SHARED CONTENT ITEM COMMENTING

• US 20140304618A1
• Filed: 04/03/2013
• Published: 10/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Carriero, Thomas, Delamere, Mark, Rha, Phil, Vincent, Jon, Jayakar, Sujay
• Granted Patent: US 10,341,275 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments

Abstract

Various embodiments provide a commenting system for multiple users to provide and share comments to shared documents. For example, users can share a web link to a collection of content items, such as documents, spreadsheets, photos, and any other media, with other users stored in an online content management system. The commenting system can provide a comment interface displayable alongside a respective content item and the comments can be saved for each user and the content item with associated comments can be synced across the multiple users. The comments can scroll independently of the content in a content item or the comments can be linked to a location therein and the scrolling of the comments can be linked to the scrolling of the content item such that corresponding comments are displayed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

under the control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

receiving a content item uploaded to a first account with an online content management provider;

providing for display, on an interface of a first computing device, the content item and a comment section associated with the content item;

receiving at least one first comment to the comment section associated with the content item;

receiving a first request to share the content item with a second account associated with the online content management provider;

transmitting a first invitation to the second account to access the content item;

providing for display, on an interface of a second computing device, the content item, the comment section associated with the content item, and the at least one first comment; and

receiving at least one second comment to the comment section associated with the content item.

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

receiving a second request to share the content item with the first account associated with the online content management provider;

transmitting a second invitation to the first account to access the content item; and

providing for display, on the interface of the first computing device, the content item, the comment section associated with the content item, and the at least one first and second comment.

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

synchronizing the content item for providing the content item for display with the at least one second comment on the interface of the first computing device.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the comment section associated with the content item is a layer on top of a native application associated with the content item.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the comment section is at least one of scrollable independently of the content item or each comment is linkable to a location in the content item.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the content item is at least one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a video, streaming content, or an image.

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

receiving at least one of revisions or additions to the content item from a user of at least one of the first account or the second account.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause a computing device to:

provide for display, on a first computing device, a content item and a comment section associated with the content item, the content item being sharable between the first computing device and at least one second computing device through a content management provider; and

enable a user of the first computing and the at least one second computing device to provide comments to the comment section, the comments being viewable on each of the first computing and the at least one second computing device.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the comment section is provided, by the content management provider, on an interface different from a native application associated with the content item.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the computing device to:

receive at least one comment to the comment section; and

before providing the content item for display on the at least one second computing device, synchronize the at least one comment.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the comment section adds comments to the content item via metadata associated with the content item.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the content item is displayed on a webpage and the interface, provided by the content management provider, is associated with a browser plug-in.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the content item is at least one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a video, streaming content, or an image.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the interface, provided by the content management provider, is displayable across a plurality of different computing devices types and across a plurality of different platform types for a plurality of different content item content item types.

15. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the comment section is independently scrollable from the content item.

16. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the content item is displayed on a webpage and the comment section, provided by the content management provider, is associated with a browser plug-in.

17. The computing device of claim 8, wherein a comment in the comment section is linked to a location in the content item, and wherein scrolling of the content item causes a display of a corresponding comment.

18. A computing system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to;

provide for display, on a first computing device through a network, a content item and a comment interface associated with the display of the content item, the content item being viewable between the first computing device and at least one second computing device through an account with a content management provider; and

enable a user of the first computing and the at least one second computing device to provide comments to the comment interface viewable on each of the first computing and the at least one second computing device, the comment interface being provided, by the content management provider, on an application different from a native application associated with the content item.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further enable the computing device to:

receive at least one comment to the comment interface; and

synchronize the at least one comment before providing the content item for display on the at least one second computing device.

20. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the content item is at least one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a video, streaming content, or an image.