SCOPING IN A DOCUMENT EDITING CONTEXT

• US 20130326344A1
• Filed: 06/05/2012
• Published: 12/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: MASSELLE, ERIC LEONARD, MCGOWAN, PATRICK GABRIEL, BARTEK, VELDA
• Granted Patent: US 9,251,128 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/255
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

A method, system and computer program product for providing scoping editing operations in a document using a document editing computer application. The method, program system, and computer product may include tagging each incidence of editing with the identity of the author responsible for the applicable incidence, the date, the date and time, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof. The method, program system, and computer product may further include presenting a mechanism for designating a scope of tagged content by author, date, date and time of day, document phase, author role, or a combination thereof, and locating a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content.

Claims

1. A method for scoping editing operations in a document using a document editing computer application, the method comprising:

tagging each incidence of edited content of the document with at least one of the identity of an author responsible for the applicable incidence, the date of the incidence, the date and time of day of the incidence, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof;

presenting a mechanism for designating a scope of tagged content by at least one of author, date, date and time of day, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof; and

locating a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting a mechanism for designating a character string, styling of characters or other features, or combination thereof, wherein locating a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content further comprises locating the selection based on tagged content that includes the designated character string, styling, or combination thereof.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising editing the document in accordance with a requested operation.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the requested operation comprises at least one operation selected from the group of replacing the designated character string, styling, or combination thereof within the designated scope of tagged content in the document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content in the requested operation comprises the identity of the current user of the application.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content further comprises the identity of one or more authors in addition to the current user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content comprises the identity of at least one author other than the user, and excludes the current user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content comprises the entire document, excluding the current user.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content comprises the affirmative inclusion by a user of one or more authors or the affirmative exclusion by a user of one or more authors.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting a mechanism for designating a scope of tagged content by author comprises presenting a feature allowing at least selection of one or more authors as the scope of the tagged content.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the feature comprises a dialogue box allowing at least selection of one or more authors with a computer pointing device.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising highlighting or otherwise visually identifying the tagged content to identify the author responsible for the tagged content.

13. A system for providing scoping of editing operations in a document using a document editing computer application, the system comprising:

a processor;

a module, operating on the processor, for providing scoping of editing operations in a document using a document editing computer application, the module comprising;

a module for tagging each incidence of edited content of the document with at least one of the identity of an author responsible for the applicable incidence, the date of the incidence, the date and time of day of the incidence, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof;

a module for presenting a mechanism for designating a scope of tagged content by at least one of author, date, date and time of day, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof; and

a module for locating a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising a module for presenting a mechanism for designating a character string, styling of characters or other features, or combination thereof, and wherein the module for locating a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content further comprises a module for locating the selection based on tagged content that includes the designated character string, styling, or combination thereof.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising a module for editing the document in accordance with a requested operation, wherein the requested operation comprises at least one operation selected from the group of replacing the designated character string, styling, or combination thereof within the designated scope of tagged content in the document.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content comprises the affirmative inclusion by a user of one or more authors or the affirmative exclusion by a user of one or more authors.

17. A computer program product for providing scoping of editing operations in a document using a document editing computer application, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code configured to tag each incidence of edited content of the document with at least one of the identity of an author responsible for the applicable incidence, the date of the incidence, the date and time of day of the incidence, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof;

computer readable program code configured to present a mechanism for designating a scope of tagged content by at least one of author, date, date and time of day, document phase, author role, or any combination thereof; and

computer readable program code configured to locate a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising computer readable program code configured to present a mechanism for designating a character string, styling of characters or other features, or combination thereof, and wherein the computer readable program code configured to locate a selection of at least some of the tagged content according to the designated scope of the tagged content further comprises a computer readable program code configured to locate the selection based on tagged content that includes the designated character string, styling, or combination thereof.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the computer readable program code further comprises computer readable program code configured to edit the document in accordance with a requested operation, wherein the requested operation comprises at least one operation selected from the group of replacing the designated character string, styling, or combination thereof within the designated scope of tagged content in the document.

20. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the designated scope of the tagged content comprises the affirmative inclusion by a user of one or more authors or the affirmative exclusion by a user of one or more authors.