Techniques for Managing Persistent Document Collections

• US 20150199348A1
• Filed: 01/22/2015
• Published: 07/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gur-esh, Ethan, Fink, Nathan, Friesenhahn, Dustin, Ramkumar, Nithya, FitzGerald, Maura J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,626,362 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions

Abstract

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for creating and managing persistent document collections. A data store is used for storing one or more persistent document collections. A content management application is used for managing documents for users, for creating one or more persistent document collections of a sub-set of the documents upon user request, and for storing the one or more persistent document collections in the data store. Users can create one or more persistent document collections from a sub-set of the documents. Users can also modify the one or more persistent document collections. A requested portion of one or more persistent document collections can be output upon request from an external application so that the external application can download one or more of the documents that are represented by the persistent document collection for further modification by the user.

Claims

1. A system for creating and managing persistent document collections comprising:

a data store for storing one or more persistent document collections; and

a content management application, the content management application being operable to manage documents for a plurality of users, to create the one or more persistent document collections of a sub-set of the documents upon user request, and to store the one or more persistent document collections in the data store.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the content management application is further operable to receive a request from an external application for collection information regarding at least a portion of the one or more persistent document collections, and in response to the request from the external application, the content management application being further operable to retrieve the collection information from the data store and return the collection information to the external application.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the collection information that is provided to the external application is used by the external application to allow at least one of the plurality of users to manage one or more of the documents that are represented by the collection information.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an external application, the external application being operable to request collection information regarding at least a portion of the one or more persistent document collections from the content management application to enable at least one of the plurality of users to download the one or more of the documents that are represented by the collection information.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the external application is operable to download the one or more of the documents that are represented by the collection information.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the external application is operable to modify the one or more of the documents that are represented by the collection information.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the content management application is further operable to enable documents represented by at least a portion of the one or more persistent document collections to be downloaded for further modification.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the content management application is further operable to enable documents represented by at least a portion of the one or more persistent document collections to be synchronized with files residing on a computer specified by a respective one of the plurality of users.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the content management application is a browser-based application that receives user input from a client-side web browser.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the content management application is further operable to assign a one or more attributes to the one or more persistent document collections.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more attributes include an amount of disk space to allocate to a respective one of the one or more persistent document collections.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more attributes include a frequency that indicates how often a respective one of the one or more persistent document collections should be synchronized.

13. A method for creating and managing persistent document collections comprising the steps of:

displaying a plurality of documents that are managed by a content management application;

receiving an add selection which specifies at least one document of the plurality of documents to add to a persistent document collection; and

storing the persistent document collection in a data store.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

at a later point in time, receiving another add selection which specifies another one or more of the plurality of documents to add to a different persistent document collection.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

at a later point in time, receiving another add selection which specifies another one or more of the plurality of documents to add to the persistent document collection.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

at a later point in time, receiving a remove selection which specifies the at least one or more of the plurality of documents to remove from the persistent document collection.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the content management application is a browser-based application that receives user input from a client-side web browser.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

enabling a user to download at least a portion of the documents that are represented by the persistent document collection for further modification.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

enabling a user to synchronize at least a portion of the documents that are represented by the persistent document collection with files residing on a computer specified by the user.

20. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:

managing documents for a plurality of users;

enabling a respective user of the plurality of users to create one or more persistent document collections of a sub-set of the documents;

enabling the respective user to modify the one or more persistent document collections; and

outputting a requested portion of the one or more persistent document collections upon request from an external application so that the external application can download one or more of the documents that are represented by the persistent document collection for further modification by the user.