WO2001009763A1

WO2001009763A1 - Method and system for creating, managing and consulting web sites

Info

Publication number: WO2001009763A1
Application number: PCT/FR2000/002207
Authority: WO
Inventors: Nicolas Korboulewsky
Original assignee: Pyc Conseils Sarl
Priority date: 1999-08-02
Filing date: 2000-08-01
Publication date: 2001-02-08
Also published as: FR2797336A1; FR2797336B1; AU6847700A

Abstract

The invention concerns a method and a system for creating, managing and consulting Web sites which consists in storing elements representing said Web sites in databases located on the central Web site, said representative elements consisting of: objects contained in a database (11), an object being an autonomous entity encapsulating more or less complex functions resulting in the generation of HTML code, capable of being interpreted by a client application, for example a browser (18); attributes of objects contained in the database (11), that is each object depends on a certain number of modifiable parameters forming its interface with respect to the user as for example its colour or its size; structure data contained in a database (15), the structure defining the way in which objects are positioned in a sheet as well as the structure of the different sheets among them; each site owner (1) being capable of modifying, via the Internet (3), the behaviour of said objects by acting on their attributes through a manager of objects (8) and capable of freely arranging, via the Internet (3), in at least one sheet and of arranging said sheets among them by acting on the structure through an editor (9); the consultation by a Web surfer (4) of an owner site (1) activating on the central site (2) a procedure for working out dynamic pages with an application engine (10) based on data contained in the structure (15) and object (11) databases, said dynamic pages being then interpreted by a HTTP server (7) and transmitted in the form of HTML code to the client application (18).

Description

Method and system for creating, managing and viewing websites

The present invention is in the field of computer technology related to the Internet and relates to a method and a system for creating, managing and consulting websites. The World Wide Web also called Web is an application using the Internet. The current possibilities offered to a person wishing to create a site on the Web consist in acquiring specific software for creating HTML pages (Hypertext Markup Language), in installing this software on his personal computer, in creating the pages which he wishes to appear on its site and then transfer the pages created to a server that will host its site and make it available to Internet users, Internet users. HTML is a language that requires specific training. Web page creation software actually makes it possible, from predefined functions in a visual language, to convert these functions into HTML language. One can for example cite among these software "Front page" (registered trademark).

The use of this type of software has a number of drawbacks. First of all, this type of software generally only offers the user simple functions which are converted into HTML. It is not predefined in this type of advanced function software grouping together a certain number of simple functions for for example creating a window for information on a person's address (surname, first name, address, telephone), to create small applications in Java language (also called applet) or any type of programming using a script language. This type of software basically aims to generate HTML code and does not allow to encapsulate functions. By encapsulation, we mean making the object source code inaccessible to an end user, but allowing access to the functions of said object.

On the other hand, when the functionalities of this type of software evolve, it is necessary for the user to obtain the updated version of the software and to install it on his computer. The distribution of updated versions is therefore particularly tedious for both users and software developers. Finally, the Internet is currently seen mainly as a means of communicating formatted information. Very few people think of it as a system that can support applications running on a remote server. The present invention aims to overcome these drawbacks by proposing a new method for creating, managing and consulting websites.

The present invention provides a method for creating, managing and consulting websites each belonging to at least one owner, said websites being contained on a central website, a method characterized in that it consists in storing the representative elements of said websites. Web in databases data located on the central website, said representative elements consisting of:

- objects contained in a database, an object being an autonomous entity encapsulating more or less complex functions resulting in the generation of HTML code interpretable by a client application, a browser for example,

- attributes of the objects contained in the database, that is to say that each object is dependent on a certain number of modifiable parameters constituting its interface with respect to the user such as for example its color or its size,

- structural data contained in a database, the structure defining the way in which the objects are positioned in a sheet as well as the structure of the different sheets between them, each site owner being able to modify, via the Internet, the behavior of said objects by acting on their attributes through an object manager and being able to arrange, via the Internet network, said objects freely in at least one sheet and to arrange said sheets together by acting on the structure through a publisher, the consultation by an internet user of the site of an owner triggering the activation on the central site of a procedure for developing dynamic pages by an application engine from the information contained in the structure databases and objects, said dynamic pages then being interpreted by an HTTP server and transmitted in the form of HTML code to the client application.

According to another characteristic of the invention, each dynamic page is kept in the HTTP server (7) until the creation, modification or deletion of an object.

The invention also relates to a system for creating, managing and consulting websites each belonging to at least one owner, said sites being contained on a central website, a system characterized in that said central site comprises at least:

- an object manager allowing the site owner to define and consult the attributes of each of the objects available in a database,

- an editor allowing the site owner to define the structure of the site contained in a database, that is to say the position of the objects on the work plan, said editor also making it possible to create objects or to destroy them,

- an application engine allowing you to create dynamic pages from the information contained in the databases.

The method according to the present invention considerably simplifies the procedure for creating web pages for the owner of a site and solves the problems of updating software since the creation and management of a site is carried out directly on remote computers connected to the Internet and containing the site creation programs as well as all the information linked to the user's own site. For create or modify his site, the owner therefore only needs to connect via the Internet to the central Web site supported by remote computers. The creation of the site and its hosting are therefore directly linked. In addition, the encapsulation of functions in the form of objects makes the creation of sites, even complex, totally visual without ever having to act on the HTML code.

It is also possible according to this principle to offer a certain number of complementary services associated with the management of the site such as statistics and automatic analyzes of the site for example

In addition, the present invention provides a completely new approach in the creation and management of websites. In fact, according to the invention, the dynamic pages of the site in the form of a scripting language are only created when an internet user wishes to view them and are destroyed when the structure of the page to be viewed has been modified. The information contained on the site is stored in databases. The consultation of the site by an Internet user triggers the activation of a procedure allowing to recover all the information of the site (objects, structure, attributes of objects) and to convert them into dynamic pages. In other words, it is therefore a question of creating dynamic pages dynamically.

