Shared telepointer

• US 20070204047A1
• Filed: 02/27/2006
• Published: 08/30/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fletcher, Joseph, Parker, Cameron, Bisker, Solomon, Shah, Mehal
• Granted Patent: US 7,996,776 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13093 Personal computer, PC

Abstract

A facility is described for providing shared telepointers and for enabling hosts and participants to highlight portions of documents or applications using the shared telepointers. In various embodiments, the facility establishes a sharing session wherein an application executing on a host computing device is shared with a participant computing device, receives at the host computing device an indication from a participant computing device to identify a region to users in the sharing session, draws the identified region on a display device associated with the host computing device, and causes the identified region to be drawn on a display device associated with the participant computing device. In various embodiments, the region is a spot region or a highlighted region that is drawn in a color associated with a user of the participant computing device.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computer system for identifying on multiple computing devices a region identified by a user of a computing device, comprising:

establishing a sharing session wherein an application executing on a host computing device is shared with a participant computing device;

receiving at the host computing device an indication from a participant computing device to identify a region to users participating in the sharing session;

drawing the identified region on a display device associated with the host computing device before the region is drawn on any participant computing device; and

causing the identified region to be drawn on a display device associated with the participant computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the region is drawn by a client application that started the sharing session.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the client application that started the sharing session is not the application executing on the host computing device.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the region is a spot region.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the indication is a mouse click event.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the indication is a selection of a point.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the causing includes sending a portion of an image that is displayed on the display device associated with the host computing device so that the participant computing device can update the image it displays.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the drawing includes identifying a user of the participant computing device.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the identifying includes associating a color with the user, and the drawing is in the associated color.

10. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computer system to perform a method of identifying on multiple computing devices a region identified by a user of a computing device, the method comprising:

receiving at a participant computing device a set of events;

scaling the received events into a coordinate system employed by an application sharing system to create a scaled indication of the events;

providing the scaled indication of the events to a host computing device;

receiving from the host computing device an instruction to draw a region, the region corresponding to the set of events; and

drawing the region on a display device associated with the participant computing device.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the set of events includes mouse events.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the region is a spot region.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the region is a highlighted region.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the drawing includes drawing the region in a color associated with a user who caused the set of events to be generated.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 further comprising a client application that displays on the display device associated with the participant computing device a scaled representation of an image received from the host computing device, the image corresponding to a window displayed by an application that is shared on the host computing device.

16. A system for sharing a telepointer, comprising:

a host telepointer object associated with a host computing system that receives an event indicating a position of a pointer associated with a first participant computing system and a region that is to be drawn, associates the pointer with a user of the first participant computing system, and sends an instruction to a second participant computing system to position a telepointer associated with the first participant computing system, the telepointer identifying the user of the first participant computing system and approximately tracking movements of the pointer associated with the first participant computing system; and

a telepointer object associated with the first participant computing system that detects mouse events on the first participant computing device and provides indications of the mouse events to the host telepointer object so that the host telepointer object can cause the host computing device to draw the indicated region.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the host telepointer object forwards pointer movement information it receives to the second participant computing system.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the region is a spot region that the host computing device draws in a color that is associated with the user.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the host telepointer object selects the color.

20. The system of claim 16 wherein the region is a highlighted region.