PERMITTING PARTICIPANT CONFIGURABLE VIEW SELECTION WITHIN A SCREEN SHARING SESSION

• US 20130290863A1
• Filed: 04/25/2012
• Published: 10/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: DUQUENE, JOEL, EBERWEIN, JAMES P., CHEN, YING, LIEU, DONG K.
• Granted Patent: US 9,557,878 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/747
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/14 Display of multiple viewports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference

Abstract

A screen sharing session between a participating computer and a presenting computer can be established. A copy of a graphical user interface screen from the presenting computer can be presented within a display on the participating computer. A selection of the sub-portion of the copy of the graphical user interface screen from the participating computer can be received. Boundaries of the sub-portion can be determined and can be transmitted from the participating computer to the presenting computer. Responsive to receiving the boundaries, the remotely located computer can define the sub-portion of the graphical user interface screen of the presenting computer. The defined sub-portion of the graphical user interface screen can be conveyed over a network from the presenting computer to the participating computer without conveying data for other portions of the graphical user interface screen.

Claims

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15. A system for improving application sharing comprising:

a screen sharing engine configured to selectively convey a user-specified portion of a shared content within a screen sharing session of a presenting computing device to a participating computing device without conveying data associated with non-user-specified portions of the screen sharing session, wherein the user-specified portion is determined by a participant utilizing the participating computing device; and

a data store able to persist at least one of a mapping and a user preference, wherein the mapping associates at least one of a position and a dimension of the portion, wherein the user preference is associated with the user-specified portion.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein a section of the shared content not associated with the user-specified portion is not transmitted to the participating computing device.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the portion presented within the participating computing device is displayed differently than the portion on the presenting computing device, wherein the difference is at least one of an aspect ratio, a resolution, and a color depth.

18. The system of claim 15, further comprising:

a selection manager configured to receive a user-specified selection of the shared content;

a transmission component able to convey the user-specified selection of the shared content to the participating computing device; and

a sharing handler capable of mapping the user-specified selection of the shared content to a portion of the shared content.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the system is a component of an integrated development environment (IDE) application.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the system is a component of a display driver within the presenting computing device.

21. A computer program product comprising:

one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to establish a screen sharing session between a participating computer and a presenting computer;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to present within a display on the participating computer, a copy of a graphical user interface screen from the presenting computer;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to receive a selection of the sub-portion of the copy of the graphical user interface screen from the participating computer; and

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to determine boundaries of the sub-portion, and transmitting the boundaries from the participating computer to the presenting computer, without conveying data for other portions of the graphical user interface screen.

22. The computer program product of claim 21, further comprising;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to, responsive to receiving the boundaries, define at the remotely located computer the sub-portion of the graphical user interface screen of the presenting computer; and

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to convey over a network from the presenting computer to the participating computer, the defined sub-portion of the graphical user interface screen without conveying data for other portions of the graphical user interface screen, which conserves on bandwidth conveyed over the network.

23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the receiving of the boundaries and the conveying of the sub-portion is independent of content of the graphical user interface handled by the presenting computer for any device other than the participating computer.

24. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the presenting computer provides at least a portion of the graphical user interface screen to a plurality of different computers, including the participating computer, wherein the boundaries defined for the participating computer, which affects the sub-portion of the graphical user interface screen sent from the presenting computer to the participating computer has no effect on other ones of the different computers.

25. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the boundaries defined for the participating computer, which affects the sub-portion of the graphical user interface screen sent from the presenting computer to the participating computer has no effect on a display of the graphical user interface screen for the presenting computer, which includes content outside the defined boundaries of the sub-portion.