TDragAndDropInteractor for displaying on the desktop graphical feedback to the user of an item being dragged as the user moves the cursor in the steps that follow below. 9) The drag source calls StartMouseMovedEvents() on itself. 10) The user makes motions with the cursor in order to move the cursor, which is dragging an item, to another point on the desktop where the item is to be dropped. In response to the user's cursor motions MouseMoved() will be called on the drag source. The drag source implements this method by calling DragAt() on the TDragAndDropInteractor it has created in Step (8) and it passes as the parameter the location of the TMouseMovedEvent. The drag source's MouseMoved() member function, and therefore the drag-and-drop interactor's DragAt() member function, is called once for every mouse moved event generated by the system in response to the user's motion of the cursor. 11) TDragAndDroplnteractor's DragAt() member function is implemented (by the system) as follows. Given the state of the system such as that depicted in FIG. 4, where there are drop accepting views present on the desktop, it looks to see if the coordinate point passed to it in DragAt() is over any of the drop accepting views. If the point is found to be over a drop accepting view that it was not over in the previous call to DragAt( ), it posts a TDragEnterEvent to the event queue associated with the drop accepting view that new point is over. If the point in the previous call to DragAt() was over a different drop accepting view, or it was over a view last time but the point is not over any view in the current call, it posts a TDragExitEvent to that view. A drop accepting view receives the drag enter and exit events, when the events are handled, in the MDropAcceptor member functions DragEnter() and DragExit(). These functions can be overridden by the drop acceptor implementation to provide graphical feedback to the user to indicate that the view is receptive to having an item that is being dragged over it dropped on it. For instance, the feedback may be a change in the color of the receptive view. One of ordinary skill in the art will readily grasp that it could provide the list of dragged representations with or associated with the drag enter event so that the implementation of the feedback can express the actual acceptability of the dragged item. 12) The user drags the item to the desired destination drop acceptor and positions the cursor over it. 13) The user lets up on the mouse button. 14) The system posts a TMouseUpEvent to the event queue associated with the drag source. 15) The thread handling the events in the event queue associated with the drag source handles this event by calling the member function MouseUp() of the drag source, which calls the member function DropAt() on the TDragAndDroplnteractor in a fashion similar to MouseMoved() translating to a call to DragAt() on the drag-and-drop interactor. TDragAndDropInteractor's DropAt() member function is implemented as follows. First, they handle posting drag exit events to any drop accepting views "exited" since the last call to DragAt() (if any) in a manner identical to the implementation of DragAt(). Then, it looks to see if the parameter point, the cursor point at which the drop occurred, is over a drop accepting view. If it is, it posts a TDropEvent to that view. As part of the drop event or associated with it, it makes the list of dragged representations available to the handler of the drop event. 16) The thread handling the events in the event queue associated with the drop acceptor handles this event by calling the member function Drop() on the drop handler. MDropAcceptor's Drop() member function has a standard implementation as follows. It takes the list of dragged representation associated with the drop event and calls ChoosePreferredTypes on itself passing it the list of dragged presentations. If the implementation of virtual function ChoosePreferredTypes0 properly chooses a type description of an item to accept, this type description and the dragged representation from the list which matches this time is passed back to the drag acceptor in a call to AcceptDrop() which is also passed the cursor position of the final drop event. With this, a dragged representation has been transferred from a drag source object to the drop acceptor, and the interaction is complete. This interaction allows a user to specify the carrying of a piece of information, implemented as a dragged representation object, from one graphical object at one point on the desktop to another graphical object on another point. What is done in response to the transport of this dragged representation object is specific to how this mechanisms are deployed. Some examples involving the proxy are described later. Here is an illustration of why it is interesting for a drag source to provide to the drag-and-drop interactor not just one dragged representation but a list of representations. This illustration involves the ability of data objects to be converted from one data type to another or viewed through an alternative access model. An example of such a case is a modern word processor document. In addition to it being accessible as A) a document of the word processor application which created it (and thereafter allows it to be read and edited on the computer), the document's data can also be usefully viewed as B) a stream of text characters (e.g., for a spelling checking operation), C) a page of graphics (e.g., for a printer to print it), or D) imported input to different word processor application product (so that can be accessed by users that do not have access to the original creating application). Consider the case of a such a convertible or flexibly accessible data object being the item that is dragged in a drag-and-drop interaction. The useful conversion of the data object or the specific access model on the data depends on the function of the drop acceptor that receives the data object. For instance, in a word processor document, the drop acceptor may be A) the application of the document itself, B) a spelling checker utility, C) a printer, or D) an alternative word processor application. At the start of the drag-and-drop interaction, when the dragged object is starting to be dragged, the system cannot determine the ultimate destination drop acceptor because that is about to be specified by the subsequent mouse motion by the user. This means that the dragged representation, which is created at the start of the drag-and-drop interaction, must carry facilities for serving any of the useful conversions of alternative access that the ultimate drop acceptor may request. A practical solution to implementing such a conversion-capable dragged representation object is as follows. The dragged representation object does not carry the actual data object but instead carries 1) a list of types that the dragged object is available as (either through conversion or by access to an alternative interface, and 2) a surrogate of or a reference to the original object which sufficiently identifies or provides access to the original object so that access to it (through conversion or through a chosen access model) is possible. An example of such a reference is the location on the file system where the original data object stored. Here are the main points of this illustration. 