A Document-Centric Component Framework for Document Distributions

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents a framework for building and managing compound documents in distributed systems. It enables an enriched document to be dynamically and nestedly composed of software components corresponding to various types of content, e.g., text, images, and windows. It permits the content of each component and program code to access the content inseparable inside the components so that the components can be viewed or modified without the need for any applications. It enables each component or document to migrate over a network under its own control by using mobile agent technology. Moreover, it introduces components as carriers or forwarders because it enables them to carry or transmit other components as first class objects to other locations. It offers several basic operations for network processing, e.g., forwarding, duplication, and synchronization. Since these operations are still document components, they can be dynamically deployed and customized at local or remote computers through GUI manipulations. It therefore allows an end-user to easily and rapidly configure network processing in the same way as if he/she had edited the documents. This paper describes the framework and its implementation, which currently uses Java as the implementation language as well as a component development language, and then illustrates several interesting applications that demonstrate its utility and flexibility.

A Spatial Communication Model for Ubiquitous Computing Services

“…Since the model does not distinguish between computing devices that maintain subtrees and computing devices that can execute services, the former can be the latter. Although the model can be automatically configured according to results measured by its underlying location-sensing systems, it provides us with graphical user interfaces developed as active documents, called MobiDoc [14].…”

A Component Framework for Document-Centric Network Processing

“…We presented a compound document framework for providing software components designed for compound documents [17,18]. Although the previous framework was an early prototype of the framework presented here and it enabled components to carry and forward other components over a distributed system, the previous work was designed for distributed documents under the documents' control, whereas the framework presented in this paper supports various networking for documents.…”

Visual Components for Pervasive Computing Management

“…It is designed o support a symbolic-location model for smart spaces, which is the basis for representing context in the physical world and discovering services according to the context. The basic idea behind the framework is to maintain such a location model by extending an existing compound-document framework, called MobiDoc, developed by the author [25,26]. It enables one document to be composed of various visible parts, such as text, image, and video created by different applications, like other compound-document frameworks, e.g., COM/OLE [6], OpenDoc [2], CommonPoint [18], and Bonobo [11].…”

“…For example, when devices and services are added to a smart space, a visual interface for managing the devices or services should be added to the interface for the space. The framework is constructed as a combination of a location model, called M-Spaces [24], and an active document framework, called MobiDoc [25,26], developed by the author. The former is a symbolic-location model to maintain the locations of the computing devices and software for defining context-aware services as well as the locations of physical spaces and entities in the real world.…”

“…The latter is constructed as a Javabased compound document framework. It enables one document to be composed of various visible parts, such as text, images, and video created by different applications, like other compound document frameworks, e.g., COM/OLE [6], OpenDoc [2], CommonPoint [18], JavaBeans [12], and MobiDoc [25,26]. The framework presented in this paper provides visual interfaces for a location model as a management tool for end-users to deploy, customize, and monitor context-aware services.…”