SEARCH CONTROL COMBINING CLASSIFICATION AND TEXT-BASED SEARCHING TECHNIQUES

• US 20120203767A1
• Filed: 02/24/2012
• Published: 08/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: John Anderson, Mark Joseph Williams
• Original Assignee: John Anderson, Mark Joseph Williams
• Inventors: Williams, Mark Joseph, Anderson, John
• Granted Patent: US 9,081,871 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/722
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3323 using document space presentation or visualization, e.g. category, hierarchy or range presentation and selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9032 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A search control in a user interlace enables a user to search documents on text or a tag,

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying a set of tags likely to be meaningful to a user based on detected user activity within a user interface, the user activity including the user accessing files associated with the tags and/or the user creating new tags;

displaying a user interface within a browser content area, the user interface comprising a text search field and drop-down menu adjacent to the text search field and having a plurality of selectable entries;

initially populating the plurality of selectable entries within the drop down menu with the set of tags which are likely to he meaningful to the user;

in response to the user entering text in the text search field, removing the tags and populating the plurality of selectable entries within the same drop down menu with a listing of files associated with the text entered by the user;

receiving a first input indicating that the user has either selected one of the set of tags or one of the listing of files from the drop-down menu;

performing a search based on the first input, wherein when the first input indicates that the user has selected one or more of the tags, then performing a search comprises searching for files associated with the selected tags and wherein when the first input indicates that the user has selected one or more of the listing of files, then performing a search comprises searching for the selected one or more files; and

presenting results of the search on the user interface.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a link in the user interface for each of the results, each link pointing to a file identified by the search.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the file comprises a web page, email message, text document, audio file, digital image, application, or instant message.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein populating the plurality of selectable entries with a listing of files associated with the text entered by the user comprises identifying files having titles corresponding to the entered text and populating the plurality of selectable entries with the titles of the files.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the first input indicates that the user has selected one of the titles from the drop-down menu;

and

responsively displaying at least a portion of a document associated with the selected title.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

responsive to selection of a tag, displaying search results including a link to a document that is tagged with the selected tag.

13. The method as in claim 1 wherein the tags include animation, artwork, collaboration, drafts, and podcast capture.

14. The method as in claim 1 wherein set of tags are selected by using nested heuristics constrained by a finite list length to keep the list of tags brief and easy to scan.

15. The method as in claim 1 wherein presenting results of the search on the user interface further comprises concurrently presenting a set of search tools including search filters to filter the search results by additional text and/or additional tags.

16. The method as in claim 15 wherein the additional tags are selectable by selecting one or more check boxes associated with the additional tags.

17. The method as in claim 16 wherein the search tools include a search modifier to specify a date.

7. A non-propagating computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform operations comprising:

identifying a set of tags likely to be meaningful to a user based on detected user activity within a user interface, the user activity including the user accessing files associated with the tags and/or the user creating new tags;

displaying a user interface within a browser content area, the user interface comprising a text search field and drop-down menu adjacent to the text search field and having a plurality of selectable entries;

initially populating the plurality of selectable entries within the drop down menu with the set of tags which are likely to be meaningful to the user;

in response to the user entering text in the text search field, removing the tags and populating the plurality of selectable entries within the same drop down menu with a listing of files associated with the text entered by the user;

receiving a first input indicating that the user has either selected one of the set of tags or one of the listing of files from the drop-down menu;

performing a search based on the first input, wherein when the first input indicates that the user has selected one or more of the tags, then performing a search comprises searching for files associated with the selected tags and wherein when the first input indicates that the user has selected one or more of the listing of files, then performing a search comprises searching for the selected one or more files; and

presenting results of the search on the user interface.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, further comprising:

providing a link in the user interface for each of the results, each link pointing to a identified by the search.

9. The computer-readable medium o claim 8, wherein the file comprises a web page, email message, text document, audio file, digital image, application, or instant message.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 7 wherein populating the plurality of selectable entries with a listing of files associated with the text entered by the user comprises identifying files having titles corresponding to the entered text and populating the plurality of selectable entries with the titles of the files.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the first input indicates that the user has selected one of the titles from the drop-down menu;

and

responsively displaying at least a portion of a document associated with the selected title.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising:

responsive to selection of a tag, displaying search results including a link to a document that is tagged with the selected tag.

18. The machine-readable medium as in claim 7 wherein the tags include animation, artwork, collaboration, drafts, and podcast capture.

19. The machine-readable medium as in claim 7 wherein set of tags are selected by using nested heuristics constrained by a finite list length to keep the list of tags brief and easy to scan.

20. The machine-readable medium as in claim 7 wherein presenting results of the search on the user interface further comprises concurrently presenting a set of search tools including search filters to filter the search results by additional text and/or additional tags.

21. The machine-readable medium as in claim 20 wherein the additional tags are selectable by selecting one or more check boxes associated with the additional tags.