Method of sharing a desktop with attendees of a real-time collaboration

• US 9,501,258 B2
• Filed: 04/13/2007
• Issued: 11/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Teplov, Ilya, Skurikhin, Aleksey, Huck, Paul, Fedotov, Alex
• Primary Examiner(s): Ng, Amy
• Assistant Examiner(s): STITT, ERIK V
• Application Number:
  US11/787,170
• Publication Number:
  US 20070214423A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,511 Days
• Field of Search: 715/810, 715/754, 715/751
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15

Abstract

A method of facilitating the reproduction of a presenter'"'"'s desktop for attendees of a real-time collaboration. A bound portion of the desktop (the portion shared with the attendees) is logically divided into clusters. When the content of a cluster changes, the cluster is analyzed and one or more objects describing the content may be identified. Each object that is not already cached is cached and assigned a cache ID. Each object in the cluster is described in an object primitive to be sent to the attendees. Actions for reproducing the object on the attendees'"'"' clients are sent as action primitives. The object and action primitives allow the content of the presenter'"'"'s desktop to be sent incrementally instead of sending the entire desktop.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

updating, by a presenter'"'"'s computer, a portion of the presenter'"'"'s desktop being shared with an attendee of a real-time collaboration;

identifying, from an object-primitive cache of the presenter'"'"'s computer, a collaboration display object for a user interface element of the presenter'"'"'s desktop whose appearance has changed, wherein the object-primitive cache is replicated at the attendee'"'"'s computer, and wherein the object-primitive cache stores a plurality of collaboration display objects for user interface elements of the presenter'"'"'s desktop, and stores cache identifiers assigned by the presenter'"'"'s computer to each of the plurality of collaboration display objects, wherein a respective collaboration display object cached at the at the presenter'"'"'s computer and at the attendee'"'"'s computer has a matching cache identifier at the presenter'"'"'s computer and at the attendee'"'"'s computer;

creating an action description which indicates the change to the collaboration display object, wherein the action description includes;

a cache identifier that identifies the collaboration display object; and

an instruction which operates on a cached copy of the collaboration display object, for reproducing the change in appearance to the collaboration display object of the presenter'"'"'s computer; and

transmitting, by the presenter'"'"'s computer to the attendee'"'"'s computer, the action description to reproduce the change to the collaboration display object onto the cached copy of the collaboration display object at the attendee'"'"'s computer without transmitting the changed collaboration display object to the attendee'"'"'s computer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the collaboration display object is of one of the following types:

a character, a cursor, an image, a palette and a region.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

said character type comprises a pattern of pixels of a single color;

said cursor type comprises a cursor;

said image type comprises a multi-color image;

said palette type comprises identifiers of one or more colors; and

said region type comprises a description of a region within the portion.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said action description comprises one or more actions, each said action being of one of the following types:

character update, image update, source blit and tile.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein:

said character update type is configured to generate one or more graphical objects in one color;

said image update type is configured to generate a multi-color image;

said source blit type is configured to move content within the portion from one location to another location; and

said tile type is configured to reproduce a background pattern of the portion.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a collaboration display object within the portion whose appearance changes, wherein identifying the collaboration display object involves:

logically dividing the portion into multiple clusters; and

in each cluster;

computing a checksum on the values of pixels in the cluster; and

comparing the computed checksum to a checksum previously computed for the cluster.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a notification from a display driver that contents of the area changed.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a timer to determine when to examine the portion for changes to the desktop.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

delaying examining the portion of the desktop to control the rate of flow of collaboration data from the presenter'"'"'s computer.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting, by a presenter'"'"'s computer, a portion of the presenter'"'"'s desktop to share with an attendee of a collaboration; and

transmitting, by the presenter'"'"'s computer to the attendee'"'"'s computer, data stored in an object-primitive cache of the presenter'"'"'s computer to facilitate the attendee'"'"'s computer to replicate the presenter'"'"'s cache.

11. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method of sharing a presenter'"'"'s desktop with collaboration attendees, the method comprising:

updating, by a presenter'"'"'s computer, a portion of the presenter'"'"'s desktop being shared with an attendee of a real-time collaboration;

identifying, from an object-primitive cache of the presenter'"'"'s computer, a collaboration display object for a user interface element of the presenter'"'"'s desktop whose appearance has changed, wherein the object-primitive cache stores a plurality of collaboration display objects for user interface elements of the presenter'"'"'s desktop, and stores cache identifiers assigned by the presenter'"'"'s computer to each of the plurality of collaboration display objects, wherein a respective collaboration display object cached at the at the presenter'"'"'s computer and at the attendee'"'"'s computer has a matching cache identifier at the presenter'"'"'s computer and at the attendee'"'"'s computer;

creating an action description which indicates the change to the collaboration display object, wherein the action description includes;

a cache identifier that identifies the collaboration display object; and

an instruction which operates on a cached copy of the collaboration display object, for reproducing the change in appearance to the collaboration display object of the presenter'"'"'s computer; and

transmitting, by the presenter'"'"'s computer to the attendee'"'"'s computer, the action description to reproduce the change to the collaboration display object onto the cached copy of the collaboration display object at the attendee'"'"'s computer without transmitting the changed collaboration display object to the attendee'"'"'s computer.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the collaboration display object is of one of the following types:

a character, a cursor, an image, a palette, and a region.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein:

said character type comprises a pattern of pixels of a single color;

said cursor type comprises a cursor;

said image type comprises a multi-color image;

said palette type comprises identifiers of one or more colors; and

said region type comprises a description of a region within the portion.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein said action description comprises one or more actions, each said action being one of the following types:

character update, image update, source blit, and tile.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein:

said character update type is configured to generate one or more graphical objects in one color;

said image update type is configured to generate a multi-color image;

said source blit type is configured to move content within the portion from one location to another location; and

said tile type is configured to reproduce a background pattern of the portion.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises identifying a collaboration display object within the portion whose appearance changes, and wherein identifying the collaboration display object involves:

logically dividing the portion into multiple clusters; and

in each cluster;

computing a checksum on the values of pixels in the cluster; and

comparing the computed checksum to a checksum previously computed for the cluster.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a notification from a display driver that contents of the area changed.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises:

maintaining a timer to determine when to examine the portion for changes to the desktop.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises:

delaying examining the portion of the desktop to control the rate of flow of collaboration data from the presenter'"'"'s computer.

20. A computer-implemented method for updating an attendee'"'"'s desktop to replicate changes made to a presenter'"'"'s desktop being shared with the attendee, comprising:

receiving, by the attendee'"'"'s computer from the presenter'"'"'s computer, an action description which indicates a change to a collaborative display object for a user interface element in a portion of the presenter'"'"'s desktop, wherein the action description includes;

a cache identifier that identifies the collaboration display object, wherein the cache identifier is assigned to the collaborative display object by the presenter'"'"'s computer; and

an instruction which operates on a cached copy of the collaboration display object, for reproducing the change in appearance to the collaboration display object of the presenter'"'"'s computer;

selecting, from an object-primitive cache of the attendee'"'"'s computer, a collaboration display object identified by the cache identifier of the action description, wherein the object-primitive cache stores a plurality of collaboration display objects for user interface elements of the presenter'"'"'s desktop, and stores cache identifiers assigned by the presenter'"'"'s computer to each of the plurality of collaboration display objects, wherein a respective collaboration display object cached at the at the presenter'"'"'s computer and at the attendee'"'"'s computer has a matching cache identifier at the presenter'"'"'s computer and at the attendee'"'"'s computer; and

performing the action description'"'"'s instructions on the selected collaborative display object to reproduce the change in appearance, made to the collaboration display object by the presenter'"'"'s computer, onto the cached copy of the collaboration display object at the attendee'"'"'s computer without receiving the changed collaboration display object from the presenter'"'"'s computer.