Comment management in shared documents

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11023537-B2
Application number	US-201816126631-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 10, 2018
Priority date	Mar 5, 2015
Publication date	Jun 1, 2021
Grant date	Jun 1, 2021

Abstract

A content management system including a document management system provides documents that include comments entered by users. Comments are organized into threads; each thread is associated with a span of text in the document. When a user requests access to a document, the document management system determines which threads are visible to the user based on an audience associated with each thread. The audience comprises the user identifiers of i) the author of the document containing the thread; ii) the authors of comments included in the thread; iii) the authors of any text included in the text span for the thread; iv) any user mentioned in the text span the thread via a user primitive; v) any user mentioned in a comment via user primitive.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving a comment for a document stored by a document management system, the comment associated with a selected text span in the document, the document being accessible to a set of users of the document management system;
identifying an author of the comment, the author being a first user in the set of users, and a set of authors who contributed text to the selected text span;
generating an audience list corresponding to the author of the comment and the set of authors who contributed text to the selected text span;
responsive to receiving a request to access the document from a user in the set of users, determining whether the requesting user is indicated by the audience list;
responsive to determining that the requesting user is indicated by the audience list, providing the document for display to the requesting user such that the comment is visible to the requesting user; and
responsive to determining that the requesting user is not indicated by the audience list, providing the document for display to the requesting user such that the comment is not visible to the requesting user.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the document is associated with a plurality of comments, each of the comments authored by a user, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users who authored at least one comment associated with the document.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the document is associated with a plurality of comments, at least one of the comments including one or more user primitives identifying one or more users, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users identified by a user primitive in one of the comments associated with the document.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the document comprises a plurality of text portions, each text portion authored by a user, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users who authored at least one text portion in the document.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected text span overlaps a text portion that was authored by a second user, the second user different from the first user, and wherein the comment is not visible to the second user.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the comment is part of a thread comprising a plurality of comments.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the thread specifies an audience for the plurality of comments, the audience including a user identifier for the first user.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
responsive to identifying the first user as the author of the comment, transmitting a notification message to the first user, the notification message including a link to access the document and the comment in the document management system.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by a computing system, the instructions when executed causing the computing system to perform operations comprising:
receiving a comment for a document stored by a document management system, the comment associated with a selected text span in the document, the document being accessible to a set of users of the document management system;
identifying an author of the comment, the author being a first user in the set of users, and a set of authors who contributed text to the selected text span;
generating an audience list corresponding to the author of the comment and the set of authors who contributed text to the selected text span;
responsive to receiving a request to access the document from a user in the set of users, determining whether the requesting user is indicated by the audience list;
responsive to determining that the requesting user is indicated by the audience list, providing the document for display to the requesting user such that the comment is visible to the requesting user; and
responsive to determining that the requesting user is not indicated by the audience list, providing the document for display to the requesting user such that the comment is not visible to the requesting user.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the document is associated with a plurality of comments, each of the comments authored by a user, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users who authored at least one comment associated with the document.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the document is associated with a plurality of comments, at least one of the comments including one or more user primitives identifying one or more users, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users identified by a user primitive in one of the comments associated with the document.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the document comprises a plurality of text portions, each text portion authored by a user, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users who authored at least one text portion in the document.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the selected text span overlaps a text portion that was authored by a second user, the second user different from the first user, and wherein the comment is not visible to the second user.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the comment is part of a thread comprising a plurality of comments.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the thread specifies an audience for the plurality of comments, the audience including a user identifier for the first user.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , the operations further comprising:
responsive to identifying the first user as the author of the comment, transmitting a notification message to the first user, the notification message including a link to access the document and the comment in the document management system.

17. A system comprising:
a memory; and
one or more processors;
wherein the memory includes instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving a comment for a document stored by a document management system, the comment associated with a selected text span in the document, the document being accessible to a set of users of the document management system;
identifying an author of the comment, the author being a first user in the set of users, and a set of authors who contributed text to the selected text span;
generating an audience list corresponding to the author of the comment and the set of authors who contributed text to the selected text span;
responsive to receiving a request to access the document from a user in the set of users, determining whether the requesting user is indicated by the audience list;
responsive to determining that the requesting user is indicated by the audience list, providing the document for display to the requesting user such that the comment is visible to the requesting user; and
responsive to determining that the requesting user is not indicated by the audience list, providing the document for display to the requesting user such that the comment is not visible to the requesting user.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the document is associated with a plurality of comments, each of the comments authored by a user, and wherein the set of users comprises each of the users who authored at least one comment associated with the document.

19. The system of claim 17 , wherein the document is associated with a plurality of comments, at least one of the comments including one

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Devincenzi Anthony
• Blackshaw Matthew
• Graveley Balabhadra
• Kofman Igor

Classifications

• G06F40/169 Primary

  Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes · CPC title

• H04L51/216

  Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads · CPC title

• G06F40/134

  Hyperlinking · CPC title

• G06F16/93 Primary

  Document management systems · CPC title

• H04L51/16

  Electricity · mapped topic