Animating edits to documents

• US 9,727,544 B2
• Filed: 05/06/2013
• Issued: 08/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Hunter, Rian, Seo, Kijun
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott
• Assistant Examiner(s): McVicker, Matthew G
• Application Number:
  US13/888,328
• Publication Number:
  US 20140331126A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,555 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

A notes system is presented with a content management system. The notes system manages creation and distribution of edits to notes to users sharing the notes. The notes are stored as a series of edits at the notes system. When an edit to a note is received, the edit is propagated to users subscribed to a note by a backend server responsible for managing the note. The shared users are notified through application servers associated with each shared user. The notes server includes various indices for searching the notes and allows notes to be searched quickly to organize viewing by a user of notes and identification of relevant material in the notes. The stored edits are used to display edits to a note to a user by replaying the accessed note to the user.

Claims

1. A method for displaying changes to a note, comprising:

receiving a request for a note;

accessing the note and a set of edits associated with the note, each edit in the set of edits modifying the content of the note;

automatically filtering the set of edits based on a set of rules to determine a set of replay edits and a set of excluded edits, the set of rules including at least one rule that prioritizes the edits in the set of edits, for inclusion in the set of replay edits, that include insertions less than a first number of characters prior to deletions less than a second number of characters, the set of excluded edits including the edits in the set of edits not included in the set of replay edits;

determining an initial view of the note based on the note and the set of replay edits;

providing the initial view of the note for display on a client device; and

applying each edit in the set of replay edits to the initial view of the note while displaying the note on the client device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each edit in the set of edits is associated with a timestamp and each edit is applied chronologically to the initial view of the note.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising grouping edits in the set of replay edits prior to applying the edits to the initial view of the note.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the replay edits are applied in an order based in part on the grouping of the replay edits.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein grouping the edits is further based on a user account identifier associated with the edits in the group of edits.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein applying each edit in the set of replay edits comprises displaying each edit character-by-character.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein applying each edit in the set of replay edits comprises displaying each edit word-by-word.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the initial view of the note incorporates the edits filtered out of the set of edits.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtering excludes an edit associated with a timestamp prior to a timestamp associated with a last access of the note by the user account.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtering includes modifying edits in the set of replay edits that are superseded by other edits in the set of replay edits.

11. A system for displaying edits to a content item, comprising:

a processor configured to execute instructions;

a display; and

a memory storing instructions for execution on the processor, including instructions causing the processor to perform the steps of;

access a content item and a set of edits associated with the content item, each edit in the set of edits modifying the content of the content item;

select a first subset of the set of edits to replay to the user and a second subset of the edits that excludes edits included in the first subset, the selected subsets of edits being automatically selected based on a set of rules including at least one rule that prioritizes edits in the set of edits for inclusion in the first subset of the set of edits that include insertions less than a first number of characters prior to deletions less than a second number of characters;

present an initial view of the content item on the display, the initial view displaying the content item after applying the second subset of edits to the content item; and

apply the first subset of edits to the initial view of the content item, wherein applying the subset of edits modifies the content item by directly rendering an edit on the display.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein applying the first subset of edits comprises writing each edit to a screen buffer of the display.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to filter the set of edits to determine the first subset and second subset of edits.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to:

access a note and a set of edits associated with the note, the set of edits describing modifications of the content of the note, the edits associated with an order;

identify an edit in the set of edits that is modified by another edit in the set of edits, the another edit being after the identified edit in the order and of a different type of edit than the identified edit;

determine a modified edit comprising the identified edit as modified by the other edit;

determine a set of replay edits from the set of edits, the set of replay edits including the modified edit and excluding the identified edit, the set of replay edits further determined by applying a filter to the set of edits based on a set of rules that includes at least one rule that prioritizes the edits in the set of edits to include insertions less than a first number of characters prior to deletions less than a second number of characters;

determine an initial view of the note, the initial view based on the note prior to application of the set of replay edits;

display the initial view in a client application; and

replay the set of replay edits in the client application in the order associated with the edits.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to determine the order associated with the edits.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the order is determined based on an edit type associated with each edit in the set of edits.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the order does not display the edits in a chronological order.