File management system employing time line based representation of data

• US 7,716,194 B2
• Filed: 01/12/2005
• Issued: 05/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ball, Steven J., Williams, Shane F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lie; Angela M
• Application Number:
  US11/034,402
• Publication Number:
  US 20060155757A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,945 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/101, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/2, 715/716, 715/723, 715/721
• US Class Current: 707/705
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/444 Spatial browsing, e.g. 2D maps, 3D or virtual spaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/447 Temporal browsing, e.g. timeline
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5846 using extracted text
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/915 Image

Abstract

The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates management and navigation of various data objects by making use of a unique time-line based navigation tool. In particular, objects can organized into a plurality of bands based on their respective subject matter. Each band can be created to designate a particular topic. Objects are organized within the appropriate bands based in part on a time parameter such as a time or date that the object was created, for example. The navigation tool allows a user to navigate or browse through the bands and objects according to a desired time parameter or range of time. Zooming and other browsing options are available to the user to view objects of interest at varying levels of detail. The objects are represented as ASCII thumbnails that are operational. Thus, the content of any object can be modified directly via the thumbnail.

Claims

1. A data management system comprising:

one or more memory stores that store a plurality of objects, each object including a time parameter and at least one other metadata value, each object further including content that is displayed within a thumbnail to represent the object;

an object management component that organizes the objects into one or more time based bands based on the at least one other metadata value associated with each object, wherein each object is further organized within its corresponding time based band based on its time parameter;

a display component that displays at least one of the one or more time based bands within a user interface on a display device, each of the at least one time based band being zoomable such that as a time based band is zoomed in, the thumbnail for each object in the time based band displays more of the object'"'"'s content whereas as a time based band is zoomed out, the thumbnail for each object in the time based band displays less of the object'"'"'s content; and

a zooming component that receives user input to zoom the time based band, wherein the zooming component receives the user input by means of navigational buttons that are displayed in conjunction with the one or more time based bands or by means of a mouse wheel on a wheel-enabled mouse.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the object management component comprises:

an annotation component that annotates the objects with metadata relating to at least one of band information, object information, or user information;

a clustering component that clusters at least two objects based in part on the time parameter associated with the two objects to form object clusters; and

a cluster tagging component that labels the object clusters with a name representative of the cluster.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a find component that looks for objects in the one or more memory stores based at least upon one find term, the find term correlating to at least the one metadata value other than the time parameter, the find component further providing one or more found objects arranged in a new band according to the time parameter associated with each found object, wherein the band behaves similar to any other bands.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the object management component comprises an artificial intelligence component that automatically performs at least one of the following:

identifying duplicated objects;

identifying objects that are from a similar edit root; and

identifying similarities and redundancies among a plurality of memory stores and merging the stores where they exist.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a component that readily converts the time based bands into a tree-view structure of the objects to provide an alternate view of the bands and their content.

6. A method that facilitates data management in a time-based manner comprising:

storing a plurality of objects in at least one memory store, each object including a time parameter and at least one other metadata value, each object further including content that is displayed within a thumbnail to represent the object;

organizing the objects into one or more time based bands based on the at least one other metadata value associated with each object, wherein each object is further organized within its corresponding time based band based on its time parameter;

displaying at least one of the one or more time based bands within a user interface on a display device, each of the at least one time based band being zoomable such that as a time based band is zoomed in, the thumbnail for each object in the time based band displays more of the object'"'"'s content whereas as a time based band is zoomed out, the thumbnail for each object in the time based band displays less of the object'"'"'s content; and

receiving user input to zoom the time based band, wherein the user input is received by means of navigational buttons that are displayed in conjunction with the one or more time based bands or by means of a mouse wheel on a wheel-enabled mouse.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein each thumbnail is one of an ASCII, image, audio, or video thumbnail, and wherein each object is accessible directly from the band by selecting the object'"'"'s thumbnail.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein organizing the objects into one or more time based bands comprises annotating the objects with metadata.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising clustering at least two objects into a cluster based in part on the metadata of the two objects and labeling the cluster to readily identify the content associated with the cluster.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising finding related objects by selecting one or more find terms to locate the objects.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising introducing a new band for any found objects and displaying the new band to the user, wherein the new band behaves similar to any other band.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising displaying a tree-view structure orientation of the time based bands to provide an alternative perspective of the bands without the time parameter to the user, whereby the tree-view is displayed simultaneously with the time based bands.

13. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

analyzing at least one of the following;

a relative amount of content included within each band per time parameter or amount of memory consumed by the content in each band per time parameter; and

displaying the relative amounts in each respective band.

14. One or more computer storage media that store computer executable instructions which when executed by a processer perform the following:

storing a plurality of objects in at least one memory store, each object including a time parameter and at least one other metadata value, each object further including content that is displayed within a thumbnail to represent the object;

organizing the objects into one or more time based bands based on the at least one other metadata value associated with each object, wherein each object is further organized within its corresponding time based band based on its time parameter;

displaying at least one of the one or more time based bands within a user interface on a display device, each of the at least one time based band being zoomable such that as a time based band is zoomed in, the thumbnail for each object in the time based band displays more of the object'"'"'s content whereas as a time based band is zoomed out, the thumbnail for each object in the time based band displays less of the object'"'"'s content; and

receiving user input to zoom the time based band, wherein the user input is received by means of navigational buttons that are displayed in conjunction with the one or more time based bands or by means of a mouse wheel on a wheel-enabled mouse.

15. The one or more computer storage media of claim 14, wherein the computer executable instructions further perform:

receiving user input that causes the at least one displayed time based band to be collapsed such that the thumbnails of the objects in the band are no longer displayed; and

displaying a sinusoidal curve in each of the at least one time based band, each sinusoidal curve having a variable amplitude or color opaqueness that indicates a relative number of objects or a relative size of the objects located at a particular time or time period in the time based band.