Shared Telepointer Color Attribution for Document Collaboration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Collaborative document authoring systems lack a seamless way for multiple users to remotely highlight and identify regions of shared documents across interconnected computing devices, leading to confusion and inefficiency in collaborative editing processes.
Innovation Solution
A facility is introduced that provides shared telepointers, allowing users to remotely control and visualize mouse pointers on multiple devices, with distinct colors and user identifications to differentiate between users, enabling them to highlight and select regions within shared documents.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If multiple users collaborate on shared documents using traditional document authoring systems, then collaborative editing capability is provided, but users cannot clearly identify which user is pointing to or highlighting which region of the document
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies color changes by assigning distinct colors to different users' telepointers and name regions. Each user's telepointer and associated name region are displayed in their unique color, enabling clear visual differentiation and identification of which user is pointing to or highlighting which document region without adding complex identification mechanisms.
2Productivity
If users remotely control mouse pointers on multiple devices, then real-time collaboration is improved, but it becomes difficult to distinguish which telepointer belongs to which user
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses color changes to assign distinct colors to each user's telepointer and name region. This allows all users to easily distinguish which telepointer belongs to which user during real-time collaboration, eliminating confusion about user attribution while maintaining remote control capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces name regions as intermediary elements that visually connect users to their telepointers. These name regions, displayed in the user's color near the telepointer, serve as mediators that clearly attribute each telepointer to its owner, making user identification intuitive without requiring complex labeling systems.
3Loss of information
If users highlight regions in shared documents, then document review and annotation capability is enhanced, but the source of highlighting actions is not clearly communicated to other participants
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies color changes by displaying highlighted regions in the color associated with the user who created the highlight. This visually attributes the highlighting action to its source while maintaining the simplicity of the highlighting operation itself. Other users can immediately see which user highlighted which region without requiring additional communication steps.
Data Source
AI summary
A facility is described for providing shared telepointers and for enabling hosts and participants to highlight portions of documents or applications using the shared telepointers. In various embodiments, the facility establishes a sharing session wherein an application executing on a host computing device is shared with a participant computing device, receives at the host computing device an indication from a participant computing device to identify a region to users in the sharing session, draws the identified region on a display device associated with the host computing device, and causes the identified region to be drawn on a display device associated with the participant computing device. In various embodiments, the region is a spot region or a highlighted region that is drawn in a color associated with a user of the participant computing device.