Adobe, Inc.

Nigel Pegg

Jason T Pittenger

Raffaele Sena

Hironmay Basu

Timothy E Allen

Aaron Munter

Arun Ponnusamy

Although current conferencing applications provide many abilities, some of these abilities are limited. Various embodiments described herein provide one or more of systems, methods, software, and data structures that allow a document, or other file type, to be used to connect to a network-based conference, such as over the Internet, where a view of a local copy of the document is synchronized between participants. Participation abilities of certain network-based conference participants may be limited in such embodiments. Such limits may be enforced locally for each participant, on a server by preventing data representative of certain actions from being broadcast to other participants, or in other ways as described and would be readily apparent herein.

Rights application within document-based conferencing

Techniques disclosed herein include systems and methods that enable a relatively large number of users to connect to a collaborative communication application with a comparatively lower investment in service hardware (CPU, network) while still providing identification of contributing client devices. Techniques disclosed herein can also include systems and methods that enable an application developer to build higher-performing applications that reduce a computational load for client devices. A session manager, for a collaborative service session, provides selective transmission of user records on an as-needed basis, and thus avoids sending user records until those records are actually needed or requested, typically as a result of a user's active participation within the collaboration environment. The session manager thus reveals the presence of connected users on-demand, thereby saving CPU and network resources, and allowing collaborative applications to more easily scale into the tens of thousands of users.

Deferred, on-demand loading of user presence within a real-time collaborative service

Various embodiments include at least one of systems, methods, software, and data structures for peer-to-peer exchange of at least a portion of networked collaboration session data. Client and server solutions allow for switching between peer-to-peer and server-centric modes of collaboration data sharing. Some embodiments also allow for sharing of data of a first type via a collaboration server and data of a second type via peer-to-peer connections.

Adaptive connectivity in network-based collaboration background information

In some embodiments, a method includes receiving an input from a participant of a collaborative session among two or more devices, wherein the input is to cause a capture of at least part of data that is part of the state of the collaborative session at a point in time. The method also includes saving a state of the collaborative session at the point in time, wherein the state is saved into an editable format. The saving includes capturing the at least part of the data that is part of the collaborative session. The saving also includes storing the data in the editable format into a machine-readable medium.

Saving state of a collaborative session in an editable format

Adaptive connectivity in network-based collaboration

Various embodiments herein include one or more of systems, methods, software, and data structures to create collaboration enabled client applications. In some embodiments, web services are provided on one or more servers that may be called by processes within client applications to facilitate collaboration within a workspace, such as directly within a computer application. Some such web services are application and data agnostic meaning that such web services are not aware of or do not care where application collaboration service calls come from, what their destination application is, or what data is being communicated. These web services, in some such embodiments, just must be properly called by an authorized user.

Application and data agnostic collaboration services

Techniques disclosed herein include systems and methods for indexing data events from a stream of data for seeking through recorded data streams. Techniques disclosed herein can enable a faster and more efficient process by which a processor can seek from one point of time in a data stream to another point of time in that data stream to bring a played-back application to a desired point in time. A playback manager analyzes data events within a series of data events, which are recorded in a linear data structure. The playback manager creates a hierarchical data structure for storing the data events to provide logically grouped storage of data events in addition to the linear data structure. The playback manager stores the data events in the hierarchical data structure based on type of data event and based on timestamps associated with each respective data event. The playback manager then traverses the linear data structure and consolidates data events to produce a hierarchical state representation of the recorded data stream at the given seek point for rendering in a playback application.

Indexing messaging events for seeking through data streams

Various embodiments described herein include one or more of systems, methods, and software operable to identify a location of or position a gesture tool, such as a mouse pointer or cursor, within a web conference display. Some embodiments may communicate an identified location of a gesture tool within a user interface control of a web conference presenter to web conference participants. The communicated location of the gesture tool may cause the gesture tool to be displayed in a corresponding location within a display of a web conference participant despite differences between a view of the presenter and participant. The gesture tool may include a pointer under the control of a mouse, a cursor, or other gesturing tool. Some embodiments include a web conference recording module operable to record data associated with a web conference, including gesture tool positioning data.

Semantic level gesture tool tracking and positioning

Various embodiments described herein provide one or more of systems, methods, software, and data structures that allow a document, or other file type, to be used to connect to a network-based conference, such as over the Internet. Some embodiments may further allow a local copy of a document, viewed by each conference participant on their local computing devices, to be used as a conferencing tool by synchronizing document views across each local document copy and edits or other modifications and notations made by each participant. As a result, an actual image of the document of a document-based conference need not be shared. Rather, only the edits or other modifications and notations made by each participant are captured, transmitted, and recreated and displayed within the local document copies of the other participants.

Document based conferencing

In an electronic interaction space, transitioning between a first and second screen layout includes determining a difference between the first and second screen layouts, wherein the first and second screen layouts include at least one pod each, and rendering the difference as a dynamic and intermediate screen layout that uses a representation of physical motion to present a gradual change.

Visual interface element transition effect

Various embodiments herein include one or more of systems, methods, software, and/or data structures to create collaboration enabled client applications. In some embodiments, web services are provided on one or more servers that may be called by processes within client applications to facilitate collaboration within a workspace. These web services, in some such embodiments, may be properly called by an authorized user. Virtual meeting places referred to as rooms may be created dynamically and may each include one or more collaborative services. To facilitate the dynamic creation of new rooms, room templates may be provided which allow new rooms to be easily and automatically created. The room templates may store state information for the pre-existing rooms from which they are based.

Templating and provisioning of collaborative facilities for a data-agnostic collaboration service

Various embodiments herein include one or more of systems, methods, software, and/or data structures to create collaboration enabled client applications. In some embodiments, web services are provided on one or more servers that may be called by processes within client applications to facilitate collaboration within a workspace, such as directly within a computer application. Some such web services may be application and data-agnostic, meaning that such web services are not aware of or do not care where application collaboration service calls come from, what their destination application is, or what data is being communicated. These web services, in some such embodiments, may be properly called by an authorized user. Virtual meeting places referred to as rooms may be created dynamically and may each include one or more collaborative services. To facilitate the dynamic creation of new rooms, room templates may be provided which allow new rooms to be easily and automatically created. The room templates may store state information for the pre-existing rooms from which they are based. Such state information may include collaboration services, configurations of the collaboration services, data messages that have been saved by the pre-existing room, as well as other features.

Various embodiments include one or more of systems, methods, software, and data structures for user-aware time-shifted playback and recording of real-time collaborations, such as web conferences. Some embodiments include recording and presenting public and private collaboration data for time-shifted playback. Private collaboration data includes collaboration data intended for viewing by less than all collaboration participants. Further systems, methods, software, and data structures are disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Nigel Pegg