Interfacing distinct services for providing web based document manipulation access

• US 8,832,240 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2012
• Issued: 09/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ruhlen, Matthew J., Dewey, Brian K., Williams, Sam Franklin
• Primary Examiner(s): DINH, KHANH Q
• Application Number:
  US13/462,248
• Publication Number:
  US 20120215888A1
• Time in Patent Office: 860 Days
• Field of Search: 709/220, 709/224, 709/228, 709/203
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

According to some embodiments, a callback interface for web accessible services is provided. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or similar address is issued by a host associated service to the user. User'"'"'s browser provides the URL to an activity service, which on the user'"'"'s behalf contacts the host service indicated by the URL and supporting the callback interface. The activity service then facilitates the user'"'"'s requests on documents maintained by the host service through stateless calls to the host service providing web accessible services such as document manipulation, image processing, and similar ones.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part by a host service computing device for providing services to a document, the method comprising:

receiving, at the host service, a request for service to the document;

in response to receiving the request for service to the document, generating, at the host service, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) identifying the host service maintaining a stateless session and the document maintained by the host service, the URL including;

a location of an activity service,

an action associated with the document,

a location of the host service implementing a service host interface (SHI), and

an identifier associated with the document or a collection of files;

sending stateless calls from the activity service to the host service, identified by the URL, maintaining the document for a user, at least one of the stateless calls for receiving document contents identified by the URL; and

facilitating by the activity service rendering of a document editing user interface in a browser application associated with the user depending on a type of the document maintained by the host.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving at the host service, a call from the activity service to the service host interface (SHI) of the host service.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the service host interface (SHI) is employed by the activity service for providing access to the document on the host service.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the identifier refers to a collection of files maintained by the host.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein an initial SHI call received by the host service includes one of:

a query method call including user identity and user permission properties, and

a retrieval method call for receiving document contents of a file.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the query method call received by the host service includes at least one from a set of:

a supported scenarios property defining a portion of the SHI to be employed, a folder property defining whether a requested object is the file or a folder, a version property defining a version of the document, a user rights property defining a list of user permissions, a current lock property defining a current value of a lock placed on the document, and a file partition property defining a partitioning scheme for storing the document at the host service.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving the query method call providing an expected lock value of the file and if the expected lock value matches the current lock value maintained by the host service, executing one of;

binary overwriting of the file, locking the file with a newly provided value, removing the lock, unlocking the file with the expected lock value and then taking a new lock with a newly provided value, and extending a timeout of the lock.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving the query method call for deleting one or more designated files at the host service.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving one of a first enumeration method call and a second enumeration method call for enabling the host service to provide information about collections of files, wherein the first enumeration method call takes a file identifier and the second enumeration method call takes a folder identifier, and wherein returns of both method calls are an array of responses for the query method call.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling a method call to operate on a sibling file identified by a parameter in addition to a file identifier parameter defining a target file.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving a first create method call for providing a binary stream of the file to one of create and overwrite instead of making a storage request, wherein the first create method call takes a folder identifier parameter, a relative name, an overwrite flag, and operates on a new file in a collection identified by the relative name.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving a second create method call for providing a binary stream of the file to one of create and overwrite instead of making a storage request, wherein the second create method call performs one of a create and overwrite operation on the sibling file specified by a folder identifier parameter associated with the second create method call.

13. A host device for providing a web access service to a document, the host device comprising:

a memory for storing computer executable instructions; and

a processor for executing the computer executable instructions, the instructions including;

receiving, at a host service, a request for service to the document;

in response to receiving the request for service to the document, generating, at the host service, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) identifying the host service maintaining a stateless session and the document maintained by the host service, the URL including;

a location of an activity service,

an action associated with the document,

a location of the host service implementing a service host interface (SHI), and

an identifier associated with the document or a collection of files;

sending stateless calls from the activity service to the host service, identified by the URL, maintaining the document for a user, at least one of the stateless calls for receiving document contents identified by the URL; and

facilitating by the activity service rendering of a document editing user interface in a browser application associated with the user depending on a type of the document maintained by the host.

14. The host device of claim 13, wherein the document is one from a set of:

a word processing document, a spreadsheet document, a presentation document, a calendar document, and an image document, and wherein the URL further includes information associated with a browser language and an object language.

15. The host device of claim 13, wherein the activity service relies on the host service to provide authorization information in an initial query method call.

16. The host device of claim 13, wherein an authorization of the user associated with a client device is validated by the host service as part the host service'"'"'s execution of each service host interface (SHI) method call.

17. The host device of claim 16, wherein an identity of the user associated with the client device is determined by the activity service and a validated and trusted user identity information is provided to the host service through a shared common authentication scheme.

18. The host device of claim 17, wherein the user identity information is provided to the host service on each SHI method call.

19. A computer-readable memory device with instructions stored thereon for providing a service at a host device from an activity service, the instructions comprising:

receiving, at the host service, a request for service to a document;

in response to receiving the request for service to the document, generating, at the host service, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) identifying the host service maintaining a stateless session and the document maintained by the host service, the URL including;

a location of an activity service,

an action associated with the document,

a location of the host service implementing a service host interface (SHI), and

an identifier associated with the document or a collection of files;

sending stateless calls from the activity service to the host service, identified by the URL, maintaining the document for a user, at least one of the stateless calls for receiving document contents identified by the URL; and

facilitating by the activity service rendering of a document editing user interface in a browser application associated with the user depending on a type of the document maintained by the host.

20. The computer-readable memory device of claim 19, wherein the action is facilitated through one of more of:

a query method call for viewing the document, a retrieval method call for viewing and retrieving the document contents, and an edit method call for editing the document.