| US 7,613,993 B1 | ||
| Prerequisite checking in a system for creating compilations of content | ||
| William J. Baer, San Jose, Calif. (US); James A. Barker, University Heights, Ohio (US); Robert C. Hartman, Jr., San Jose, Calif. (US); Richard D. Hennessy, York, Me. (US); Eugene Johnson, Jr., Lexington, Ky. (US); I-Ming Kao, San Jose, Calif. (US); Janet L. Murray, Los Gatos, Calif. (US); Jerry D. Robertson, III, San Jose, Calif. (US); and Richard W. Walkus, Wayne, N.J. (US) | ||
| Assigned to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. (US); and Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, N.J. (US) | ||
| Filed on Jan. 21, 2000, as Appl. No. 9/488,969. | ||
| Int. Cl. G06F 17/00 (2006.01); G06F 3/048 (2006.01); G06F 7/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 715—205 [715/209; 715/234; 715/853; 707/1; 707/3; 707/104.1] | 9 Claims |
| 1. A computer-implemented method for providing prerequisite checking in a computer system for creating a user-defined, web-based
content object that is generated by the computer system, being one of a book, a document, a collection of images, a collection
of musical selections, a video and a multimedia object, from a plurality of individual content entities including content
for the web-based content object and stored as a plurality of hierarchically related individual content entities in a data
repository as a plurality of individual file objects, some of the content entities being prerequisites to others of the content
entities, the method comprising the steps of:
defining the web-based content object by a list indicating the content entities from the data repository specified by a user
for the web-based content object,
adding or removing a selected content entity to or from the list indicating the content entities from the data repository
specified by the user through a web-based user interface for the web-based content object to add or remove the selected content
entity to or from the web-based content object, wherein a prerequisite content entity is associated with another content entity
and designated for inclusion in each web-based content object for which that other content entity is selected and placed,
and wherein designations of prerequisite content entities for content entities within the data repository are stored external
of the individual file objects containing the content entities,
examining the stored designations of prerequisite content entities and determining if the selected content entity has any
prerequisite content entities designated for that content entity,
and if so,
automatically adding or removing the designated prerequisite content entities to or from the list in direct response to user
interaction initiating the addition or removal of the selected content entity to add or remove the prerequisite content entities
to or from the web-based content object,
wherein the conditions for applying a prerequisite are defined in one or more rules, and wherein selection by the user of
an entity having prerequisites causes automatic inclusion of all associated prerequisite objects complying with the conditions
in a final compilation,
creating a file object defining the compilation that contains a list or outline of the content entities selected, their identifiers,
order and structure, and
storing the file object separately in the data repository.
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