Application sharing single document sharing

• US 7,530,022 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2006
• Issued: 05/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Leichtling, Ivan J., Schmieder, Robert W., Ben-Shachar, Ido M.
• Primary Examiner(s): BAUTISTA, XIOMARA L
• Application Number:
  US11/344,361
• Publication Number:
  US 20060136366A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,191 Days
• Field of Search: 715/733, 715/738, 715/740, 715/748, 715/751, 715/753, 715/755, 715/759, 715/764, 715/765, 715/810, 715/205, 715/234, 709/204, 709/217, 707/1, 707/9, 707/10, 707/104.1
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

An improved application sharing system and method allow sharing of documents on a per document basis rather than on a per application basis, in order to simplify the user experience and to provide a more secure sharing environment. A window marking method is used to construct a window list describing the shared and unshared status of various windows. In an embodiment of the invention, a viewer machine displays only a most recently active shared document window even when other windows are also marked as shared. In this way, a viewer'"'"'s attention can be automatically focused on a current document of interest.

Claims

1. A first computer executing an application sharing program, the application sharing program communicably linked to a user mode application having a first and second window that are both shared, and a network layer resident on the first computer, wherein the application sharing program is adapted to capture drawing commands issued from the user mode application, and to transmit the captured drawing commands to a second computer so that the second computer can display the first window of the user mode application but not the second window of the user mode application, wherein the transmitted drawing commands are associated with an order packet.

2. The application sharing program computer of claim 1 wherein the drawing commands are captured by a chained display driver process.

3. The computer of claim 1 wherein the order packet contains the captured drawing commands.

4. The computer of claim 1 wherein the order packet is transmitted periodically.

5. The computer of claim 1 wherein the order packet identifies at least one shared window of which no portion will be displayed on the second computer.

6. The computer of claim 1 wherein the drawing commands indicated by the order packets provide information for constructing a representation of a display of the first computer.

7. The computer of claim 1 wherein the application sharing program is adapted to transmit a window list to the second computer.

8. The computer of claim 7 wherein the window list contains an indication of regions of a display of the first computer that each of multiple windows occupies.

9. The computer of claim 7 wherein the window list contains an indication of whether a window is shared or unshared.

10. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed cause a computing device to perform a method of sharing an image displayed in windows of application programs, some of the windows shared with another computing device, the method comprising:

receiving drawing commands from the shared windows;

drawing at least a visible portion of each of the shared windows; and

transmitting an order packet to the other computing device that causes the other

computing device to display on a screen an image corresponding to one of

the shared windows but omit from the image a visible portion of at least

another of the shared windows.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the transmitting includes transmitting at least some of the received drawing commands.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein at least some of the received drawing commands are transmitted in the order packet.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising transmitting the order packet periodically.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising transmitting a window list to the other computing device wherein the window list comprises indications of regions of the drawn visible portions of the windows of the application programs.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising causing the other computer to omit from the image a shared window that is not at a top of a z-order list of windows.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein the omitted shared window is not a topmost window in an application having a multiple document interface.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein the omitted shared window has a single document interface and is not a topmost window.

18. A method performed by a computing system for displaying a shared image, comprising:

receiving an order packet comprising drawing commands;

receiving a window list comprising indications of regions of a sharer display that

are occupied by portions of windows, each window further indicated to be

shared or unshared; and

displaying on a viewer display in accordance with the drawing commands a

portion of a shared window but omitting from the viewer display all

portions of another shared window.

19. The method of claim 18 further, comprising creating a hidden image based on the received drawing commands.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the display includes analyzing information contained in the window list to determine which portions of the hidden image to display.