Productivity tools for content authoring

• US 10,210,146 B2
• Filed: 09/28/2014
• Issued: 02/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Kohlmeier, Bernhard S. J., Reyes, Lorrissa, Chilakamarri, Pradeep, Southward, Vernon William
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott T
• Assistant Examiner(s): Velez-Lopez, Mario M
• Application Number:
  US14/499,195
• Publication Number:
  US 20160092416A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,605 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3331 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

An assisted content authoring productivity tool can provide a set of structured content related to at least one topic determined from a user'"'"'s expression of intent. Additional information can be obtained about a selected result from the set of structured content through the assisted content authoring productivity tool by using the set of structured content as context for the further search. An item from the set of structured content can be inserted into a document in a content authoring surface of a content authoring application. The insertion may be carried out cross-device. Topics for the search of structured content can be determined using the user'"'"'s expression of intent and, once available, the context can include the results of previous searches for the structured content related to at least one topic determined from the user'"'"'s expression of intent. Each additional search results may provide further context in a recursive manner.

Claims

1. One or more computer readable storage media having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to:

request a set of structured content relevant to at least one topic of a received expression of intent, wherein the expression of the user'"'"'s intent is input through an input field within a user interface of the content authoring application;

present the set of structured content of at least one topic result for inclusion in the content authoring application, wherein the content authoring application is a notebook application or a word processing application;

in response to receiving an explore command to explore a selected search item from the set of structured content, request to at least two data sources, an updated set of structured content for the selected search item, the request including the selected search item and the set of structured content of the at least one topic result as context;

receive, from the at least two data sources, the updated set of structured content for the selected search item; and

present the updated set of structured content for the selected search item for inclusion in the content authoring application.

2. The media of claim 1, further comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to:

in response to receiving an insert command to insert a selected insert item, insert the selected insert item into a content authoring surface of the content authoring application.

3. The media of claim 2, wherein the insert command to insert the selected insert item is a command to insert an outline for a specified topic result from the set of structured content, and in response to receiving the insert command to insert the selected item, the instructions direct the processing system to:

insert an outline, comprising at least a heading, of a topic model for the specified topic result into the content authoring surface.

4. The media of claim 1, further comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to:

in response to receiving an insert command to insert a selected insert item, request the content authoring application to insert the selected insert item into a content authoring surface of the content authoring application.

5. The media of claim 1, wherein the expression comprises content input to a content authoring surface of the content authoring application.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein the expression is received via a specific input field for receiving the expression.

7. The media of claim 1, wherein the context further comprises at least a portion of content in the content authoring surface of the content authoring application.

8. The media of claim 1, further comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system, direct the processing system to:

analyze content in the content authoring surface for recognizable entities;

request one or more structured content results for at least one recognized entity of the recognizable entities in the content authoring surface; and

present the one or more structured content results for inclusion in the content authoring application.

9. A method for assisting content authoring, the method comprising:

identifying, at a computing system, at least one topic from both an expression of a user'"'"'s intent with respect to authoring content in a content authoring application and context, wherein the expression of the user'"'"'s intent is input through an input field within a user interface of the content authoring application,

and wherein the content authoring application is a notebook application or a word processing application and the context is at least one of recorded user interests, a field of work, an authoring history,

and documents a user previously accessed or read, or at least a portion of content in a composition surface of the content authoring application, the recorded user interests being stored in an associated resource;

retrieving, over a network, structured content associated with the at least one topic identified from the expression of the user'"'"'s intent; and

providing the structured content for display within the user interface of the content authoring application and insertion into the composition surface of the content authoring application.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a request for exploration of a selection of content from the structured content;

retrieving an updated structured content for the selection of content using at least the structured content associated with the at least one topic as context; and

providing the updated structured content.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the selection of content comprises a recognizable entity, identifiable topic or both.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the expression is a natural language expression of a user'"'"'s intent.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein retrieving the structured content associated with the at least one topic comprises querying an online encyclopedia and receiving at least a page containing the structured content associated with the topic.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein identifying at least one topic from the expression of the user'"'"'s intent comprises:

performing entity recognition with respect to the expression; and

determining one or more attributes of each entity recognized during the performing of the entity recognition.

15. An apparatus comprising:

a user interface system;

one or more storage media; and

instructions stored on at least one of the one or more storage media that, when executed by a processor of the apparatus, direct the processor to;

display a document in a content authoring surface of a content authoring application, wherein the content authoring application is a notebook application or a word processing application;

request a set of structured content relevant to at least one topic generated from both an expression of intent and context received via the user interface system, the expression of intent being received via an input field of the user interface system separate from the content authoring surface,

and wherein the context is at least one of recorded user interests, a field of work, an authoring history, and documents a user previously accessed or read, or at least a portion of content in the content authoring surface of the content authoring application, the recorded user interests being stored in an associated resource;

in response to receiving the set of structured content, provide the set of structured content to an interface for an assisted content authoring tool; and

insert a selected item from the set of structured content provided to the interface for the assisted content authoring tool into the document in the content authoring surface of the content authoring application.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the instructions further direct the processing system to:

provide an outline, comprising at least a heading, for a specified topic result from the set of structured content for insertion into the document.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the instructions further direct the processing system to:

surface the structured content in the interface for the assisted content authoring tool according to an entity-based template.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the instructions further direct the processing system to:

request an updated set of structured content for a selected search item from the set of structured content, wherein context for generating the updated set of structured content for the selected search item comprises the set of structured content of the at least one topic result.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the context further comprises at least a portion of content in the content authoring surface of the content authoring application.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the instructions further direct the processing system to:

analyze content in the content authoring surface for recognizable entities;

request one or more structured content results for at least one recognized entity of the recognizable entities in the content authoring surface; and

present the one or more structured content results for inclusion in the content authoring application.