1) Participants of drag-and-drop which provide dragged representations (to be carried to drop acceptors) have the need and opportunity to provide utility through data convertibility or multiple access interfaces, and this capability is expressed by the functionality of dragged representation objects that they provide. This is the motivation for the dragged representation source object, discussed in the context of the proxy below, which encapsulates a facility for providing the appropriately capable dragged representation. 2) The flexibility of the representation of the dragged item is used to advantage by the programmed behavior of the drop acceptor that receives the dragged representation. For example, it is what provides the linkage to a word processor document representation and facilitates access of the document as: A) the unconverted document, B) a stream of text, C) pages of graphics layout, or D) an alternative document format. Finally, several basic mechanisms of drag and drop must be illuminated to provide a thorough understanding of a preferred embodiment of the invention. First, practical constraint in implementing a user interaction such as this is that a "mouse down" event from the user may be used to specify one of several interactions, such as not just the beginning of "dragging" but perhaps of selecting an item if the use immediately lets up on the button without any cursor motion. Implementations may embellish the mechanism described above by deferring the creation of the drag-and-drop interactor until the user has pressed the button and moved the cursor by some small amount. Second, in the detailed description of the drag-and-drop mechanism, the user specified a drag-and-drop interaction gesture by the actions of a single mouse and a single button on the mouse. Given the basic mechanism described above, extensions which involve different input devices, multiple input devices, or multiple buttons on the pointing device are possible given that the gesture for specifying the "carrying" of an item from one point on the display to another is well defined. Third, in order to make the mechanisms that require posting drag-and-drop-related events more efficiently, the basic design providing a drop acceptor to express its acceptance criteria "up front" prior to any specific drag-and-drop interaction is necessary. This allows, for instance, the system implementation of the drag-and-drop interactor to use this information to cull away drag- and drop- related events to drop acceptors which are known to be uninterested in the dragged representation it is carrying. Fourth, the description above deals, for clarity and simplicity, with an example were a single unit item (e.g. an icon) is being dragged (even though, as we have discussed, it is useful for the single item to have multiple representations). In most realistic applications it is useful, or necessary, to allow the user to select a collection of items and drag them all at once as an aggregate selection in one interaction. Finally, the description of the drag-and-drop interaction above deals with a object being dragged from one source context to a different destination context. This differentiation of source and destination was applied for clarity of the description, and we mention here that the drag-and-drop mechanism encompasses cases where the source and destination is the same view object programmed to serve both roles. Example Proxy Operations And Their Implementation Opening a document into a window with a proxy A stored document, such as the document shown in FIG. 3, is opened to a graphical presentation. FIG. 2 depicts a document display in accordance with a preferred embodiment. FIG. 8 is a detailed flowchart of the processing necessary for opening a document into a window. Processing commences at function block 400 where the document presenter is retrieved from the stored document. Then, a call is made on the document presenter object to create a window presenting the document's contents at function block 410. A reference to the stored document is furnished for this call. The document presenter creates a window which is furnished with the following elements: a) a facility 430 (e.g. "view" object) for displaying and editing the stored document's content data; the details of this facility are unimportant here and are not described; b) a proxy element 440, for instance with an appearance derived by retrieving a proxy icon graphic from the stored document. This proxy element, in conjunction with the window containing it, is an object that implements the direct user manipulations described below. In order to implement these operations, the window or the proxy element is furnished with a reference to the stored document; and c) optional other identifying attributes 450 contained in the stored document, like placing the name label from the stored document as the title of the window. Dragging the proxy to another drop-accepting entity FIG. 9 is a detailed flowchart of the logic associated with dragging the proxy to another drop accepting entity in accordance with a preferred embodiment. To facilitate connecting with a drag-and-drop description of a preferred embodiment, the window containing and presenting the proxy is an event-handling graphical object that is the drag source. The user selects the proxy with the mouse as shown in function block 500 and drags the proxy icon to another location as described in function block 510. The window in conjunction with the proxy element is implemented to handle this user interaction as follows. a) It uses the reference to the stored document to retrieve the dragged representation source object as shown in function block 520. b) The dragged representation source object produces one or more objects on the desktop representative of publication characteristics of a document. The document object(s) publish themselves to targets that receive the dragged proxy as shown in function block 530. c) The set of representation objects produced by the dragged representation source is furnished to the assumed "dragging" facility provided by (or implemented on) a system that supports this kind of user manipulation. The representation object(s) are "carried" by the system's dragging facility as shown in function block 540. 3) The user drags the proxy to an accepting entity somewhere else on the screen and drops it as shown in function block 540. 