Visual History for Content State Changes in Editing Apps
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current content editing applications rely on textual descriptions of modifications, which are inefficient for content authors to navigate and understand the state changes of content, particularly for image type content, leading to a time-consuming process.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a visual state change history within the content editing application, where modifications are recorded and presented as graphical representations, allowing users to quickly identify and navigate to different states of the content through a visual history area.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If textual descriptions of modifications are used to present content state changes, then the content editing application maintains a simple structure, but the content authoring process becomes time-consuming and inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates visual copies (graphical representations) of content states instead of using only textual descriptions. These graphical representations are stored and displayed in a visual history area, allowing authors to see actual visual states of content rather than reading textual descriptions, thereby improving navigation efficiency without significantly increasing system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical reading process (textual descriptions requiring sequential reading and mental parsing) with a visual inspection process (graphical representations that can be quickly scanned and understood). This substitution allows content authors to rapidly comprehend content states through visual cues rather than text processing
2Use of energy by moving object
If textual descriptions of modifications are used to navigate content states, then the application uses minimal resources, but the time required to understand and navigate to desired content states increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent generates and stores graphical representations of content states in advance (when state changes occur) rather than creating them on-demand. These pre-generated visual representations are kept in memory or storage and can be quickly displayed when needed, reducing the time to navigate to desired states without requiring heavy computational resources during navigation
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates and stores visual copies of content states that can be quickly referenced and displayed. These graphical representations serve as lightweight proxies that consume minimal resources to store and retrieve, yet provide rich visual information for rapid state identification and navigation
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods provide for a visual history of state changes for content of a document that is being modified within a content editing application. When modifications are made to the content within the content editing application, the modifications are recorded as state changes, and a graphical representation is generated for the modified content at each state change. The graphical representations with associated state changes are presented in a visual history area allowing the user to visually identify the state of the content corresponding to each graphical representation. The user can select a particular graphical representation from the visual history area and the content is transformed to the state corresponding to the selected graphical representation.