Persistent viewports

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016179754-A1
Application number	US-201414573784-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 17, 2014
Priority date	Dec 17, 2014
Publication date	Jun 23, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A persistent viewports architecture that provides a persistent and correctly-positioned viewport to a user when a collaboration document is being updated. The architecture identifies and utilizes a user's element-of-interest in content of the document to determine and recalculate the correct position of the user viewport. The architecture tracks a topmost element of the content (or section of content) from the viewport and employs the topmost element as a reference element. The topmost element can be one or more of a paragraph, a header, string of text, and an image. When the underlying document is to be updated, the viewport performs a lookup of reference element, and after finding the reference element, adjusts the X and Y offsets of the viewport so that the element-of-interest is inside the viewport.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system, comprising:
an element component configured to identify an element-of-interest in content of a virtual document, the element-of-interest in a viewport of the virtual document presented to a passive user of a collaboration session; an update component configured to receive an update of the virtual document from an active user of the collaboration session; a viewport component configured to move the viewport to maintain the element-of-interest in the viewport of the passive user regardless of any positional change of the content due to the update by the active user; and at least one hardware processor configured to execute computer-executable instructions in a memory, the instructions executed to enable the element component, the update component, and viewport component.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the viewport component is configured to compute position of the viewport relative to the element-of-interest.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the element component is configured to identify a reference element in the content of the viewport of the passive user.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the reference element includes at least one of a paragraph, a header, an image, or a string of text.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the element component is configured to identify a topmost element of the content in the viewport of the passive user as a reference element.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the element component is configured to update and maintain a hashset and content elements in a memory based on changes in view of the virtual document in the viewport of the passive user.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the viewport component is configured to move the viewport to include a predefined section of content in which the element-of-interest resides.

8 . A method, comprising acts of:
identifying an element-of-interest in content of a virtual document, the element-of-interest in a viewport of the virtual document presented on a passive user system; receiving an update to the content of the virtual document from an active user system; and persisting the element-of-interest in the viewport of the passive user system regardless of any positional change of the content due to the update by the active user system.

9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising computing position of the viewport relative to the element-of-interest.

10 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising identifying a reference element in the content of the viewport of the passive user system in response to the update.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising identifying a topmost element in the viewport of the passive user system as the reference element.

12 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising identifying the reference element in response to the update and adjusting an offset in the content to persist the element-of-interest in the viewport.

13 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising searching for the element-of-interest in a memory that stores a hashset and elements of the content.

14 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising synchronizing the update across applications of passive user systems while maintaining position of the element-of-interest in corresponding viewports of the passive user systems.

15 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising shifting position of the viewport to include the element-of-interest in the viewport.

16 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising receiving the update in a part of the virtual document that outside the viewport of the passive user system.

17 . A method, comprising acts of:
identifying an element-of-interest in content of a virtual document, the element-of-interest in a viewport of the virtual document presented on a passive user system of a collaboration session; computing position of the viewport relative to the element-of-interest; identifying a reference element in the content of the viewport of the passive user system; receiving an update to the content of the virtual document from an active user system of the collaboration session; and persisting the viewport to include the element-of-interest in the viewport of the passive user system regardless of any positional change of the content due to the update by the active user system.

18 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising identifying a topmost element in the viewport of the passive user system as the reference element.

19 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising adjusting the viewport according to an offset to persist the element-of-interest in the viewport.

20 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising synchronizing the update across applications of passive user systems as part of the collaboration session while maintaining position of the element-of-interest in corresponding collaboration viewports of the passive user systems.

Assignees

• Microsoft Corp

Inventors

• Borza Paul Valentin
• Parikh Vaibhav Girish

Classifications

• G06F3/0485

  Scrolling or panning · CPC title

• G06F16/9577 Primary

  Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents · CPC title

• G09G5/34

  for rolling or scrolling · CPC title

• G06Q10/103

  Workflow collaboration or project management · CPC title

• H04L65/403

  Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences (data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15) · CPC title