Virtual Document Fragment Assembly for Collaborative Editing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing document editing systems struggle to efficiently manage large and complex documents, particularly in collaborative editing scenarios, where tracking the complete change history becomes difficult and confidentiality is compromised, and users face challenges in identifying relevant changes quickly.
Innovation Solution
A computer system that dynamically assembles virtual documents from fragments, allowing for flexible editing and tracking of changes at a granular level, using a logical structure to maintain consistency and integrity, while ensuring that all changes are recorded and visible only as authorized, with features like versioning and filtering to manage user awareness and visibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If standard tracking modes are used to monitor change history in collaborative editing, then changes can be tracked, but it becomes impossible to track the complete change history when many changes are applied by different users to the same document
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the document into multiple versions representing different states of the document through the editing process. Each version captures the document at a specific point in time, allowing complete change history to be tracked by comparing versions rather than attempting to track every individual change in real-time. This segmentation approach resolves the contradiction by making change history tracking feasible even for complex documents with many changes.
2Loss of information
If complete change history is made visible to all users editing the document, then transparency is improved, but confidentiality is compromised when working on documents having a confidential character
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements selective visibility of change history by allowing different users to see different portions of the change history based on their roles and permissions. Rather than making all changes visible to all users, the system applies local quality control where each user receives customized information about changes relevant to their work, maintaining both transparency for collaboration and confidentiality for sensitive information.
3Reliability
If all changes are tracked in detail for large documents, then complete accountability is achieved, but it becomes more and more difficult for a particular user to identify relevant changes quickly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and highlights only the relevant changes for each user based on their role, responsibilities, and the specific document section they are working on. Rather than presenting all changes equally, the system takes out and prioritizes the subset of changes that matter to each user, maintaining full accountability through version control while reducing the time needed to identify relevant changes by filtering out unrelated modifications.
4Reliability
If the document is stored in its entirety for editing purposes, then complete document context is available, but processor load increases and efficiency decreases for large and complex documents
Solution Approach 1:
The patent stores the document as multiple versions rather than maintaining the entire document in a single continuous state. This segmentation allows the system to load and process only the specific version or portions of versions that are relevant to current editing tasks, reducing processor load for large documents while maintaining complete document context availability when needed by loading appropriate versions into memory.
Data Source
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Figure 3A~3B
AI summary
A computer system (100), computer implemented method and computer program product for editing virtual documents. The computer system includes a storage component (110) configured to store a plurality of fragments (1 to 6) associated with a virtual document (190) that has a logical structure (140) wherein each fragment (1 to n) is stored separately from the other fragments. Further, a processing component (120) of the system is configured to assemble the virtual document (190) by retrieving the plurality of associated fragments (1 to 6) and ordering the plurality of associated fragments according to the logical structure (140). An editor component (130) of the system is configured to present a visualization (290) of the virtual document to a user (10) for editing and to receive editing commands from the user wherein a specific editing command (210) is configured to modify a specific fragment of the virtual document in the storage component (110).