Viewing annotations across multiple applications

• US 20050256825A1
• Filed: 05/13/2004
• Published: 11/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dettinger, Richard D., Rath, Cale T.
• Granted Patent: US 9,026,901 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application

Abstract

Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for viewing annotations created for data objects appearing in a data source using a second application configured to access and view the data source. Some embodiments present users viewing a data source with an indication of data objects in the data source that have been by other applications accessing the data source. An annotation system may use a mapping component to transform a set of parameters suitable for the first application to identify an annotated data object into a set of parameters suitable for the second application to view an annotated data object in a common data source.

Claims

1. A method for accessing, using a second application, annotations created by a first application, comprising:

receiving a request, from the second application for an indication of annotated data objects described by the annotations;

obtaining a first set of parameters used by the first application to identify the annotated data objects;

transforming the first set of parameters to a second set of parameters suitable for use by the second application to identify the annotated data objects; and

returning the second set of parameters to the second application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for an indication of annotated data objects is for an indication of data objects appearing in a data source being accessed by the second application, wherein the data source was created using the first application.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the request for an indication of annotated data objects includes an indication of the second application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining a first set of parameters comprises querying an annotation store to identify annotations created for data objects appearing a data source being accessed by the second application.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying an indication of annotated data objects in the second application based upon the second set of parameters.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for an indication of annotated data objects includes an indication of an application type associated with the second application.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning the annotations to the second application.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein transforming the first set of parameters to the second set of parameters comprises selecting and using an annotation point map associated with the first and second applications.

10. The annotation system of claim 8, further comprising a set of annotation point maps, each annotation point map containing sufficient information to transform a set of parameters usable by one application into a set of parameters usable by another application.

11. The annotation system of claim 10, wherein each annotation point map comprises an XML document.

12. The annotation system of claim 10, wherein:

the annotation system further comprises an annotation store;

the annotation system uses a unique identifier to identify each annotation stored in an annotation store; and

the annotation system returns the unique identifier for each annotation referencing the annotated data objects.

9. An annotation system allowing a second application to access annotations created by a first application, wherein the first and second applications identify annotatable portions of a common data source with different identifying parameters, comprising:

an indexing component configured to receive, from the second application, a request for an indication of one or more annotated data objects contained in the common data source, wherein the annotated data objects are referenced by annotations created by the first application; and

a mapping component configured to receive, from the indexing component, a first set of parameters usable by the first application to identify the annotated data objects, to transform the first set of parameters into a second set of parameters usable by the second application to identify the annotated data objects, and to return the second set of parameters to the second application.

13. A computer-readable medium containing a program for accessing, using a second application, annotations created by a first application which, when executed by a processor, performs operations comprising:

receiving a request, from the second application for an indication of annotated data objects described by the annotations;

obtaining a first set of parameters used by the first application to identify the annotated data objects;

transforming the first set of parameters to a second set of parameters suitable for use by the second application to identify the annotated data objects; and

returning the second set of parameters to the second application.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein obtaining a first set of parameters comprises querying an index table to identify annotations created for data objects appearing a data source being accessed by the second application.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise returning unique identifiers corresponding to identified annotations created for data objects appearing a data source being accessed by the second application.

16. A method of creating and retrieving annotations using a plurality of different type applications, comprising:

receiving, from a first application, a request to create an annotation for a data object appearing in a data source, the data source identified by a first set of parameters;

generating an index based on the first set of parameters;

storing, in an annotation store, the annotation and index in an annotation record;

receiving, from a second application accessing the data source, a request to identify annotated data objects in the data source;

in response to the request, retrieving the index generated based on the first set of parameters identifying the data object;

converting the index into the first set of parameters;

transforming the first set of parameters to a second set of parameters suitable for use by the second application; and

returning the second set of parameters to the second application.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the first application is a word processing application and the second application is a viewer.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein transforming the first set of parameters to a second set of parameters comprises:

selecting, from a plurality of map definitions, a map definition associated with the first and second application; and

transforming the first set of parameters to the second set of parameters based on information in the selected map definition.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising returning to the second application a unique identifier of the annotation record.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein retrieving the index generated based on the first set of parameters identifying the data object comprises:

querying an index table containing the index for indexes corresponding to annotations describing data object contained in the data source.