HIERARCHICAL DISPLAY AND NAVIGATION OF DOCUMENT REVISION HISTORIES

• US 20120272192A1
• Filed: 04/19/2011
• Published: 10/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Autodesk, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Autodesk, Inc.
• Inventors: Grossman, Tovi, Matejka, Justin Frank, Fitzmaurice, George
• Granted Patent: US 8,533,595 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/854
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

A system and technique for displaying a document'"'"'s workflow history are disclosed. The system includes a graphical user interface for displaying one or more graphical representations of events generated by an application configured to edit a document. Each of the events generated by the application may be stored in a data structure that is associated with one or more portions of the document. The data structure may also be associated with a digital image that reflects the state of the document at the time the event was generated and one or more frames of digital video captured substantially simultaneously with the generation of the event. The system may display the stored events via graphical representations in the graphical user interface that represent a portion of the total document workflow history. A user may navigate through the graphical events based on a hierarchical algorithm for clustering events.

Claims

1. A method for generating and navigating a graphical representation of a filtered workflow history of an electronic document, the method comprising:

accessing a plurality of data objects stored in a memory, wherein each data object stores information related to a different event generated by an application that is configured to modify the document;

filtering the plurality of data objects based on one or more filter criteria to produce a set of filtered data objects;

identifying a first time and a second time during which the application generates events;

selecting a subset of filtered data objects from the set of filtered data objects, wherein each filtered data object in the subset includes a timestamp reflecting a time that is either equal to the first time or equal to the second time or falls in between the first time and the second time;

generating a graphical representation of the subset of filtered data objects; and

causing the graphical representation to be displayed in a graphical user interface associated with the application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to user information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to one or more tools associated with the application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to a set of tools in the application that the current user has never selected.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to one or more regions of the document, and each filtered data object in the subset of filtered data objects is associated with at least one of the one or more regions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filter criteria are specified by a user via one or more user interface elements displayed in the graphical user interface associated with the application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filter criteria are specified by a user via a native selection tool of the application.

8. A computer-readable storage medium containing a program which, when executed, performs an operation for generating and navigating a graphical representation of a filtered workflow history of an electronic document, the operation comprising:

accessing a plurality of data objects stored in a memory, wherein each data object stores information related to a different event generated by an application that is configured to modify the document;

filtering the plurality of data objects based on one or more filter criteria to produce a set of filtered data objects;

identifying a first time and a second time during which the application generates events;

selecting a subset of filtered data objects from the set of filtered data objects, wherein each filtered data object in the subset includes a timestamp reflecting a time that is either equal to the first time or equal to the second time or falls in between the first time and the second time;

generating a graphical representation of the subset of filtered data objects; and

causing the graphical representation to be displayed in a graphical user interface associated with the application.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to user information.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to one or more tools associated with the application.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to a set of tools in the application that the current user has never selected.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to one or more regions of the document, and each filtered data object in the subset of filtered data objects is associated with at least one of the one or more regions.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter criteria are specified by a user via one or more user interface elements displayed in the graphical user interface associated with the application.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more filter criteria are specified by a user via a native selection tool of the application.

15. A system for generating and navigating a graphical representation of a filtered workflow history of an electronic document, the system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to;

access a plurality of data objects stored in the memory, wherein each data object stores information related to a different event generated by an application that is configured to modify the document;

filter the plurality of data objects based on one or more filter criteria to produce a set of filtered data objects;

identify a first time and a second time during which the application generates events;

select a subset of filtered data objects from the set of filtered data objects, wherein each filtered data object in the subset includes a timestamp reflecting a time that is either equal to the first time or equal to the second time or falls in between the first time and the second time;

generate a graphical representation of the subset of filtered data objects; and

cause the graphical representation to be displayed in a graphical user interface associated with the application.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to user information.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to one or more tools associated with the application.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to a set of tools in the application that the current user has never selected.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more filter criteria are related to one or more regions of the document, and each filtered data object in the subset of filtered data objects is associated with at least one of the one or more regions.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more filter criteria are specified by a user via one or more user interface elements displayed in the graphical user interface associated with the application.