Persisting annotations within a cobrowsing session

• US 9,141,710 B2
• Filed: 10/27/2010
• Issued: 09/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Amrhein, Dustin K., Burckart, Erik J., Ivory, Andrew, Shook, Aaron K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kujundzic, Dino
• Application Number:
  US12/913,367
• Publication Number:
  US 20120110472A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,791 Days
• Field of Search: 715/753, 715/230, 715/232, 715/738
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing

Abstract

A request to navigate to a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) can be received within a cobrowsing session. The cobrowsing session can be associated with a unique session identifier of a cobrowsing application. The cobrowsing application can be part of a collaboration software. An annotation previously associated with the URI from a historic cobrowsing session can be retrieved. Content associated with the URI can be obtained and presented within an interface associated with the cobrowsing session. The annotation can be presented within the content associated with the URI of the interface.

Claims

1. A system for persisting cobrowsing annotations among a plurality of cobrowsing sessions and system comprising at least one hardware processor, tangible storage memory, and bus connecting said processor and tangible storage memory, said tangible storage memory operable to store at least one computer program product executable upon the at least one processor, said system further comprising:

an annotation manager able to automatically persist a cobrowsing annotation within a first cobrowsing session of a cobrowsing application when the first cobrowsing session is terminated, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is retrievable for a subsequent cobrowsing session after the termination of the first cobrowsing session;

a synchronization engine configured to;

receive an annotation event in the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein the annotation event is associated with a user interface used in the subsequent cobrowsing session;

responsive to the annotation event, automatically retrieve the cobrowsing annotation persisted from the first cobrowsing session into the subsequent cobrowsing session;

perform a synchronization event associated with a plurality of interfaces interacting with within the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein performing the synchronization comprises providing the received cobrowsing annotation to the plurality of interfaces; and

a security handler able to authorize an interface participating within the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein the interface is associated with a user identity.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the annotation event is associated with the subsequent cobrowsing session of the cobrowsing application, wherein the annotation event is at least one of a cobrowsing annotation creation, modification, and deletion.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a session data entity associated with the first cobrowsing session, wherein the session data entity comprises of at least an interface identifier, a URI, a user identity, an expiration value, a visibility property, and an annotation.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a toolbar comprising of at least one annotation control, wherein the annotation control is at least one of an annotation creation control, an annotation modification control, and an annotation deletion control.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is presented within an annotation frame, wherein the annotation frame is a window interface element.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is a predefined template, wherein the predefined template can automatically configure the annotation based one or more template settings.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is associated with a visibility property, wherein the visibility property is associated with at least one of a user and a group.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the visibility property is modified by a context menu.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein a change history of the cobrowsing annotation is created in addition to the persisting cobrowsing annotation.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the change history of the cobrowsing annotation is stored as deltas to an original annotation persisted prior to the first cobrowsing session.

11. An apparatus including an interface for persisting cobrowsing annotations among a plurality of cobrowsing sessions comprising:

a tangible memory storing at least one computer program product;

a hardware processor operable to execute the computer program product to cause the interface window to be displayed by the display hardware; and

the computer program product when executed by the processor being operable to receive a request to navigate to a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) within a subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein the subsequent cobrowsing session is associated with a unique session identifier, wherein the subsequent cobrowsing session is associated with a cobrowsing application, wherein the cobrowsing application is a portion of a collaboration software;

the computer program product when executed by the processor being operable to automatically retrieve a cobrowsing annotation that was automatically persisted when a first cobrowsing session was terminated, wherein the cobrowsing annotation was previously associated with the URI from the first cobrowsing session that is a historic cobrowsing session;

the computer program product when executed by the processor being operable to obtain content associated with the URI and present the obtained content within interfaces associated with the subsequent cobrowsing session; and

the computer program product when executed by the processor being operable to synchronize the retrieved cobrowsing annotation to the plurality of interfaces of the subsequent cobrowsing session;

the computer program product when executed by the processor being operable to automatically present the cobrowsing annotation within the content associated with the URI of the interfaces of the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is presented proximate to a portion of the content associated with the URI.

12. The interface of claim 11, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is associated with a visibility property, wherein the visibility property establishes authorized interfaces permitted to receive the annotation.

13. The interface of claim 11, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is presented as a graphic overlay within the content, wherein the graphic overlay is a text area displaying the annotation.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising a session data entity associated with the second cobrowsing session, wherein the session data entity comprises a user identity.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising a toolbar comprising of a mode identifier.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is presented within an annotation frame, wherein the annotation frame is a window interface element of one of the plurality of interfaces of the second cobrowsing session.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is a template specified annotation.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein a change history of the cobrowsing annotation is created in addition to the persisting cobrowsing annotation when the first cobrowsing session is terminated.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the change history of the cobrowsing annotation is stored as deltas to an original annotation persisted prior to the first cobrowsing session.

20. A system for persisting cobrowsing annotations for cobrowsing sessions, the system comprising at least one hardware processor, tangible storage memory, and bus connecting said processor and tangible storage memory, said tangible storage memory operable to store at least one computer program product executable upon the at least one processor, the system further comprising:

an annotation manager able to;

automatically persist a cobrowsing annotation within a first cobrowsing session of a cobrowsing application when the first cobrowsing session is terminated, wherein the cobrowsing annotation is retrievable for a subsequent cobrowsing session after the termination of the first cobrowsing session; and

store changes to the cobrowsing annotation separately from the cobrowsing annotation enabling a change history to be cataloged;

a synchronization engine configured to;

retrieve the cobrowsing annotation persisted in the first cobrowsing session from a subsequent cobrowsing session;

receive an annotation event in the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein the annotation event is associated with a user interface used in the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein responsive to the annotation event, automatically performing a synchronization event associated with a plurality of interfaces interacting within the subsequent cobrowsing session wherein performing the synchronization comprises providing the automatically retrieved cobrowsing annotation persisted from the first cobrowsing session to the plurality of interfaces of the subsequent cobrowsing session; and

a security handler able to authorize an interface participating within the subsequent cobrowsing session, wherein the interface is associated with a user identity.