Integration and presentation of current and historic versions of document and annotations thereon

• US 20060143558A1
• Filed: 12/28/2004
• Published: 06/29/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Albornoz, Jordi, Cragun, Brian John, Feigenbaum, Lee David, Martin, Sean James
• Granted Patent: US 7,865,815 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• 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

A method and system for displaying annotations is provided. The method includes displaying current data to a user through a GUI, displaying at least one of current and historic annotations to a user through the GUI, providing a user selectable link between the historic annotations and historic data associated with the historic annotation, and displaying the historic data to the user through the GUI when the user selectable link is activated by the user.

Claims

1. A method for displaying annotations, comprising:

displaying current data to a user through a GUI;

displaying at least one of current and historic annotations to a user through the GUI;

providing a user selectable link between the historic annotations and historic data associated with the historic annotation; and

displaying the historic data to the user through the GUI when the user selectable link is activated by the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the historic data comprises a data source for which the historic annotations were generated

3. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the historic data further comprises displaying the historic data and the current data simultaneously in the GUI.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a user selection related to historic annotations, wherein the user selection may be selected by the user to remove historic annotations from the display of historic annotations.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the historic data comprises one or more previous versions of a data source for which the historic annotations were created.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying current annotations, historic annotations, and at least one of current data and historic data simultaneously through the GUI.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a user selectable field, that when selected by the user, operates to sort the current and historic annotations according to a user selected parameter.

8. A computer readable medium containing a program which, when executed, performs an operation, comprising:

displaying current data to a user through a GUI;

displaying at least one of a current annotation and a historic annotation to the user through the GUI;

displaying a user selectable link to the user, wherein the user selectable link is associated with historic data used to generate the historic annotation; and

displaying the historic data through the GUI when the user selects the user selectable link associated with the historic data.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein displaying the historic data further comprises displaying the historic data and the current data simultaneously in the GUI.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 8, further comprising providing a user selection related to historic annotations, wherein the user selection may be selected by the user to remove historic annotations from the display of historic annotations.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the user selectable link comprises a hyperlink to a data storage medium containing the historic data.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 8, further comprising displaying current annotations, historic annotations, and at least one of current data and historic data through the GUI simultaneously.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 8, further comprising a user selectable field, that when selected by the user, operates to sort the current and historic annotations according to a user selected parameter.

14. An annotation system, comprising:

an annotation store module configured to store annotations;

an application data module configured to store application data;

an annotation manager in communication with the annotation store module and the application data module; and

at least one user interface,

wherein the annotation manager is configured to conduct a method comprising;

receiving annotations related to a current document and store the received annotation in the annotation store; and

displaying current and historic annotations related to the current document and historic documents through the user interface.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the at least one user interface comprises a computer terminal configured to run a GUI configured to simultaneously display current annotations, historic annotations, and at least one of current data and historic data.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises displaying a user selection related to historic annotations, wherein the user selection may be selected by the user to remove historic annotations from the display of historic annotations.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises displaying a user selectable link associated with a historic annotation, wherein the user selectable link is hyperlinked to historic data associated with the historic annotation.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising displaying the historic data through the at least one user interface when the user selects the user selectable link associated with the historic annotation.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising simultaneously displaying the historic data and the current document in a single GUI on the at least one user interface.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the annotation data comprises multiple versions for which historical annotations were created.