Management of User Interaction History with Software Applications

• US 20090228805A1
• Filed: 05/18/2009
• Published: 09/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Ruehle, Glenn Warren
• Granted Patent: US 8,281,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/745
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4493 Object persistence

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for history management a plurality of objects within an application, wherein each of the plurality includes at least a software method for saving the object'"'"'s state and a software method for loading the object'"'"'s state and a history manager function including a software method for recording an application interaction state for each user interaction with the application, wherein the application interaction state comprises the object'"'"'s state for each of the plurality of objects at a time of the each user interaction with the application, wherein the user selects a desired one of the application interaction states to set the application to a desired one of the user interactions.

Claims

1-7. -7. (canceled)

8. A method for managing user interaction history in a computer application comprising:

responsive to one of a plurality of user interactions with said computer application, saving a current state of each one of one or more objects in said computer application, wherein said saved current state is associated with said one of said plurality of user interactions; and

responsive to a user selecting to return to any one of said plurality of user interactions, loading said saved current states associated with said any one of said plurality of user interactions into corresponding ones of said one or more objects.

12. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

recording a relational position of each of said one or more objects, said relational position comprising;

a parent relationship;

a child relationship; and

a sibling relationship.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said loading is performed according to said relational position.

9-11. -11. (canceled)

14-18. -18. (canceled)

19. A system for managing user interaction with a computer application comprising:

means for assigning a unique identifier (ID) to each one of a plurality of objects resident in said computer application;

means for recording a current state of said each one of said plurality of objects responsive to a user interaction with said computer application, wherein said saved current states are associated with a single state object; and

means for reloading said saved current states from said single state object into said plurality of objects using said assigned said unique ID, said means for reloading initiated responsive to said user selecting to go to a desired one of said single state objects.

20. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

means for recording a position depth of each of said one or more objects.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein said means for loading is performed according to said position depth.

22. The system of claim 20 wherein each of said one or more objects having an outer position of said position depth is loaded first.

23. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

means for registering each of said one or more objects with said application prior to said means for assigning.

24. The system of claim 19 wherein said computer application is a Web application presented in a container displayed in a Web browser.

25. The system of claim 24 further comprising:

means for generating an undisplayed Web frame for communicating with one or more navigation elements on said Web browser; and

means for establishing a communication link between said undisplayed Web frame and said computer application.

26. The system of claim 25 further comprising:

responsive to said user interacting with said Web application, means for converting said single user interaction state into a Web-compatible query information string;

means for generating a state Uniform Resource Locator (URL) using said Web-compatible query information string; and

means for saving said state URL in a memory accessible by said Web browser.

27. The system of claim 25 further comprising:

responsive to a user selecting to return to said single interaction state, means for retrieving said state URL from said memory;

means for communicating said Web-compatible query information string to said undisplayed Web frame;

means for communicating said Web compatible query information string to said Web application to complete said loading step.

28. A computer program product having a computer readable medium with computer program logic recorded thereon for tracking user interaction with a computer application, said computer program product comprising:

code for generating a unique identification (ID) for assignment to each one of one or more objects within said computer application;

code for storing a present state of said each one of said one or more objects responsive to user interaction with said computer application, wherein said stored present state is are associated with a specific user interaction; and

code for loading said stored present state into said one or more objects according to said unique ID, said code for loading executable responsive to said user selecting to view said specific user interaction.

29. The computer program product of claim 28 further comprising:

code for identifying a position depth of each of said one or more objects.

30. The computer program product of claim 29 wherein said code for loading is performed sequentially according to said position depth.

31-36. -36. (canceled)

37. A system comprising a processor with access to a computer-readable medium tangibly embodying program components, the program components comprising:

a plurality of objects comprised in a software application; and

a history manager, the history manager configured to, in response to user interaction with the software application, save an interaction state of each one of said plurality of objects into at least one interaction state object,

wherein the history manager is further configured to use the at least one interaction state object to restore the interaction state of the plurality of objects to a previously-saved interaction state.

38. The history management system of claim 37, wherein the plurality of objects are configured to load the previously-saved interaction state from the at least one interaction state object in response to a load state request from the history manager.

39. The history management system of claim 38, wherein the history manager is configured to provide the load state request to the plurality of objects in response to selection of one of a plurality of interaction state objects, the load state request specifying the selected one of the plurality of interaction state objects.

40. The history management system of claim 38,

wherein the history manager is configured to provide a load state request to each of the plurality of objects in an order, the order determined by accessing an object depth of each one of the plurality of objects, wherein the object depth corresponds to a position within a view hierarchy for said plurality of objects.

41. The history management system set forth in claim 38, wherein the plurality of objects comprise code for causing the processor to provide a load state method and the load state request invokes the load state method.