Clipboard Augmentation

• US 20080109744A1
• Filed: 11/06/2006
• Published: 05/08/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Augustine, Matthew S., Ozzie, Jack E., Moromisato, George P., Ozzie, Raymond E., Suthar, Paresh S., Narayanan, Raman
• Granted Patent: US 8,020,112 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]

Abstract

Systems, methods, and data structures for augmenting data placed on the clipboard with additional data are disclosed. Such systems, methods, and data structures may transform the data to produce data in other formats using, for example, transform specifications or executable code.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a notification that data conforming to a data format has been placed on a clipboard;

identifying augmented data that has an augmented data format and is associated with the data; and

adding the augmented data to the clipboard.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying further comprises transforming the data using a transform specification.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the transform specification uses XSLT.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying further comprises generating the augmented data using executable code associated with at least one of the data format and the augmented data format.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the data format comprises a structured data item that uses a structured data format.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the data format comprises:

a structured data item that uses a structured data format;

a feed data item; and

a presentation data item.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

registering for paste processing; and

wherein identifying and adding are not performed until a paste operation is initiated.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification is implemented by polling the clipboard to determine when the clipboard contains new data.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying and adding are only performed when a registered converter exists for the data format.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying second augmented data that has a second augmented data format and is associated with the data wherein the second augmented data format is different from the augmented data format; and

adding the second augmented data to the clipboard.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the data format comprises a presentation data item that has a presentation data format, the augmented data format is the same as the presentation data format, and the augmented data is retrieved from the presentation data item.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the data is placed on the clipboard by a first application and the receiving, identifying, and adding are performed by a second application, and the first application and the second application are different applications.

13. A system, comprising:

a clipboard;

a source application configured to place data conforming to a data format on the clipboard; and

an augmentation module configured to;

receive a notification when the data has been placed on the clipboard by the source application;

identify augmented data that has an augmented data format and is associated with the data; and

add the augmented data to the clipboard.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

a clipboard converter used by the augmentation module and configured to generate the augmented data by converting the data.

15. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

a data converter configured to perform data conversion processing that is platform-independent; and

a clipboard converter used by the augmentation module and configured to generate the augmented data by performing platform-dependent processing and using the data converter.

16. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

a destination application configured to receive the augmented data using a paste operation.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the source application and the augmentation module are implemented in different applications.

18. The system of claim 13 wherein identifying further comprises transforming the data using a transform specification.

19. The system of claim 13 wherein identifying further comprises generating the augmented data using executable code associated with at least one of the data format and the augmented data format.

20. One or more computer-readable media containing computer-executable instructions that, when executed, implement the following operations:

receiving a notification at a first application that data conforming to a data format has been placed on a clipboard by a second application;

identifying augmented data that has an augmented data format and is associated with the data using one of;

a transform specification and executable code associated with at least one of the data format and the augmented data format; and

adding the augmented data to the clipboard, wherein identifying and augmenting are performed by the first application and the first application and the second application are different applications.