Per-user application rendering in the presence of application sharing

• US 20070156689A1
• Filed: 12/12/2006
• Published: 07/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nichols, David, Meek, Brian
• Granted Patent: US 7,991,916 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications

Abstract

Architecture that allows users in an application sharing environment to separately view portions of data that are not part of the current shared view. An enhanced application sharing component is provided that facilitates rendering the application data multiple times for a correspondingly similar number of simultaneous users, and sending the additional renderings to the other users for interaction. Each user client includes an application sharing viewer that composites the per-user renderings onto the base shared image of the user client to create a per-user view of the shared document. The enhanced sharing component renders the portion of the data that is requested by the remote user as a bitmap and passes the bitmap along with coordinate information to the client rendering program presentation with the shared data view. The coordinate information indicates where on the shared screen of the remote client the bitmap is overlayed to produce a seamless experience.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates application management, comprising:

an application sharing component for presenting shared data of a sharing client on remote clients via a shared application; and

a rendering component for rendering different data on at least one of the remote clients via the shared application, the different data associated with the shared data and rendered on the at least one of the remote clients when the sharing data is presented on the sharing client.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the application sharing component facilitates presentation of enhanced navigation controls on the remote clients for requesting the different data.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the remote clients sends a request to the application sharing component and the rendering component renders the different data as bitmap data for transmission to the at least one of the remote clients based on the request.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the application sharing component buffers the different data for each of the remote clients for presentation on the remote clients by the rendering component.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the remote clients obtains control over the shared data of the sharing client via the application sharing component to edit the shared data.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the remote clients sends a command to the sharing client that resets rendering of the different data on the at least one of the remote clients to the shared data.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the application sharing component and rendering component are part of the sharing client such that the different data is rendered on the sharing client and transmitted to the at least one of the remote clients for presentation with the shared data.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the rendering component re-renders the different data to the at least one of the remote clients based on a change to the shared data.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the application sharing component and rendering component are part of the at least one of the remote clients such that a request for viewing the different data is transmitted via the application sharing component to the sharing client and the sharing client renders the different data for presentation on the at least one of the remote clients via the rendering component.

10. A computer-implemented method of managing an application, comprising:

transmitting a shared view of application data from a sharing client to remote clients for rendering of the shared view at the remote clients via a remote client application;

receiving a request from a requesting remote client for a different view of the application data;

transmitting the different view of the application data to the requesting remote client; and

presenting the different view of the application data via the remote client application while the shared view is being presented at the sharing client.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving the request from the requesting remote client in response to interaction with a control at the requesting remote client.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the remote client application is same as an application that presents the shared view at the sharing client.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising overlaying the different view of the application data on the shared view rendered at the requesting remote client.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising packaging the different view of the application data as a binary representation for presentation by the remote client application.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the binary representation is bitmap data.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising transmitting coordinate information to the requesting remote client that maps the different view of the application data to a viewing location presented by the remote client application.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising re-rendering the different view of the application based on a change in the shared view.

18. The method of claim 10, further comprising buffering the application data for communication to the remote clients, and updating the buffered application data in response to a change in the shared view.

19. The method of claim 10, further comprising changing the shared view for all clients to be the different view.

20. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

computer-implemented means for sharing a document view between sharing client and a remote client during a collaborative session;

computer-implemented means for receiving a navigation request from the remote client for a different document view;

computer-implemented means for transmitting the different document view to the remote client using bitmap data; and

computer-implemented means for presenting the different document view at the remote client as an overlay of the document view.