Dealing with annotation versioning through multiple versioning policies and management thereof

• US 20050160356A1
• Filed: 01/15/2004
• Published: 07/21/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twitter Inc (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Feigenbaum, Lee D., Albornoz, Jordi, Rath, Cale T., Cragun, Brian J., Henderson, Kyle L., Nelson, Robert R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,689,578 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/229
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for maintaining annotations for changing source documents are provided. For some embodiments, an annotation system may support multiple policies, with each policy dictating how (or if) an annotation created for a version of a source document should be applied to subsequent versions of the source document. For some embodiments, a user creating an annotation may select from a group of available policies to be applied to the annotation.

Claims

1. A method for applying annotations to multiple versions of a document, comprising:

providing an interface allowing a user to specify how an annotation created for one version of a document should be applied to one or more subsequent versions of the document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a set of options presented to the user to specify how an annotation should be applied to the subsequent versions depends, at least in part, on a type of the document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a set of options presented to the user to specify how an annotation should be applied to the subsequent versions depends, at least in part, on a role of the user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the interface allows a user to specify whether the annotation should apply to multiple versions of the document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the interface allows a user to specify whether a different copy of the annotation should be created for subsequent versions of the document.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the interface allows the user to specify whether or not an authorized user must validate the annotation prior to applying it to a subsequent version of the document.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the interface allows the user to specify that the annotation, when viewed from a subsequent version of the document, should be marked as unverified.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a change in the current version of the document resulting in the subsequent version of the document; and

applying the annotation to the subsequent version of the document, as specified by the user via the interface.

9. A method for managing annotations for multiple versions of documents, comprising:

selecting one or more annotation versioning policies dictating how annotations made for a current version of a document should be applied to a subsequent version of the document; and

allowing creators of annotations for a current version of a document to select one or more of the annotation versioning policies to dictate how the annotations should be applied to subsequent versions of the document.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the annotation versioning policies dictates that annotations made for a current version will not be applied to subsequent versions of the document.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more annotation versioning policies selected are applied at the document level, to all annotations created for a document.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the annotation versioning policies dictates that an annotation created for a current version of a document will be applied to subsequent versions of the document.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the annotation versioning policies dictates that an authorized user must validate an annotation created for a current version of a document before the annotation is applied to subsequent versions of the document.

14. A computer-readable medium containing a program for managing annotation for multiple versions of documents which, when executed by a processor performs operations comprising:

providing an interface allowing a user to create an annotation for a current version of a document and to specify how the annotation should be applied to a subsequent version of a document.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the interface allows the user to specify the annotation should not be applied to a subsequent version of the document.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the interface allows the user to specify different annotation records containing the annotation should be created for each subsequent version of the document.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the interface allows the user to specify the annotation should be applied to a subsequent version of the document only if validated by an authorized user.

18. A data processing system, comprising:

at least one application for manipulating a document;

an annotation store for storing annotation records containing annotations for the document;

one or more interface screens, accessible from the at least one application, allowing a user to specify how an annotation created for one version of the document should be applied to subsequent versions of the document.

19. The data processing system of claim 18, further comprising an executable component configured to:

detect changes resulting in a subsequent version of the document; and

apply the annotation to the subsequent version of the document in a manner specified by the user via the one or more interface screens.

20. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein:

at least one of the interface screens allows the user to specify the annotation should be applied to subsequent versions of the document; and

the executable component is configured to modify an annotation record containing the annotation to reflect changes in the subsequent version of the document.

21. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein the executable component is configured to modify an index in the annotation record indicating a corresponding annotated portion of the document.

22. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein at least one of the interface screens allows the user to specify an authorized user must validate an annotation before applying it to a subsequent version of the document.

23. The data processing system of claim 22, wherein the executable component is configured to notify the authorized user to request validation of the annotation upon detecting changes resulting in a subsequent version of the document.

24. The data processing system of claim 23, wherein the executable component is further configured to:

receive input from the authorized user indicating a portion of the subsequent version of the document corresponding to the annotation; and

modify, based on the input received from the authorized user, an annotation index in an annotation record containing the annotation.

25. A method for managing annotations for multiple versions of documents, comprising:

defining a set of available annotation policies, each dictating how an annotation created for one version of a document should be applied to one or more subsequent versions of the document; and

providing an interface allowing a user to select one or more of the available annotation policies to be applied to the annotation.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein defining a set of available annotation policies comprises associating one or more annotation policies for use with annotations made for a certain type of document.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein the annotation policies provided to the user in the interface is determined, at least in part, on a credential of the user.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the annotation policies provided to the user in the interface is determined, at least in part, on a type of document associated with the annotation.

29. The method of claim 25, wherein defining a set of available annotation policies comprises defining the set of available annotation policies by an administrator, wherein the administrator and the user are different entities.