Other advantages and characteristics of the invention will appear on reading the following description of forms of realization given by way of nonlimiting example and illustrated by the attached drawings in which:

- Figure 1 shows the overall architecture of the system

- Figure 2 shows the diagram of the various constituents of the invention allowing the creation, management and consultation of websites.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the present invention allows the owner of a site (1) to create his site directly on a central site (2) via the Internet (3). To consult the owner's personal site (1) Internet users (4), ie users of the Internet will find themselves connected to the central site (2). The central site (2) is materialized by one or more computers containing different programs as well as the representative elements of the owner's site (1) and, of course, of the sites of other owners. The developers of objects (5) are part of the designers (6) of the central site and can act remotely on the objects. They can create new ones, modify or delete them via the Internet. The representative elements of the owner's site (1) are stored in at least one database contained on the central site (2). These representative elements mainly consist of:

- of objects, an object being an autonomous entity encapsulating more or less complex functions controlled by the attributes that it has - attributes of objects, that is to say that each object is dependent on a certain number of modifiable parameters constituting its interface with respect to the user such as for example its color or its size, - of structure, the structure defining the way objects are positioned in a sheet as well as the structure of the different sheets between them.

The site owner can thus modify the behavior of objects by acting on their attributes. The owner of the site can arrange the objects freely in the sheets and the sheets between them by acting on the structure.

Figure 2 describes more precisely the architecture of the invention. We find as in Figure 1 the site owner (1), the internet user (4), the object developer (5) as well as the central site (2) materialized by one or more computers containing different programs and databases. data. The object developer (5), owner (1) of the site and Internet users (4) are linked to the central site (2) via HTTP (7) servers (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). Client applications (18), here browsers, make it possible to interpret HTML.

The architecture of the central site (2) essentially includes:

- an object manager (8) which makes it possible to define and consult the attributes of each of the objects available in the database (1 1)

- an editor (9) allowing dialogue with the owner of the site (1) in order to define the structure of the site contained in the database (15), that is to say the position of the objects on the work plan, it also makes it possible to create objects or to destroy them. - an application engine (10) making it possible, from the information contained in the databases, to create the dynamic pages.

The object manager (7) comprises at least one database (11) containing the objects and their attributes. The content of this database can be defined by the object developer (5).

The database (11) also contains the object source code (12) as well as the interface source code (13). The object source code (12) corresponds to the coding of the object in script language, it defines the body of the object. The interface source code (13) defines the interface of one of the attributes of the object. The interface engine (14) uses the interface source code (13) as well as its own logic to dynamically edit the attribute of the current object.

The editor (9) is made up of at least one database

(15) containing the structure of the pages. The content of this database is defined by the site owner (1). The interface for instantiating objects (16) makes it possible to create an image of the object and assigns default attributes for the object. The term instantiate, commonly used in computer language, designates the action of creating the image of an object in the dynamic page. To modify the attribute of an object, the site owner selects the object and the editor (9) launches the interface engine (14) which gives access to the modification of the value of the attributes of the selected object . The visualization engine makes it possible to display on the screen a representation of instantiated objects.

When a user connects to the owner's site (1), the central site (2) triggers a procedure for developing dynamic pages. In general, this procedure consists in recovering and transcribing the representative elements of the site contained in the databases in order to create dynamic pages integrated by the HTTP server (7) which are then transmitted by the Internet to the application. client, here a browser (18). The dynamic page is formed from the source code of the objects (12) inteφretable by the HTTP server (7) (“VBScript” registered trademark for example).

If the dynamic page is already in the memory of the HTTP server, the server switches to the page concerned. Otherwise the dynamic page is created and the server switches to the page concerned.

Claims

claims

1- Site creation, management and consultation process

Webs each belonging to at least one owner (1), said sites being contained on a central website (2), method characterized in that it consists in storing the representative elements of said websites in databases located on the site Central web, said representative elements being made up of: objects contained in a database (11), an object being an autonomous entity encapsulating more or less complex functions resulting in the generation of HTML code inteφretable by a client application, a browser (18) for example, - of attributes of the objects contained in the database

(11), that is to say that each object is dependent on a certain number of modifiable parameters constituting its interface with respect to the user such as for example its color or its size, - of structural data contained in a database data (15), the structure defining the way in which the objects are positioned in a sheet as well as the structure of the different sheets between them, each site owner (1) being able to modify, via the Internet network (3), the behavior of said objects by acting on their attributes through an object manager (8) and being able to arrange, via the Internet network (3), said objects freely in the at least one sheet and to arrange said sheets together by acting on the structure through an editor (9), the consultation by a surfer (4) of the site of an owner (1) triggering the activation on the site central (2) of a procedure for developing dynamic pages by an application engine (10) from information contained in the structure (15) and object (11) databases, said dynamic pages being then integrated by an HTTP server (7) and transmitted in the form of HTML code to the client application (18).

2- A method of creating, managing and consulting websites according to claim 1 characterized in that each dynamic page is kept in the HTTP server (7) until the creation, modification or deletion of an object.

3- System for creating, managing and consulting websites each belonging to at least one owner (1), said websites being contained on a central website (2), system characterized in that said central website includes at least: - an object manager (8) allowing the site owner (1) to define and consult the attributes of each of the objects available in a database (1 1), - an editor (9) allowing the site owner ( 1) to define the structure of the site contained in a database (15), that is to say the position of the objects on the work plan, said editor also making it possible to create objects or to destroy them, an application engine (10) making it possible, from the information contained in the databases, to create the dynamic pages.