Techniques for integrating parameterized information request into a system for collaborative work

A system for providing a user with a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface permitting specification of an information resource belonging to one of a plurality of different kinds of information resources and the system responding to the specification by providing the information resource to the user, the system being implemented using a processor that produces and responds to inputs from the graphical user interface and has access to the information resource and to a storage device, the system comprising:

• a specification in the graphical user interface of an information resource that is obtained using an instance of a parameterized information request and objects in the storage device including a connector object in the storage device that represents a class of the parameterized information requests to which the instance belongs;
• a request parameter object in the storage that defines a request parameter for parameterized information requests belonging to the class, the request parameter comprising a bind parameter that is replaced by a bind value before the request parameter is used in the instance of the parameterized information request;
• and
• an information source access object in the storage device that specifies attributes of the information, the processor responding to the specification by using the request parameter defined in the request parameter object and the attributes of the source of information to make the instance.

A graphical user interface for specifying a class of parameterized information requests, the graphical user interface being implemented using a processor that produces and responds to inputs from the graphical user interface and has access to a storage device, the class of parameterized information requests being specified by objects in the storage device, the objects including a connector object that represents the class of the parameterized information requests, a request parameter object that defines a request parameter for parameterized information requests belonging to the class, and an information source access object that specifies attributes of an information source which will receive instances of the parameterized information request belonging to the class, and the graphical user interface comprising:

• a connector specification interface for specifying the connector object that represents the class of parameterized information requests;
• a request parameter specification interface for specifying a request parameter for parameterized information requests belonging to the class, the request parameter comprising a bind parameter that is replaced by a bind value before the request parameter is used in an instance of a parameterized information request;
• and
• an information source access specification interface that specifies the attributes of the information source, the processor responding to the connector specification interface by producing the connector object, to the request parameter specification interface by producing the request parameter object for the request parameter and to the information source access object specification interface by producing the information source access object for the attributes of the information source.