Recognizing cloud content

• US 9,501,484 B2
• Filed: 06/19/2015
• Issued: 11/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/19/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: von Haden, Kyle M., Hwang, Jennifer H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dang, Thanh-Ha
• Application Number:
  US14/744,837
• Publication Number:
  US 20150286655A1
• Time in Patent Office: 522 Days
• Field of Search: 707/638
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/11 File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots file system backup G06F11/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/176 Support for shared access to files; File sharing support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/901 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures for retrieval from the web G06F16/951
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/123 Storage facilities
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

Recognizing cloud content techniques are described herein. A designated storage location for cloud content corresponding to a service is registered locally at a device. Files stored in association with the registered storage location may be recognized as cloud content of the corresponding service. The recognized cloud content may be handled in various ways to customize the user experience and tailor interaction with cloud content. For example, icons or other visual identifiers may be used within device, operating system and/or application user interfaces to represent an association of files with a particular service based on recognition of the files as cloud content. Additionally, a registered storage location for a device may be employed to obtain relative paths to files that may be used to roam file activity lists between different devices.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a computing device; and

one or more processors configured to perform operations to handle recognized cloud content of the computing device including;

registering, via a designated data object, a top level path name for a local storage location of the computing device;

associating files stored under the top level path name with a collaboration service;

recognizing files stored under the top level path name as cloud content associated with the collaboration service;

outputting indications for display, via one or more applications of the computing device, to reflect association of the recognized files with the collaboration service;

tracking activities of the one or more applications of the computing device with the recognized files, the tracking using relative paths formed by removing the registered top level path name from absolute paths to the files in the local storage; and

roaming the activities performed by the one or more applications of the computing device with the recognized files for use by multiple devices to which the recognized files are synchronized using relative paths to reference the activities.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein roaming the activities comprises:

detecting the activities performed by the one or more applications with the recognized files;

forming a list of the activities that includes the relative paths; and

uploading the list of the activities via the collaboration service for access by the multiple devices.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the operations to handle recognized cloud content of the computing device further include:

recognizing that the list of activities accessible by the multiple devices contains one or more items associated with another collaboration service that is unavailable on the computing device; and

removing the one or more items from the list of activities.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the operations to handle recognized cloud content of the computing device further include:

recognizing that the list of activities accessible by the multiple devices contains one or more items associated with another collaboration service that is unavailable on the computing device; and

displaying the one or more items in the list of activities as disabled links.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the activities that are roamed include a list of recently used documents corresponding to the one or more applications.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations to handle recognized cloud content of the computing device further include:

discovering one or more registered collaboration services for the computing device by referencing registered top level path names for the registered collaboration services from designated data objects by which the registered top level path names re stored; and

customizing a user interface for at least one application of the computing device to include custom features corresponding to the registered collaboration services that are discovered.

7. A method comprising:

Registering, via a designated data object, a top level path name for a local storage location of the computing device;

associating files stored under the top level path name with a collaboration service;

recognizing the files stored under the top level path name as cloud content associated with the collaboration service;

outputting indications for display, via one or more applications of the computing device, to reflect association of the recognized files with the collaboration service;

tracking activities of the one or more applications of the computing device with the recognized files, the tracking using relative paths formed by removing the registered top level path name from absolute paths to the files in the local storage; and

roaming the activities performed by the one or more applications of the computing device with the recognized files for use by multiple devices to which the recognized files are synchronized using relative paths to reference the activities.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein roaming the activities comprises:

detecting the activities performed by the one or more applications with the recognized files;

forming a list of the activities that includes the relative paths; and

uploading the list of the activities via the collaboration service for access by the multiple devices.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the activities that are roamed include a list of recently used documents corresponding to the one or more applications.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

discovering one or more registered collaboration services for the computing device by referencing registered top level path names for the registered collaboration services from designated data objects by which the registered top level path names are stored; and

customizing user interfaces for the one or more applications of the computing device to include custom features corresponding to the registered collaboration services that are discovered.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein associating the files comprises:

assigning a key-value pair in a file system registry to the collaboration service to obtain a corresponding registered location for the service.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein outputting the indications for display further comprises:

outputting the indication for display incorporated with a default indication of the recognized file.

13. A method comprising:

associating files stored in a registered location on a computing device with a collaboration service;

recognizing the files associated with the collaboration service as cloud content;

obtaining a relative path for the files stored on the computing device by removing the registered location from absolute paths to the files in the local storage;

tracking activities of one or more applications with the files recognized as cloud content using the relative paths;

ascertaining activities associated with the relative paths for files synchronized across multiple devices via the collaboration service;

constructing paths to local versions of the files in local storage of the computing device by combining the relative paths with the registered location for files associated with the collaboration service registered on the computing device; and

rendering a list of the activities that uses the constructed paths for list items corresponding to the files associated with the collaboration service.

14. The method as described in claim 13, further comprising:

roaming, via the collaboration service, the list of the activities for the recognized files using the relative paths to enable other devices to match the activities to corresponding versions of the recognized files in local storage of the other devices.

15. The method as described in claim 13, further comprising:

recording the registered location for files associated with the collaboration service via a designated data object when the collaboration service is activated on the computing device.

16. The method as described in claim 13, wherein:

the relative paths include a service identifier corresponding to the collaboration service; and

constructing the paths to local versions of the files further comprises;

looking-up the registered location based on the service identifier; and

replacing the service identifier m the relative paths with the registered location.

17. The method as described in claim 13, wherein the activities include indications of recently used documents across the multiple devices for inclusion in a recently used documents list output at the computing device.

18. The method as described in claim 13, wherein the activities include indications of files that have been pinned to user interfaces of an application across the multiple devices to enable pinning of corresponding files within a user interface for the application output at the computing device.

19. The method as described in claim 13, wherein rendering the list of activities comprises presenting a visual indication representing the collaboration service with the list items corresponding to the files associated with the collaboration service.

20. The method as described in claim 13, further comprising:

recognizing that an activity list synchronized between the multiple devices contains at least one item associated with a particular collaboration service that is unavailable on the computing device by determining that a path for the particular collaboration service is not registered at the computing device; and

outputting a notification to install the particular collaboration service at the computing device to access the at least one item.