Shared content item commenting

• US 10,341,275 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2013
• Issued: 07/02/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Carriero, Thomas, Delamere, Mark, Rha, Phil, Vincent, Jon, Jayakar, Sujay
• Primary Examiner(s): Shiberou, Mahelet
• Application Number:
  US13/855,853
• Publication Number:
  US 20140304618A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,281 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments

Abstract

Various embodiments provide a commenting system for multiple users to provide and share comments to shared documents. For example, users can share a web link to a collection of content items, such as documents, spreadsheets, photos, and any other media, with other users stored in an online content management system. The commenting system can provide a comment interface displayable alongside a respective content item and the comments can be saved for each user and the content item with associated comments can be synced across the multiple users. The comments can scroll independently of the content in a content item or the comments can be linked to a location therein and the scrolling of the comments can be linked to the scrolling of the content item such that corresponding comments are displayed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

under the control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

receiving a scrollable content item uploaded to a first account with an online content management provider;

providing for display, on an interface of a first computing device, the scrollable content item and a comment section associated with the scrollable content item, wherein the scrollable content item is provided using a native application associated with the scrollable content item and wherein the online content management provider provides the comment section through an application associated with the online content management provider on the first computing device and the comment section associated with the scrollable content item is a layer on top of the native application associated with the scrollable content item;

adding, in response to an acceptance of a first share invitation, a copy of the scrollable content item and access to the comment section to a second account;

receiving a first modification to the scrollable content item that includes data associated with at least one first comment to the comment section;

synchronizing the first modification to the scrollable content item with the copy of the scrollable content item in the second account, wherein the synchronization of the first modification provides the at least one first comment to the comment section to the second account;

providing for display, on an interface of a second computing device, the scrollable content item, the comment section associated with the scrollable content item, and the at least one first comment, wherein the scrollable content item is displayed in the native application and the online content management provider provides the comment section and the at least one first comment through an application associated with the online content management provider on the second computing device;

receiving at least one second modification to the scrollable content item, including data associated with a second comment to the comment section, from the application associated with the online content management provider on the second computing device; and

receiving at least one of revisions or additions to the scrollable content item from the application associated with the online content management provider on the first computing device; and

synchronizing the at least one second modification and the at least one of revisions or additions to the copy of the scrollable content item with the scrollable content item in the first account, wherein the synchronization of the at least one second modification provides the second comment to the comment section of the first account.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

synchronizing the scrollable content item for providing the scrollable content item for display with the second comment on the interface of the first computing device.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the comment section is at least one of scrollable independently of the scrollable content item or each comment is linkable to a location in the scrollable content item.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the scrollable content item is at least one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a video, streaming content, or an image.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the application associated with the online content management provider is independent from the native application of the scrollable content item.

5. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing

instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause a computing device to:

provide for display, on a first computing device and at least one second computing device, a scrollable content item and a comment section associated with the scrollable content item, the scrollable content item and the comment section being sharable between the first computing device and the at least one second computing device through a content management provider, and wherein on the first computing device the scrollable content item is provided using a native application associated with the scrollable content item and the content management provider provides the comment section and the comment section associated with the scrollable content item is a layer on top of the native application associated with the scrollable content item; and

enable the first computing device and the at least one second computing device to provide comments to the comment section, the comments being viewable on each of the first computing device and the at least one second computing device; and

receive comments and edits to the comment section from the at least one second computing device, wherein the comments and the edits are provided using a second native application associated with the scrollable content item on the at least one second computing device.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the computing device to:

receive at least one comment to the comment section from the first computing device; and

before providing the scrollable content item for display on the at least one second computing device, synchronize the at least one comment from the first computing device.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the comment section adds comments to the scrollable content item via metadata associated with the scrollable content item.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the scrollable content item is at least one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a video, streaming content, or an image.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the display, provided by the content management provider, is displayable across a plurality of different computing device types and across a plurality of different platform types for a plurality of different content item types.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein the comment section is independently scrollable from the scrollable content item.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein a comment in the comment section is linked to a location in the scrollable content item, and wherein scrolling of the scrollable content item causes a display of a corresponding comment.

12. A computing system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to;

provide for display, on a first computing device and at least one second computing device, a scrollable content item and a comment section associated with the display of the scrollable content item, the scrollable content item and the comment section being viewable between the first computing device and the at least one second computing device through an account with a content management provider and wherein on the first computing device the scrollable content item is displayed using a native application associated with the scrollable content item and the comment section is displayed using the content management provider and the comment section associated with the scrollable content item is a layer on top of the native application associated with the scrollable content item; and

enable the first computing device and the at least one second computing device to provide comments to a comment interface viewable on each of the first computing device and the at least one second computing device, the comment interface being provided, by the content management provider; and

receive comments and edits to the comment section from the at least one second computing device, wherein the comments and the edits are provided using a second native application associated with the scrollable content item on the at least one second computing device.

13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further enable the computing device to:

receive at least one comment from the first computing device to the comment interface; and

synchronize the at least one comment from the first computing device before providing the scrollable content item for display on the at least one second computing device.

14. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the scrollable content item is at least one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a video, streaming content, or an image.