Distributed document co-authoring and processing
View Patent ↗A method and a device are disclosed including plug-in software components that are integrated with document processing software suites. The plug-in software components provide a set of integrated interfaces for collaborative document processing in conjunction with multiple remote file, data, and application service providers. The set of interfaces enable coauthoring a document, document merging, discovering and displaying context-sensitive metadata on a software dashboard based on permissions associated with the metadata and/or a client computing device, caching, symmetric distributed document merge with the multiple service providers, and integrated search and insertion of multimedia data in documents, among others. The documents typically include, but are not limited to formatted text documents, spreadsheet documents, and slide presentation documents.
1. A method of co-authoring a document, the method comprising:
detecting a first set of changes made to a first version of a particular document on a first client computing device;
detecting a second set of changes made to a second version of the particular document on a second client computing device; and
communicating every change in the first set of changes, using a first software plug-in component plugged into a first existing document processing suite, to the second client computing device, and communicating every change in the second set of changes, using a second software plug-in component plugged into a second existing document processing suite, to the first client computing device via a plurality of third party collaboration service providers unassociated with the first and the second document processing suites used to edit the particular document, each of the plurality of the third party collaboration service providers supplying a separate master copy of the particular document identical to each of the separate master copies of the particular document on each of the other plurality of the third party collaboration service providers, resulting in the first version and the second version of the particular document to become identical, and also resulting in all separate master copies of the particular document to become identical; and
wherein the first and the second software plug-in components are configured to provide an integrated user interface including image search, copy, and insert functions, the search function configured to be conducted using third-party external search engines coupled with the plug-in components.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising using a first type of document processing suite to make the first set of changes and using a second type of document processing suite to make the second set of changes.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising displaying metadata related to the particular document on a dashboard area provided by a plug-in component, associated with a document processing suite used to edit the particular document, on at least one of the first and the second client computing devices.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein displaying metadata related to the particular document on the dashboard area comprises displaying metadata according to a permission associated with at least one of the first and the second client computing devices.
5. The method of claim 3 , wherein displaying metadata related to the particular document on the dashboard area comprises displaying metadata according to a selection of metadata by a user of the at least one of the first and the second client computing devices.
6. The method of claim 3 , wherein the metadata includes call-home comprising a location of an original copy of the particular document on the third party collaboration service provider.
7. The method of claim 3 , wherein the metadata is obtained using a dynamic discovery process.
8. A first client computing device executing a software plug-in component by a processor, the software plug-in component configured to be plugged into and integrated with an existing document processing suite to:
present an integrated user interface within the document processing suite, the integrated user interface configured to communicate with a plurality of third party collaborative service providers not associated with the document processing suite, to communicate all changes made in different versions of a particular document during editing of the different versions of the particular document, using the software plug-in component, each of the plurality of the third party collaboration service providers supplying a separate master copy of the particular document identical to each of the separate master copies of the particular document on each of the other plurality of the third party collaboration service providers, resulting in all versions of the particular document to be identical, and also resulting in all separate master copies of the particular document to become identical; and
wherein the software plug-in component is further configured to provide an integrated user interface including image search, copy, and insert functions, the search function configured to be conducted using third-party external search engines coupled with the plug-in component.
9. The first client computing device of claim 8 , further comprising a dashboard area configured to display metadata about a particular document edited using the document processing suite.
10. The first client computing device of claim 9 , wherein the metadata includes a location of an original version of a particular document on a server of each of the plurality of the third party collaboration service providers.
11. The first client computing device of claim 9 , wherein the metadata displayed in the dashboard area is displayed according to corresponding preset permissions for the metadata.
12. The first client computing device of claim 9 , wherein the metadata is automatically obtained via a discovery process by the plug-in component.
13. The first client computing device of claim 8 , wherein the integrated user interface is further configured to simultaneously communicate with multiple third party collaboration service providers.
14. The first client computing device of claim 13 , further causing the first client computing device to allow a user of the first client computing device to remotely set permissions associated with a particular document on a server of the plurality of the third party collaboration service providers.