Method and system for creating a theme of a place to be used as a template for other places

• US 20020149618A1
• Filed: 12/29/2000
• Published: 10/17/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Estrada, Julio, Estrada, Miguel A., Shore, Maurice B., Shalabi, Sami Mohammed, Hill, Charles Robert
• Granted Patent: US 7,028,262 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Collaboration space object model provides for a place consisting of rooms created by users interacting with a client browser. A skin (i.e., theme) may be used as template for creating places. PlaceBots (i.e., agents) provide for accessing, processing and managing data in a place. HTML may be dragged and dropped into a place, where it is parsed and corresponding place fields created. MS Excel or Word documents may be dragged and dropped into a place, which creates a corresponding form, and users may create new documents using that form. A place type comprising a template of an entire place, or collaboration space, may be used to create new places. Changes made to a place may be reported, subject to security controls, by selecting what'"'"'s new. Task fields are provided allowing web browser creation of forms for work flow. Place enabled objects are provided for synchronous communications. A quick browse feature provides a simplified format for browser windows based on selection of HTML links. MS Office documents may launched within a place for in place editing and importing the resulting document into the place.

Claims

1. Method for controlling the layout of collaboration space user interface components, comprising the steps of:

rendering individually addressable and placing on a page each said user interface component; and

rendering components on said page equivalent to collaboration space tags for importation into said collaboration space for use in instantiating said user interface.

2. The method of claim 1, said page being an HTML page and said collaboration space being a place.

3. The method of claim 2, said place being a file directory.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

dragging and dropping said page from a user desktop to an output control for uploading to a collaboration space server.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of organizing said collaboration space according to an object model selectively including place, room, folder, page, member, form, field, placetype, roomtype, skin, and placebot objects.

6. The method of claim 1, said user interface components including logo, table of contents, action bar, tool bar, and page content.

7. The method of claim 1, said tags further providing links to other collaboration space resources.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

integrating said collaboration space with an existing web site by including in said page links to network resources.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

uploading said pages to a server for caching in a cache of skin groups; and

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

presenting to said user users a gallery of themes from which to choose and optionally tweek a visual site design for rendering said collaboration space to said user.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the steps of:

tweaking a theme by selecting basic property changes through said user interface to specific classes of said style sheet; and

operating a collaboration space server to feed said changes to said style sheet.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

rendering each said component on said hypertext markup language pages individually addressable.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

rendering in a skin group said hypertext markup language and style sheet pages responsive to collaboration space tags; and

responsive to a user request, importing said skin group into a place for instantiating said user interface.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of providing links from said skin group to other collaboration space and system resources.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of:

responsive to said skin group, rendering said collaboration space to said user through said user interface.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

presenting to said user users a gallery of skin groups from which to choose a visual site design for expressing the identity and suiting the work to be done by a project or team.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising the step of

presenting to said user users a gallery of skin groups from which to choose a visual site design for rebranding a collaboration space for inhouse applications.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising the step of

presenting said collaboration space to said user through a skin group tailored to the identity of said user.

20. The method of claim 19, said skin group structuring said interface for communication with a physically challenged user.

21. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

developing a theme for applying a common look and feel to multiple layouts by applying code from one layout to all layouts for which a file has not been explicitly supplied.

22. The method of claim 18, further comprising the steps of:

including in said gallery of themes a default style sheet including a plurality of selectors;

for specific selectors in a user style sheet tweaked by said user, changing said specific selectors; and

for other selectors in said user style sheet not tweaked by said user, using a corresponding selector from said default style sheet in said user style sheet.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising:

an output control for receiving said pages from a local storage for uploading to a collaboration space server.

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising:

a drag and drop facility for dragging and dropping said pages from a desktop to said output control.

26. The system of claim 24, said collaboration space server converting said hypertext markup language pages and style sheet to a skin group by applying collaboration space tags to said hypertext markup languages pages.

27. The system of claim 23, said collaboration space being structured according to an object model selectively including place, room, folder, page, member, form, field, placetype, roomtype, skin, and placebot objects.

28. The system of claim 23, said components including logo, table of contents, actions, tools, and page content.

29. The system of claim 26, said skin group comprising a page read mode, page edit mode, a folder list and response, a folder headline, and a folder slide show pages and a style sheet page for defining said look and feel of said user interface and for providing links to other collaboration space resources.

30. The system of claim 27, further comprising:

a main room having a first theme for defining its look and feel;

a subroom linked to said main room;

said subroom inheriting said first theme unless a custom theme has been defined for said subroom.

12. A method for controlling the style and layout of a collaboration space user interface, comprising the steps of:

specifying component positioning in said user interface in a set of hypertext markup language pages; and

specifying font, size and color style in a common style sheet page.

23. System for controlling the style and layout of a collaboration space user interface, comprising:

at least one hypertext markup language page and at least one common style sheet page;

said hypertext markup language page for specifying components positioning within said user interface; and

said common style sheet page specifying font, size and color style for said components.

31. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a machine to perform method steps for controlling the layout of collaboration space user interface components, said method steps comprising:

rendering individually addressable and placing on a page each said user interface component; and

rendering components on said page equivalent to collaboration space tags for importation into said collaboration space for use in instantiating said user interface.

32. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a machine to perform method steps for controlling the style and layout of a collaboration space user interface, said method steps comprising:

specifying component positioning in said user interface in a set of hypertext markup language pages; and

specifying font, size and color style in a common style sheet page.

33. A computer program product or computer program element for rendering individually addressable and placing on a page each said user interface component;

and rendering components on said page equivalent to collaboration space tags for importation into said collaboration space for use in instantiating said user interface.

34. A computer program product or computer program element for controlling the style and layout of a collaboration space user interface by specifying component positioning in said user interface in a set of hypertext markup language pages;

and specifying font, size and color style in a common style sheet page.