Communication apparatus, control program of communication apparatus, and relay apparatus providing efficient download of electronic data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10044789-B2
Application number	US-201113291635-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 8, 2011
Priority date	Nov 8, 2010
Publication date	Aug 7, 2018
Grant date	Aug 7, 2018

Abstract

A communication apparatus, a control program of the communication apparatus, and a relay apparatus are provided. The communication apparatus is configured to download electronic data from a server storing a first amount or more of electronic data and to output the downloaded electronic data. The communication apparatus includes an output unit configured to output a second amount of electronic data smaller than the first amount at one time, a download information acquiring unit configured to acquire download information necessary for downloading the first amount of electronic data stored in the server, from the server, a download unit configured to download the second amount of electronic data of the first amount of electronic data from the server, using the download information acquired by the download information acquiring unit. The output unit is configured to output the electronic data downloaded by the download unit.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A communication system comprising:
a print apparatus configured to communicate with a plurality of servers, storing a plurality of albums each including a plurality of pieces of image data, at least one of the plurality of albums including N 2 pieces of image data, the print apparatus comprising:
a display configured to display N 5 pieces of thumbnail images concurrently; and
a touch panel configured to receive an input operation; and

a relay apparatus configured to communicate with the plurality of servers and a plurality of print apparatuses including the print apparatus, wherein N 2 is larger than N 1 , N 1 is larger than N 5 , N 1 is a number of URLs which the relay apparatus acquires from at least one of the plurality of servers and corresponds to a number of pieces of image data included in a page of a selected album from among the plurality of albums, the URLs relate to the album including the N 2 pieces of image data, and the image data is subject to printing by the print apparatus;
wherein the relay apparatus comprises:
a first processor; and
first memory storing computer readable instructions, when executed by the first processor, causing the relay apparatus to execute:
receiving a first request which identifies one of the plurality of albums from the print apparatus;
receiving number information indicative of a number of the image data of the album identified by the first request, the identified album including N 2 pieces of the image data, and the N 2 pieces of image data being identified by URLs,
requesting, to at least one of the plurality of servers, N 1 pieces of a first URLs which respectively identify thumbnail data of N 1 pieces of the image data included in a first page out of a plurality of pages into which the identified album is divided, wherein the N 2 pieces of image data in the identified album are stored in at least one of the plurality of servers, arrangement numbers are respectively assigned to the N 2 pieces of image data in the identified album, the N 1 pieces of the image data in the first page includes the N 1 pieces of the image data from the image data arranged in a first position according to the arrangement numbers to the image data arranged in N 1 th position according to the arrangement numbers;
acquiring the N 1 pieces of the first URLs transmitted from at least one of the plurality of servers after the first URL is requested without requiring the relay apparatus to acquire the N 1 pieces of the image data; and
transmitting the acquired N 1 pieces of the first URLs to the print apparatus, wherein the print apparatus comprises:

a second processor; and
second memory storing computer readable instructions, when executed by the second processor, causing the print apparatus to execute:
receiving a first input operation through the touch panel;
transmitting the first request to the relay apparatus in response to the first input operation;
receiving the N 1 pieces of the first URLs from the relay apparatus corresponding to the album identified by the first request after the first request is transmitted;
transmitting, to at least one of the plurality of servers, a first thumbnail image request including N 5 pieces of the received first URLs out of the N 1 pieces of the received first URLs without accessing the relay apparatus;
downloading, from the at least one of the plurality of servers, the N 5 pieces of thumbnail data corresponding to the N 5 pieces of the received first URLs included in the first thumbnail image request in response to the first thumbnail image request without accessing the relay apparatus;
displaying, on the display, a next page key and only N 5 pieces of thumbnail images of the thumbnail data downloaded in response to the first thumbnail image request, wherein the thumbnail images are displayed in an order of the arrangement numbers from the thumbnail data of the first image data to the N 5 th image data according to the arrangement numbers, wherein in a state the next page key and the N 5 pieces of thumbnail images are displayed on the display, the print apparatus is configured to receive a second input operation corresponding to a touch to the next page key, a third input operation corresponding to a touch for selecting one of the N 5 pieces of thumbnail images, and a fourth input operation different from the second and third input operations;

in a state that the N 5 pieces of the thumbnail images and the next page key are displayed,
when the touch panel receives the second input operation,
transmitting a second request indicative of a next page of the page corresponding to the thumbnail images displayed on the display;
when the touch panel receives the third input operation,
transmitting a third request indicative of the thumbnail selected by the touch of the third input to the relay apparatus; and
when the touch panel receives the fourth input operation,
transmitting, to at least one of the plurality of servers, a second thumbnail image request including N 5 pieces of the received first URLs corresponding to a next of the last arrangement number of the arrangement numbers corresponding to the thumbnail images being displayed on the display out of the N 1 pieces of the first URLs without accessing the relay apparatus;
downloading, from the at least one of the plurality of servers, the N 5 pieces of thumbnail data corresponding to the N 5 pieces of the received first URLs included in the second thumbnail image request in response to the second thumbnail image request without accessing the relay apparatus;
displaying, on the display, the next page key and only the N 5 pieces of the thumbnail images of the thumbnail data downloaded from the at least one of the plurality of servers,

wherein the print apparatus is configured to receive the second input operation, the third input operation and the fourth input operation through the touch panel in a state that the thumbnail image and the next page key are being displayed,
wherein the instructions stored in the first memory cause the relay apparatus to execute:
after the N 1 pieces of the first URLs acquired from at least one of the plurality of servers are transmitted to the print apparatus,
when the relay apparatus receives the second request from the print apparatus,
requesting to at least one of the plurality of servers the N 1 pieces of the first URLs which respectively indicate the thumbnail data of the N 1 pieces of the image data included in the page which is indicated by the second request and is a different one of the plurality of pages into which the identified album is divided;
acquiring the N 1 pieces of the first URLs transmitted from the at least one of the plurality of servers after requesting the N 1 pieces of the first URLs which respectively indicate the thumbnail data of the N 1 pieces of the image data included in the page indicated by the second request without requiring the relay apparatus to acquire the N 1 pieces of the image data included in the page indicated by the second request;
transmitting the acquired N 1 pieces of the first URLs to the print apparatus;
when the relay apparatus receives the third request from the print apparatus,
requesting to at least one of the plurality of servers a second URL indicating image data corresponding to the thumbnail data indicated by the third request,

wherein the instructions stored in the second memory causes the print apparatus to execute:
receiving, from the relay apparatus, the first URLs which respectively indicate the thumbnail data of the N 1 pieces of the image data included in the second request after the second request is transmitted to at least one of the plurality of servers;
displaying, on the display, the next page key and only the N 5 pieces of thumbnail images out of the N 1 pieces of thumbnail images repre

Assignees

• Urakawa Yutaka
• Watanabe Satoshi
• Ito Katsuaki
• Banno Hirokazu
• Yamamoto Kazutaka
• Miyazawa Masafumi
• Shimada Yusuke
• Nagasaki Takeshi
• Brother Ind Ltd

Inventors

• Urakawa Yutaka
• Watanabe Satoshi
• Ito Katsuaki
• Banno Hirokazu
• Yamamoto Kazutaka
• Miyazawa Masafumi
• Shimada Yusuke
• Nagasaki Takeshi

Classifications

• H04L67/06 Primary

  specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP] · CPC title

• H04N1/00188

  Printing, e.g. prints or reprints (H04N1/0019, H04N1/00196 take precedence) · CPC title

• G06F3/1285 Primary

  Remote printer device, e.g. being remote from client or server · CPC title

• H04L67/2819

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/2804

  Electricity · mapped topic