Clipboard augmentation

• US 8,020,112 B2
• Filed: 11/06/2006
• Issued: 09/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Augustine, Matthew S., Ozzie, Jack E., Moromisato, George P., Ozzie, Raymond E., Suthar, Paresh S., Narayanan, Raman
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo; Weilun
• Assistant Examiner(s): BECKER, SHASHI KAMALA
• Application Number:
  US11/557,004
• Publication Number:
  US 20080109744A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,772 Days
• Field of Search: 715/770, 715/764, 715/765
• US Class Current: 715/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]

Abstract

Systems, methods, and data structures for augmenting data placed on the clipboard with additional data are disclosed. Such systems, methods, and data structures may transform the data to produce data in other formats using, for example, transform specifications or executable code.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by an augmentation module, a notification that a source application has placed source data conforming to a source data format on a clipboard stored on a computer memory device, wherein the source data comprises structured data and feed data, and wherein the feed data is usable to enable at least some of the source data to be updated, wherein the receiving includes periodically polling the clipboard for a presence of new source data;

responsive to the receiving, identifying, by the augmentation module, augmented data conforming to an augmented data format and that is associated with the source data, wherein the augmented data format is not supported by the source application but is supported by a destination application that receives the augmented data from the augmentation module;

responsive to the identifying the augmented data, adding, by the augmentation module, the augmented data and the feed data to the clipboard stored on the computer memory device;

responsive to the adding, providing the augmented data and the feed data to the destination application to enable the destination application to update the structured data after receiving the augmented data;

identifying second augmented data associated with the source data and conforming to a second augmented data format, wherein the second augmented data format is different from the augmented data format; and

adding the second augmented data to the clipboard, wherein the source application, the augmentation module, and the destination application are different applications.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying the augmented data comprises transforming the source data using a transform specification.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the transform specification uses Extensible Stylesheet Language Transform.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying the augmented data comprises generating the augmented data using executable code associated with at least one of the source data format or the augmented data format.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the source data format comprises:

a structured data item associated with the structured data and that uses a structured data format;

a feed data item associated with the feed data; and

a presentation data item.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

registering for paste processing; and

wherein the identifying the augmented data and the adding the augmented data are not performed until a paste operation is initiated.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying the augmented data and the adding the augmented data are only performed when a registered converter exists for the source data format.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the source data format comprises a presentation data item that has a presentation data format, the augmented data format is the same as the presentation data format, and the augmented data is retrieved from the presentation data item.

9. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory, the processor operating with the memory to provide;

a clipboard;

a source application configured to place source data conforming to a source data format on the clipboard, wherein the source data contains;

header information with attributes comprising;

a source attribute representing a reference to a provider of the source data; and

a description attribute representing a human-readable description of the source data; and

feed data identifying a feed for updating the source data;

an augmentation module associated with another application that is different from the source application, the augmentation module configured to;

register with the clipboard to be called when the source data is added to the clipboard;

receive a notification when the source data has been placed on the clipboard by the source application;

identify augmented data associated with the source data and conforming to an augmented data format;

add the augmented data and the feed data to the clipboard;

identify second augmented data associated with the source data and conforming to a second augmented data format, wherein the second augmented data format is different from the augmented data format; and

add the second augmented data to the clipboard, the clipboard being further configured to provide the augmented data and the feed data to a destination application that is different from the source application and the another application.

10. The system of claim 9, the processor further operating with the memory to provide:

a clipboard converter used by the augmentation module and configured to generate the augmented data by converting the source data.

11. The system of claim 9, the processor further operating with the memory to provide:

a data converter configured to perform data conversion processing that is platform-independent; and

a clipboard converter used by the augmentation module and configured to generate the augmented data by performing platform-dependent processing and using the data converter.

12. The system of claim 9, the processor further operating with the memory to provide:

the destination application configured to receive the augmented data using a paste operation.

13. The system of claim 9 wherein the augmentation module is configured to transform the source data to the augmented data using a transform specification.

14. The system of claim 9 wherein the augmented data is generated using executable code associated with at least one of the source data format and the augmented data format.

15. One or more computer storage devices containing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processing devices, perform:

receiving, by an augmentation module, a notification that a source application has placed source data conforming to a source data format on a clipboard, wherein the source data comprises structured data and feed data, and wherein the feed data is usable to enable at least some of the source data to be updated, wherein the receiving includes periodically polling the clipboard for a presence of new source data;

responsive to the receiving, identifying, by the augmentation module, augmented data conforming to an augmented data format and that is associated with the source data, wherein the augmented data format is not supported by the source application but is supported by a destination application that receives the augmented data from the augmentation module;

responsive to the identifying the augmented data, adding, by the augmentation module, the augmented data and the feed data to the clipboard stored on the computer memory device;

responsive to the adding, providing the augmented data and the feed data to the destination application to enable the destination application to update the structured data after receiving the augmented data;

identifying second augmented data associated with the source data and conforming to a second augmented data format, wherein the second augmented data format is different from the augmented data format; and

adding the second augmented data to the clipboard,

wherein the source application, the augmentation module, and the destination application are different applications.

16. The one or more computer storage devices of claim 15, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices, perform:

ordering, on the clipboard, the source data format with respect to the augmented data format, wherein the ordering is based on an amount of data provided by the source data format and another amount of data provided by the augmented data format.