Clipboard augmentation with references

• US 8,453,066 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2007
• Issued: 05/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ozzie, Raymond E., Ozzie, Jack E., Suthar, Paresh S., Naravanan, Raman, Augustine, Matthew S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdul-Ali, Omar
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jiang, Haimei
• Application Number:
  US11/621,423
• Publication Number:
  US 20080109832A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,331 Days
• Field of Search: 715/770, 715/764, 715/769, 719/329
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]

Abstract

Systems, methods, and data structures for augmenting data placed on the clipboard with additional data are disclosed. Where the data placed on the clipboard may include one or more references to other information, such systems, methods, or data structures may retrieve data referred to by a reference and place such data, or data associated with the retrieved data, on the clipboard.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a notification that copy data comprising a reference has been placed on a computer-implemented clipboard, the copy data conforming to a first data format;

identifying supplemental data not on the clipboard using the reference within the copy data, the supplemental data external to a source from which the copy data originated, the reference comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) referencing an Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, the supplemental data comprising the RSS feed;

adding the supplemental data to the clipboard;

identifying second supplemental data not on the clipboard using a second reference within the supplemental data, the second supplemental data external to the source from which the copy data originated, the second supplemental data comprising content of the RSS feed; and

adding the second supplemental data to the clipboard.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the clipboard maintains the copy data and the supplemental data as alternate data formats for a single clipboard data item.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the reference is a single reference that is associated with two or more pieces of referenced data and the identifying comprises retrieving the two or more pieces of referenced data associated with the reference as the supplemental data.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the adding the supplemental data to the clipboard comprises adding the two or more pieces of referenced data to the clipboard as a new clipboard data item.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying supplemental data comprises transforming at least one of the copy data and the supplemental data using a transform specification.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying supplemental data comprises generating the supplemental data using executable code.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the first data format comprises a structured data item that uses a structured data format.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the first data format comprises one or more of:

a structured data item that uses a structured data format;

a feed data item; and

a presentation data item.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising:

registering for paste processing.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the identifying supplemental data and adding supplemental data are not performed until a paste operation is initiated.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying supplemental data and adding supplemental data are only performed when a registered converter exists for the first data format.

12. A system, comprising:

a processing unit; and

a memory, the processing unit operating with the memory to provide;

a computer-implemented clipboard configured to receive copy data comprising a reference from a source application, the copy data conforming to a first data format; and

an augmentation module configured to;

receive a notification when the copy data has been placed on the clipboard by the source application;

identify supplemental data not on the clipboard using the reference within the copy data, the supplemental data external to the source application from which the copy data originated, the reference comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) referencing an Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, the supplemental data comprising the RSS feed;

add the supplemental data to the clipboard;

identify second supplemental data not on the clipboard using a second reference within the supplemental data, the second supplemental data external to the source application from which the copy data originated, the second supplemental data comprising content of the RSS feed; and

add the second supplemental data to the clipboard.

13. The system of claim 12, comprising:

a clipboard converter configured to retrieve referenced data associated with the reference and produce the supplemental data.

14. The system of claim 12, comprising:

a destination application configured to receive the supplemental data using a paste operation.

15. The system of claim 13, the source application not comprising the augmentation module.

16. One or more computer-readable storage media containing computer-executable instructions that, when executed, implement the following operations:

receiving a notification at a first application that copy data comprising a reference has been placed on a computer-implemented clipboard by a second application, the copy data conforming to a first data format;

identifying supplemental data not on the clipboard using the reference, the supplemental data external to the first application, the second application, and the clipboard, the reference comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) referencing an Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, the supplemental data comprising the RSS feed;

adding the supplemental data to the clipboard, wherein the identifying and adding are performed by the first application, and the first application and the second application are different applications;

identifying second supplemental data not on the clipboard using a second reference within the supplemental data, the second supplemental data external to the source application from which the copy data originated, the second supplemental data comprising content of the RSS feed; and

adding the second supplemental data to the clipboard.