Method for providing quick responses in instant messaging conversations

• US 7,661,067 B2
• Filed: 02/21/2006
• Issued: 02/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twitter Inc (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Walker, Keith Raymond, Handy-Bosma, John Hans, Chen, Yen-Fu, Selvage, Mei Yang
• Primary Examiner(s): Hailu; Tadesse
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ulrich; Nicholas S
• Application Number:
  US11/358,754
• Publication Number:
  US 20070198646A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,449 Days
• Field of Search: 715/784, 715/780, 715/808, 715/752, 715/753, 715/758, 715/759, 709/207, 709/206
• US Class Current: 715/752
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]

Abstract

A computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for allowing a user to quickly and directly responds to a turn in an instant messaging conversation. One or more instant messaging chat conversations are displayed to a user. User input is received selecting a turn in the one of more instant messaging chat conversations. Responsive to receiving the user input selecting a turn, a user input region is provided to the user, wherein the user input region is used to receive an instant message from the user. Upon the user entering an instant message into the user input region, the message is sent to a set of participants in the instant messaging chat conversation.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for enabling a user to generate a quick response to an instant messaging chat conversation, the computer implemented method comprising:

displaying a set of instant messaging chat conversations to a user in a scrolling chat window adjacent to a main chat window comprising an active instant messaging conversation of the user;

receiving user input selecting a chat turn in the set of instant messaging conversations in the scrolling chat window to form a selected chat turn;

responsive to receiving the user input selecting a chat turn in the scrolling chat window, providing a user input region to the user without loading the selected chat turn into the main chat window, wherein the user input region is used to receive an instant message from the user;

creating a link between the user input region and an identifier of the selected chat turn in an extensible markup language document associated with the selected chat turn; and

responsive to the user entering an instant message into the user input region, sending the instant message to all participants in the selected chat turn.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user selects a chat turn to respond to by clicking on a hotspot linked to the chat turn.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user input region is placed over the selected turn.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the instant message is a canned response.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the instant messaging chat conversations in the scrolling chat window are visually separated based on avatars or pictures of the participants.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the scrolling chat window comprises replay, forward, pause, and stop controls for scrolling through the instant messaging conversations.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein instant messaging conversations are displayed in the scrolling chat window only upon detecting the user is switching chat sessions in the main chat window.

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

removing entries in an instant messaging chat conversation that associated with a subset of participants in the instant messaging chat conversation from display in the scrolling chat window.

17. The computer implemented method of claim 16, wherein contents of the scrolling chat window are rewritten each time a user request is received to remove an entry from display in the scrolling chat window.

5. A data processing system for enabling a user to generate a quick response to an instant messaging chat conversation, the data processing system comprising:

a bus;

a storage device connected to the bus, wherein the storage device contains computer usable code;

at least one managed device connected to the bus;

a communications unit connected to the bus;

a processing unit connected to the bus, wherein the processing unit executes the computer usable code to display a set of instant messaging chat conversations to a user in a scrolling chat window adjacent to a main chat window comprising an active instant messaging conversation of the user;

receive user input selecting a chat turn in the set of instant messaging conversations to form a selected chat turn;

provide a user input region to the user without loading the chat turn into the main chat window in response to receiving the user input selecting a chat turn in the scrolling chat window, wherein the user input region is used to receive an instant message from the user;

create a link between the user input region and an identifier of the selected chat turn in an extensible markup language document associated with the selected chat turn; and

send the instant message to all participants in the selected chat turn in response to the user entering an instant message into the user input region.

6. The data processing system of claim 5, wherein the user selects a chat turn to respond to by clicking on a hotspot linked to the chat turn.

7. The data processing system of claim 5, wherein the user input region is placed over the selected turn.

8. The data processing system of claim 5, wherein the instant message is sent to the one or more participants by one of selecting a send button or hitting an enter key.

9. The data processing system of claim 5, wherein the instant message is a canned response.

10. A computer program product for enabling a user to generate a quick response to an instant messaging chat conversation, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having computer usable program code stored thereon, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code for displaying a set of instant messaging chat conversations to a user in a scrolling chat window adjacent to a main chat window comprising an active instant messaging conversation of the user;

computer usable program code for receiving user input selecting a chat turn in the set of instant messaging conversations in the scrolling chat window to form a selected chat turn;

computer usable program code for providing a user input region to the user without loading the selected chat turn into the main chat window in response to receiving the user input selecting a chat turn in the scrolling chat window, wherein the user input region is used to receive an instant message from the user;

computer usable program code for creating a link between the user input region and an identifier of the selected chat turn in an extensible markup language document associated with the selected chat turn; and

computer usable program code for sending the instant message to all participants in the selected chat turn in response to the user entering an instant message into the user input region.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the user selects a chat turn to respond to by clicking on a hotspot linked to the chat turn.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the user input region is placed over the selected turn.