TIME-BASED ORGANIZATION OF DESKTOP ITEMS

• US 20120240073A1
• Filed: 03/17/2011
• Published: 09/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: McCann, William Jon
• Granted Patent: US 9,588,644 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/775
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/907 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

A method and system for time-based organization of desktop items is described.

Claims

1. A method, implemented by a computing system programmed to perform the following, comprising:

collecting time-based information about a plurality of data objects;

creating a time-ordered desktop view of a plurality of desktop items from the plurality of data objects using the time-based information; and

presenting a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display of the computing system, the GUI displaying at least a portion of the time-ordered desktop view of the plurality of desktop items.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of data objects are stored in a file directory of a file system of the computing system, and wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items according to the time-based information regardless of storage locations of the plurality of desktop items in the file directory.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of data objects is stored in a file directory of a file system of the computing system and at least one of the plurality of data objects is stored remotely from the computing system, and wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items according to the time-based information regardless of storage locations of the at least one data object stored in the file directory and the at least one data object stored remotely.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the collected information in a data store of the computing system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the time-based information about each of the plurality of data objects comprises at least one of a creation timestamp, a last-accessed timestamp, a last-modified timestamp, a calendar event, a reminder event, or a follow-up date.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the time-based information about each of the plurality of data objects comprises a time-based type of action to be performed on the respective one of the plurality of data objects, and wherein the time-based type of actions includes a future action, a current action, and a past action.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items according to the time-based type of actions, and wherein said presenting the GUI comprises presenting the time-ordered desktop view according to the organized time-based type of actions.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items into one or more sub-categories, wherein the one or more sub-categories comprises at least one of a current desktop, a desktop of today, a desktop of this week, a desktop of last week, a desktop of tomorrow, or a desktop of by end of week, and wherein said presenting the GUI comprises presenting one or more of the sub-categories in the time-ordered desktop view.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving user input to customize the time-ordered desktop view.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said presenting the GUI comprises generating a symbolic link for each of the plurality of desktop items to be displayed in the GUI, and wherein each of the symbolic links comprises a path to a storage location where the respective data object is stored.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the symbolic links each comprise at least one of an icon, a thumbnail, a shortcut, an alias, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said presenting comprising presenting the time-ordered desktop view in at least one of a list view, a thumbnail view, an icon view, or a menu view.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said presenting comprising presenting the GUI in at least one of a file browser, a web browser, a viewing area of an application executing on the computing system, or a main view of the display.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said presenting the GUI comprises generating a link for each of the plurality of desktop items to be displayed in the GUI, and wherein each of the links refers to one of the plurality of data objects stored in the computing system or stored remotely from the computing system.

15. A computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to perform a method comprising:

collecting time-based information about a plurality of data objects;

creating a time-ordered desktop view of a plurality of desktop items from the plurality of data objects using the time-based information; and

presenting a graphical user interface (GUI) having at least a portion of the time-ordered desktop view of the plurality of desktop items.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the plurality of data objects are stored in a file directory of a file system of the computing system, and wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items according to the time-based information regardless of storage locations of the plurality of desktop items in the file directory.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein at least one of the plurality of data objects is stored in a file directory of a file system of the computing system and at least one of the plurality of data objects is stored remotely from the computing system, and wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items according to the time-based information regardless of storage locations of the at least one data object stored in the file directory and the at least one data object stored remotely.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises storing the time-based information in a data store of the computing system.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the time-based information about each of the plurality of data objects comprises at least one of a creation timestamp, a last-accessed timestamp, a last-modified timestamp, a calendar event, a reminder event, or a follow-up date.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein said creating the time-ordered desktop view comprises organizing the plurality of desktop items into one or more sub-categories, wherein the one or more sub-categories comprises at least one of a current desktop, a desktop of today, a desktop of this week, a desktop of last week, a desktop of tomorrow, or a desktop of by end of week, and wherein said presenting the GUI comprises presenting one or more of the sub-categories in the time-ordered desktop view.

21. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises receiving user input to customize the time-ordered desktop view.

22. A computing system, comprising:

a display;

data storage to store time-based information about a plurality of data objects; and

a processing device coupled to the data storage and the display, wherein the processing device is configured to execute a desktop manager to;

create a time-ordered desktop view of a plurality of desktop items from the plurality of data objects using the time-based information; and

present a graphical user interface (GUI) on the display, the GUI displaying at least a portion of the time-ordered desktop view of the plurality of desktop items.

23. The computing system of claim 22, wherein the desktop manager comprises:

a time information collector communicatively coupled to the data storage and configured to collect the time-based information about the plurality of data objects and to store the time-based information in the data storage;

a desktop view generator communicatively coupled to the data storage to create the time-ordered desktop view of the plurality of desktop items using the time-based information stored in the data storage; and

a GUI engine communicatively coupled to the display and the desktop view generator to present the GUI on the display, the GUI displaying at least a portion of the time-ordered desktop view generated by the desktop view generator.

24. The computing system of claim 22, wherein the time-based information is stored in a first database stored on the data storage, wherein at least one of the plurality of data objects is stored in a second database stored on the data storage, and wherein the time information collector is to access the second database to collect the time-based information about the at least one of the plurality of data objects stored in the second database.

25. The computing system of claim 22, wherein the time-based information is stored in a first database stored on the data storage, wherein at least one of the plurality of data objects is stored in a second database stored on a network remotely from the computing system, wherein the desktop manager further comprises a network interface to communicate with the second database over the network, and wherein the time information collector is to access the second database via the network interface to collect the time-based information about the at least one of the plurality of data objects stored in the second database.

26. The computing system of claim 22, wherein the plurality of data objects are stored in a file directory of a file system of the computing system.