Collaborative document editing using state-based revision

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016110326-A1
Application number	US-201414515359-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 15, 2014
Priority date	Oct 15, 2014
Publication date	Apr 21, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present disclosure provides methods, systems, and computer products for providing state-based revisions in a document collaboration system. In some aspects, a plurality of users may be simultaneously editing the same document on their respective computing devices. The document may comprise a plurality of editable objects having unique objects identifiers. In such aspects, when a user edits an object in a local version of the document, a state-based revision (“SBR”) record is created. The SBR is populated with information such as, information describing the type of object being edited, a descriptor that uniquely identifies the specific instance of the object being edited, a collection of common references that can be adjusted by the document collaboration engine and an opaque binary stream comprising the modified state of the edited object. The SBR record is then transmitted to one or more additional devices.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A computer-implemented method of performing state-based revisions, the method comprising:
editing the document, wherein editing the document produces at least one modification; creating a state-based revision, wherein the state-based revision comprises:
information identifying an object type for an object;
a unique descriptor identifying the object; and
the at least one modification; and
sending the state-based revision to a second computing device.

2 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one modification identifies a modification to an object within the document.

3 . The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the state-based revision further comprises a header section and a body section.

4 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the header section comprises at least one of:
information identifying the type of the object being modified; a unique descriptor identifying the object being modified; and a reference to content peripheral to the state of the object.

5 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the body section comprises the at least one modification.

6 . The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the at least one modification is serialized into a data stream, wherein serializing the at least one modification comprises detecting whether content peripheral to the state of the object is present.

7 . The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , further comprising when content peripheral to the state of the object is detected, replacing the content with a reference to the content, wherein the reference to the content is at least one of a unique identifier and a virtualized token.

8 . The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein the header section is object-independent.

9 . A computer-readable media storing computer executable instructions that when executed cause a computing system to produce a state-based revision record associated with an object, the state-based revision record comprising:
a generalized header section, wherein the generalized header section is object independent, and wherein the generalized header section comprises:
information identifying an object type for the object; and
at least one virtualized reference to a portion of the object; and
a body section, wherein the body section comprises the at least one modification.

10 . The computer-readable media of claim 9 , wherein the generalized header section further comprises a unique descriptor of the object being modified.

11 . The computer-readable media of claim 9 , wherein the at least one virtualized reference represents an immutable status of the object.

12 . The computer-readable media of claim 11 , wherein the at least one virtualized reference is capable of modification within an operational transform.

13 . The computer-readable media of claim 9 , wherein the at least one modification identifies a modification to the object.

14 . The computer-readable media of claim 13 , wherein the at least one modification is serialized into a data stream, wherein serializing the at least one modification comprises detecting whether a portion of the object is peripheral to the state of the object.

15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 14 , further comprising, when the portion of the object is peripheral to the state of the object, replacing the portion of the object with a virtualized reference to the portion of the object.

16 . A document collaboration system for performing state-based revisions, the document collaboration system comprising:
a computing device, comprising:
a processor; and
memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed by the processor performs a method comprising:
editing a document, wherein editing the document produces at least one modification to an object associated with the document; and
creating a state-based revision, wherein the state-based revision comprises:
the at least one modification to the object; and
a virtualized reference to content associated with the object.

17 . The document collaboration system of claim 16 , the state-based revision further comprises a header section and a body section.

18 . The document collaboration system of claim 17 , wherein the header section comprises at least one of information identifying the type of the object associated with the object, a unique descriptor identifying the object and a reference to content peripheral to the state of the object.

19 . The document collaboration system of claim 17 , wherein the body section comprises the at least one modification to the object.

20 . The document collaboration system of claim 18 , wherein the header section is object-independent.

Assignees

• Microsoft Corp

Inventors

• Ryan Nicholas
• Khen Danny
• Monroe Jenefer
• Babanov Alexander
• Nathan Kartik
• Kotchetov Dmitri
• Tupaj Konrad
• Mangini Douglas
• Gensburg Sam
• Campbell Duane

Classifications

• G06F40/103

  Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents (automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191) · CPC title

• G06F40/166 Primary

  Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• G06F17/24 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/211

  Physics · mapped topic