Spreadsheet system and method for managing photos

• US 20100058163A1
• Filed: 08/26/2009
• Published: 03/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford University)
• Original Assignee: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford University)
• Inventors: Garcia-Molina, Hector, Theobald, Martin, Kandel, Sean, Paepcke, Andreas
• Granted Patent: US 8,166,385 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/220
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/149 Adaptation of the text data for streaming purposes, e.g. Efficient XML Interchange [EXI] format
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174

Abstract

A spreadsheet system stores objects and formulas in the cells of the spreadsheet, along with metadata tags. Each cell may contain multiple objects (such as a group of photos). Drag-and-drop user actions automatically change tags associated with the moved objects based on a formula stored in the target cell if a forcing semantics mode is active, or automatically change a formula stored in the target cell if a non-forcing semantics mode is active. A formula in a cell selects a set of objects and may include set operators such as union, intersection, and minus. The formula may also filter sets to select a subset based on specified tag attributes of objects. The display of the spreadsheet adaptively selects a subset of objects to render in a cell and appropriately scales photos for optimal viewing.

Claims

1. A computer program product encoding computer program instructions for executing a computer-implemented spreadsheet method, the method comprising:

a) storing a spreadsheet comprising an ordered set of cells, wherein each of the cells has a data structure for storing i) a formula selecting a set of selected objects to be displayed in the cell and ii) a container comprising a set of objects;

b) storing objects and formulas in the cells of the spreadsheet;

c) storing tags associated with at least one of the stored objects, wherein each of the tags comprises an attribute-value pair;

d) processing a drag-and-drop action by a user to move objects from a first cell to a second cell, wherein the processing comprises, if a forcing semantics mode is active, automatically changing tags associated with the moved objects based on a formula stored in the second cell; and

e) displaying the spreadsheet on a display to the user.