Discovering and Updating Templates

• US 20090172005A1
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Published: 07/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jackson, Anthony Lawrence, DeMaris, John Lincoln, LaToza, Kenneth Charles, Novichikhin, Kirill
• Granted Patent: US 7,933,871 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90 Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

Embodiments are provided to maintain templates associated with a client. New and updated templates can be provided to the client and accessed by a user. In an embodiment, a system can be configured to automatically update locally stored templates with updated templates associated with a library. The updated templates can replace or be used to update the locally stored templates and be used by an application user. In one embodiment, a client can be configured to automatically initiate an update process to retrieve and/or receive new and updated templates from an associated document library. The update process can also be used to provide additional information associated with a template, such as metadata describing aspects of an associated template.

Claims

1. A processor-based system to manage template updates by:

receiving an update request based in part on an update time, wherein the update request includes a request for one or more links associated with one or more document libraries having one or more templates;

generating markup data for the one or more templates associated with the one or more links, wherein the markup data includes template parameters and other information associated with the one or more templates;

comparing a first template parameter of a local template with a second parameter of an associated template of a document library; and

,

determining whether to update the local template based in part on the comparison of the first and second template parameters.

2. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by updating the local template based in part on the comparison of the first and second template parameters.

3. The system of claim 2, further configured to manage template updates by replacing the local template if the associated template has a modification date that is more recent than a modification date of the local template.

4. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by receiving a client-initiated web service call that includes a request for one or more uniform resource locators (URLs) associated with the one or more document libraries having the one or more templates.

5. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by presenting one or more updated templates in a user interface.

6. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by caching the markup data and one or more updated templates in a local store, wherein the one or more updated templates are available in an offline mode.

7. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by using one or more of the updated templates to create a work product.

8. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by administering an update of the one or more templates associated with the one or more document libraries.

9. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by creating provider entries for each link, and requesting an extensible markup language (XML) file from a provider associated with each link.

10. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by comparing a first template attribute value of the local template with a second template attribute value of the associated template of the document library.

11. The system of claim 1, further configured to manage template updates by registering with a serving component in order to receive template updates.

12. A system to manage templates comprising:

a server comprising;

a service component to administer aspects of one or more document libraries; and

,

a generator component to generate markup data describing templates of one or more of the document libraries;

a client including an update component configured to initiate a template update process based in part on an evaluation of an update time, wherein the update component can be configured to compare local template parameters with markup data generated by the generator component to determine whether to update one or more local templates; and

,

a store to store the local templates for use by a client user.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the service component can be used to set one or more indicators to identify particular document libraries to refer to during an update process when updating local templates associated with the client.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the service component can be used to update aspects of a template located in an associated document library.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the client is configured to request one or more URLs, wherein the one or more URLs point to one or more document libraries having templates of interest.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the generator component can also be configured to generate an XML file describing templates for an associated document library, wherein the XML file includes a URL of a save path to the document library.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the client can use the URL of the save path to determine a default save location for an associated template.

18. A method of providing user templates comprising:

receiving a request to update the user templates, wherein the request is based in part on an update time and includes a request for URLs associated with document libraries;

generating an XML file for each document library, wherein each XML file includes template data and metadata for templates associated with the corresponding document library;

evaluating cached template data associated with a local template with template data of a template associated with one of the document libraries; and

,

replacing the local template with the template associated with one of the document libraries if the evaluation of the template data dictates a replacement.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising replacing the local template with the template associated with one of the document libraries if the template has a modification date that is later than a local template modification date.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising storing the template associated with one of the document libraries and the XML files in a local store available to an offline user.