Associating annotations with document families

• US 8,539,346 B2
• Filed: 05/23/2008
• Issued: 09/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Albornoz, Jordi A., Feigenbaum, Lee D., Fish, Douglas R., Martin, Sean J., Wall, David A., Tran, Hoa T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Paula, Cesar B
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hillery, Nathan
• Application Number:
  US12/126,167
• Publication Number:
  US 20080222512A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,943 Days
• Field of Search: 715/255, 715/233, 715/230
• US Class Current: 715/255
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

The present invention generally provides methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for managing an annotation system that includes storing annotations for a document family, i.e., a series of versions of a data source. Annotations created for one version of the data source may be viewed in context from both subsequent and prior versions of the same data source. Embodiments of the invention associate annotations with both a data source “family identifier” as well as a “version identifier.” Other than adding a family ID to the data source, the data source remains unchanged. The family ID is maintained across different versions of the data source, whereas version IDs are determined for a specific version of the data source. Version IDs can be constructed from each data source directly, and do not need to be stored.

Claims

1. A method of displaying annotations created for different versions of a document comprising:

determining, by operation of one or more processors, a family identifier associated with the document, having an initial version and one or more subsequent versions, wherein the family identifier is associated with the initial version of the document and with the one or more subsequent versions, and wherein each subsequent version of the document modifies textual content of the document relative to other versions;

determining, by operation of the one or more processors, a version identifier associated with one of the versions of the document, wherein the version identifier provides an indication of either the initial version or a given one of the subsequent versions of the document;

retrieving, from an annotation store, a set of one or more annotation records wherein each retrieved annotation record indicates the family identifier and the determined version identifier of the document

displaying, for each annotation record with a version identifier matching the determined version identifier, an indication that annotation content is available for a text passage in the version of the document associated with the determined version identifier;

retrieving, from the annotation store, at least a first annotation record, wherein the first annotation record has a version identifier that does not match the determined version identifier;

upon determining that the first annotation record is associated with annotated content not present in the document associated with the determined version identifier, displaying an indication that annotated content is available for the text content not present in the document associated with the determined version identifier;

upon request, displaying the annotation content associated with the first annotation along with annotated content from a version of the document associated with the first annotation; and

selecting at least one annotation record with a matching family identifier but non-matching version identifier to associate with the determined version of the document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the family identifier comprises a hash value generated from a SHA-1, MD5, or other hash algorithm.

3. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing a plurality of instructions which, when executed on a computer system is configured to perform operations comprising of displaying annotations created for different versions of a document, comprising:

determining a family identifier associated with the document, having an initial version and one or more subsequent versions, wherein the family identifier is associated with the initial version and with the one or more subsequent versions, and wherein each subsequent version of the document modifies textual content of the document relative to other versions;

determining a version identifier associated with one of the versions of the document, wherein the version identifier provides an indication of either the initial version or a given one of the subsequent versions of the document;

retrieving, from an annotation store, a set of one or more annotation records wherein each retrieved annotation record indicates the family identifier and the determined version identifier of the document;

displaying, for each annotation record with a version identifier matching the determined version identifier, an indication that annotation content is available for a text passage in the version of the document associated with the determined version identifier;

retrieving, from the annotation store, at least a first annotation record, wherein the first annotation record has a version identifier that does not match the determined version identifier;

upon determining that the first annotation record is associated with annotated content not present in the document associated with the determined version identifier, displaying an indication that annotated content is available for the text content not present in the document associated with the determined version identifier;

upon request, displaying the annotation content associated with the first annotation along with annotated content from a version of the document associated with the first annotation;

selecting at least one annotation record with a matching family identifier but non-matching version identifier to associate with the determined version of the document.

4. A system for managing annotations created for multiple versions of a document;

comprising;

a processor;

a memory storing an annotation management application which when executed by the processor, is configured to associate different versions of the document with a common family identifier and to associate annotations created for the document with both a family identifier and a version identifier, wherein a version identifier corresponds to a particular one of the multiple versions of the document and wherein each of the multiple versions of the document modifies textual content of the document relative to other versions;

a database used to store annotations created for the multiple versions of the document, wherein the annotations each include annotation content and an indication of the version identifier corresponding to the version of the document for which a given annotation was composed;

an interface configured to display an indication of annotations created for a passage of text present in a specified version of a document and an indication of annotations created for other versions of the document, wherein the interface is further configured to, upon request, (i) display annotation content for annotations created for the passages of text present in the specified version of the document (ii) display both annotation content and content of the other versions of the document for the annotations created for the other versions of the document, and wherein the interface comprises, a first window configured to display the specified version of the document and an indication of annotations created for the specified version of the document and, in a second window, an indication of annotations created for other versions of the document.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the document is selected from a spreadsheet, database table, text document, word processor document, image or combinations thereof.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the family identifier comprises a hash value generated from a SHA-1, MD5, or other hash algorithm.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the interface is further configured to display, in the second window, the version of the document for which the annotation was originally created.