Rapid access to parts of an electronic document via GUI

• US 20060173891A1
• Filed: 01/11/2005
• Published: 08/03/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Forlenza, Randolph Michael, Berstis, Viktors
• Granted Patent: US 7,437,381 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

Methods, systems, and media are disclosed for accessing one or more parts of an electronic document. In one embodiment, the method includes choosing, with a selecting device, the electronic document, and for receiving document utilization information for the electronic document. Further, the method includes displaying, on the computer, the electronic document and the document utilization information as an interactive graphical representation comprising a set of points, wherein each point in the set corresponds to both a different part of the electronic document and any of the document utilization information associated with the different part. Further still, the method includes selecting, with the selecting device, at least one point in the set, and opening, on the computer, to the part of the electronic document associated with the point selected by the selecting device.

Claims

1. A method for accessing one or more parts of an electronic document, the method comprising:

selecting the electronic document;

receiving document utilization information for the electronic document;

displaying the document utilization information as an interactive graphical representation comprising a set of points, wherein the points correspond to the document utilization information associated with different parts of the electronic document;

selecting at least one point in the set; and

displaying the part of the electronic document associated with the point selected.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring the interactive graphical representation for the displaying of the document utilization information.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising bookmarking any point in the set.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying of the document utilization information comprises displaying the document utilization information associated with one of the parts of the electronic document upon moving a selecting device within at least a proximal distance to the one point on the interactive graphical representation associated with the one of the parts.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying of the document utilization information comprises magnifying at least one section of the interactive graphical representation in order to increase granularity.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting of the at least one point comprises moving a selecting device over the interactive graphical representation, and clicking, with the selecting device, on the at least one point.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting of the at least one point comprises toggling onto the at least one point.

8. A system for accessing one or more parts of an electronic document, the system comprising:

an access module for receiving document utilization information for the electronic document;

a display module, in communication with the access module, for selecting the electronic document and for displaying the document utilization information as an interactive graphical representation comprising a set of points, wherein the points correspond to the document utilization information associated with different parts of the electronic document;

an input module, in communication with the display module, for selecting at least one point in the set; and

a visualization module, in communication with the input module, for displaying, on a computer, the part of the electronic document associated with the at least one point selected.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising a configuration module, in communication with the display module, for configuring an appearance for the interactive graphical representation and the document utilization information.

10. The system of claim 8, further comprising a bookmark module for bookmaking any point in the set.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the input module further comprises a selection module for configuring the selecting device.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the document utilization information comprises an indication of a useful part of the electronic document.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the display module for displaying the interactive graphical representation comprises displaying the set of points of the electronic document as a bar graph and displaying any document utilization information for each point in the set adjacent to the each point.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the display module for displaying the interactive graphical representation comprises displaying a colorized, interactive graphical representation, wherein each of the points has one or more pixels having a color correlating to an intensity of the document utilization information for each of the parts.

15. A machine-accessible medium containing instructions, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations for accessing one or more parts of an electronic document, comprising:

selecting the electronic document;

receiving document utilization information for the electronic document;

displaying the document utilization information as an interactive graphical representation comprising a set of points, wherein the points correspond to the document utilization information associated with different parts of the electronic document;

selecting at least one point in the set; and

displaying the part of the electronic document associated with the point selected.

16. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to perform operations for configuring the interactive graphical representation for the displaying of the document utilization information.

17. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to perform operations for bookmarking any point in the set.

18. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions for displaying of the document utilization information comprise instructions for displaying the document utilization information associated with one of the parts of the electronic document upon executing instructions to perform operations for moving a selecting device within at least a proximal distance to the one point on the interactive graphical representation associated with the one of the parts.

19. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions for displaying of the document utilization information comprise instructions to perform operations for magnifying at least one section of the interactive graphical representation in order to increase granularity.

20. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions for selecting comprise instructions to perform operations upon moving the selecting device over the interactive graphical representation, and instructions to perform operations upon clicking, with a selecting device, on at least one of the points.