4) The dragging facility furnishes the carried representation objects to the accepting entity (assuming the user graphically dropped the proxy on an accepting entity) as shown in function block 550. What the accepting entity does with the carried representation is not important to this general mechanism. An example of a set of representation objects provided by a document's dragged representation source is a word processor document. A word processor document's representation source would provide the following representations. The detailed logic of the nature and selection of representations provided by specific document types and what drop-accepting targets do with the selection of carried representation is unimportant to the current discussion and is not described here. Dragging an item from an external source to the proxy In this case, the proxy, or the window containing and presenting the proxy, on behalf of the proxy, assumes the role of a drop acceptor. A dragged representation that is dragged to an external source comes from another entity which is the drag source. 1) The user drags an item or items (e.g. icons) from some other entity displayed on the screen, brings it on top of the proxy element of the window under concern and drops it. 2) A "drop" handling facility is assumed to be provided by (or implemented on) a system that supports this kind of user manipulation. Such a facility reports the occurrence of a drop and furnishes the representations carried as the dragged entity to an implementation deployed to handle such a drop. The window in conjunction with the proxy element deploys such an implementation, which handles the drop occurrence and the dropped representations as follows: a) It retrieves the drop acceptance handier object from the stored document. b) It invokes a drop handling call on this object, furnishing it with the dropped representations. Note that the external source of the dragged item can be any proper participant of the system's dragging facility, including another proxy. Human Interface Applications Of The Proxy Mechanism Since a proxy, in accordance with a preferred embodiment, brings "workspace" functionality to a document currently active in a window environment, examples are presented with a description of behavioral characteristics when a proxy is a normal icon in a workspace context. This description is followed by a description of how a proxy behaves in an open window environment. Document object. In a workspace, a document icon can dragged from one container to another to move or copy it, or it can be dragged to the trash can or other icons representative of functional devices (e.g. a printer) and appliances or special icons that know how to read and interpret the data carried by the document. For example, if a document contains a mailing address, the document object is mailed to the address. Specifically, if it is a business card object, a letter or other document object can be dragged to and dropped upon the business card object to invoke a mailing operation to the address contained within the business card. If the address is an internet address or other network address, the document is transmitted via the network medium to the specified address. If no electronic address, exists in the business card object, then the user is prompted to enter the address. To initiate operations, an icon is selected, and the following operations are performed: Open, Make Reference, Duplicate, Show Properties. Each operation is detailed below. If the document icon is opened to a window with a proxy, then: 1) the proxy facilitates a move/copy/trash operations on an open and active document; and 2) the proxy can also be dropped onto devices and appliances, without closing the document or removing the proxy from the document. Stationery Pad Object. If a stationary pad object is opened into the workspace, then the icon creates a copy of the stationery pad base document and opens the document. If the stationery pad object is opened into a window with a proxy, then the stationery pad object cannot be in an opened state in a normal document sense, because opening it causes a copy (a normal document and not a stationery pad) to be created and opened within the document containing the proxy. Another variation is when a Show Properties window for a stationery pad has a proxy, it can be opened (to copy off and open a stationery document instance) from the Show Properties window. Printer object. A printer object is opened in the workspace, then it becomes an icon to which you can drag documents to have an associated hardware printer device print a document. If the printer object is opened to a window with a proxy, the printer object may opens into a window that shows the state of queued jobs, the state of the printer (like paper being out), or a control panel for special printer functions. Including a proxy in the window allows the user to continue to use the same interface for dragging a job to the printer, namely by dragging a document icon to the proxy icon. FIG. 10 is a flowchart setting forth the detailed logic associated with proxy operations in accordance with a preferred embodiment. Processing commences at function block 1000 when a mouse down occurs. Then a test is performed at decision block 1002 to determine if the cursor is located in an event area when the mouse down event was detected. If so, then the event is posted and handled as shown in function block 1004 and another test is performed at decision block 1010 to determine if a draggable entity has been selected. If not, then control is passed to another interaction as shown in function block 1012, and processing is returned to function block 1000 to await the next mouse down event. If a draggable entity is detected at decision block 1010, then a drag and drop interactor is created at function block 1020 and the next event associated with the next mouse action is received at function block 1030, and a test is performed at decision block 1040 to determine if a new acceptor has been positioned under the icon. If so, then post drag exit event as shown in function block 1042 and pass control to decision block 1050 to determine if the same acceptor is positioned under the selected icon. If it is not the same acceptor, then a drag enter event is posted at function block 1070 and control is passed to decision block 1060 to determine if a mouse drop event has occurred. If so, then perform the acceptor function as shown in function block occurred. If so, then perform the acceptor function as shown in function block 1080. If not, then pass control to 1030 to process the next event. A background grammar analysis tool is implemented as a software icon to which you drag text documents to invoke an analysis tool to analyze a document that is dropped on the icon representative of the analysis tool. If the opened appliance window has a proxy, then the proxy provides the interface for accepting more documents to analyze while the current results are displayed in the same window. Another example could be a spell check operation invoked similarly. While the invention has been described in terms of a preferred embodiment in a specific system environment, those skilled in the art recognize that the invention can be practiced, with modification, in other and different hardware and software environments within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
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