Capturing Activity History Stream

• US 20140075364A1
• Filed: 09/13/2012
• Published: 03/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bragdon, Andrew C., Groves, Mark, Jones, Gareth A., Trewin, Tracey
• Application Number:
  US13/613,533
• Publication Number:
  US 20140075364A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/772
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/33 Intelligent editors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management

Abstract

A code stream provides a historical view of changes to program code and related actions. The code stream is displayed concurrently with the code for reference, navigation, editing, sharing, and to aid in interruption recovery. The code stream automatically constructs a list of visited code segments based on user changes to the code or navigation within the code. The code stream is an activity history that is constructed based on analysis of user navigation behavior, such as specific edits to the code or dwelling in a section of the code. The user has the ability to undo changes in the code in a non-linear fashion by individually reversing changes from the history listed in the code stream. The user may manually add other non-code items to the code stream.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

monitoring user actions within an application running on the computer;

generating an activity history of the user actions, the activity history comprising a chronological list of the user actions;

displaying the activity history to the user; and

automatically updating the activity history when a new user action is detected.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving user instructions to add selected items to the activity history; and

displaying the selected items in the activity history.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the selected items are associated with other applications running on the computer.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the application is an integrated development environment and the user actions comprise edits to software code.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

adding user-selected items as additional entries to the activity history, wherein the additional entries indicate user interaction with the items and allow navigation to associated content when selected by the user.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising:

receiving a user selection of an item listed in the activity history; and

displaying content related to the user-selected item.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the user-selected item is previous edit to the software code, and further comprising:

identifying a section of the software code that is associated with the previous edit; and

displaying the section of the software code to the user.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

saving the activity history in a format that can be accessed by another user.

9. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method for providing an integrated development environment to users, the method comprising:

providing a code editing window that displays code for a selected project; and

providing a task history window displaying an activity history that lists previous user actions associated with the code.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

automatically updating the activity history to include user edits to the code.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

automatically updating the activity history to include code segments that have been accessed by the user but not edited.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

updating the activity history to include user-selected items.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

adding user-selected items as additional entries to the activity history, wherein the additional entries indicate user interaction with the items and allow navigation to associated content when selected by the user.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

updating the activity history to remove user-selected items.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a user identification of a previous action in the activity history; and

reversing the previous action.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the previous action comprises an edit to the code that occurred at a designated time, and wherein reversing the previous action comprises:

returning the code to prior state that existed at the designated time without undoing other code edits that occurred at other times.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

saving the activity history in a sharable format that can be accessed by other users to determine what actions were performed on the code.

18. In a computing environment where resources are distributed, a method of tracking user activity on resources distributed in the computing environment, the method comprising:

providing a user activity window displaying a document to a user;

providing a task history window displaying an activity history listing previous user actions within the document; and

automatically updating the activity history to include new user actions.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

updating the activity history to include user-selected items.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving a user identification of a previous action in the activity history; and

reversing the previous action without undoing other actions that occurred after the previous action.