WO2007062949A1

WO2007062949A1 - Allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document

Info

Publication number: WO2007062949A1
Application number: PCT/EP2006/067927
Authority: WO
Inventors: Hyang Mi Cho; Yu Guo
Original assignee: International Business Machines Corporation; Ibm United Kingdom Limited
Priority date: 2005-11-29
Filing date: 2006-10-30
Publication date: 2007-06-07
Also published as: CN1979466A

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document, including: assigning an edit right for at least one section of the electronic document to each of the multiple users respectively; determining whether each user who wants to open the electronic document has the edit right for at least one section of the electronic document, if not, rejecting the user's operations; editing the respective at least one section of the electronic document for which the multiple users have their respective edit rights by the multiple users who have the edit rights; and saving the at least one section edited by each of the multiple users who have the edit rights. By using the present invention, multiple users can have different rights for editing the same electronic document, so that multiple users can edit the same electronic document simultaneously and save the contents edited by each user in the same electronic document.

Description

ALLOWING MULTIPLE USERS TO SIMULTANEOUSLY EDIT A SHARED ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to information processing technology, specifically, to a method and an apparatus for editing a shared electronic document by multiple users simultaneously.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Electronic documents adapted to editing by means of computer have been widely used. A user can use an application program for processing an electronic document to create, edit, modify and save an electronic document. In the past, operations on these electronic documents are mainly executed by a single user. With the development of networks, communications between computers have been realized, which makes possible for multiple users to edit the same electronic document while the electronic document is placed at a shared location or under sharing mode. The expression "editing the same electronic document by multiple users simultaneously" means that multiple users editing the same electronic document in parallel and saving the respectively edited contents into the electronic document.

In existing techniques, for different application programs, methods are different for multiple users to edit and save the same electronic document. The simplest method is to edit an electronic document individually in each user's own local computer and then to collect the electronic documents edited by each user together and to save the contents of each electronic document into one electronic document through manual "copy/paste". However, this method has low efficiency.

In Microsoft Office application programs, after multiple users edit an electronic document individually in each own local computer, one electronic document is generated from these electronic documents by a semi-automatic "compare-merge" method. In fact, this method essentially does not realize the editing of the same electronic document by multiple users simultaneously.

For an electronic document generated by using a Microsoft Office application program, if there is already a user who has read the electronic document located at a shared location, and at the same time another user wants to read the same electronic document at the shared location, the application program would prompt that the later user can only read the electronic document under Read-only mode and cannot edit the electronic document. Thus, this method cannot realize the editing of the same electronic document by multiple users simultaneously either. Some application programs save an electronic document edited by multiple users simultaneously as a conflicted document, which also does not essentially realize the editing of the same electronic document by multiple users simultaneously.

Moreover, in some database development application programs, there is existed the case of editing by multiple users simultaneously, the edited object, however, is not an electronic document but a program file, specifically, the objects in the program file, these objects have been determined by the database development application programs themselves. In summary, there are more and more situations that need multiple users to edit the same electronic document simultaneously, so it is desired to provide a method and an apparatus for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is proposed based on the above technical problems and its objective is to allow multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document. The invention not only may realize the editing by multiple users in parallel without confliction, but also may save the documents edited by multiple users into the same electronic document .

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method as claimed in claim 1 and corresponding apparatus and computer program.

Preferably, there is provided a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document, including: selecting at least one section of the electronic document by each of the multiple users respectively; determining an edit right of each of the multiple users for the selected at least one section of the electronic document; editing the respective at least one section of the electronic document for which the multiple users have their respective edit rights by the multiple users who have the edit rights; and saving the at least one section of the electronic document edited by each of the multiple users who have the edit rights .

Preferably, there is provided an apparatus for editing a shared electronic document, wherein the electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously and includes a plurality of sections, each of which is assigned to at least one of the multiple users who has an edit right, the apparatus includes: an editor configured to edit the contents of the electronic document; a section identification unit configured to identify the plurality of sections of the electronic document; and an edit right extraction unit configured to extract information about the edit rights for the plurality sections; wherein the editor only edits the contents of one or more sections of the electronic document for which the editor' s users have the edit rights.

Preferably, there is provided an apparatus for managing a shared electronic document, wherein the electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously, the apparatus includes: a section selection unit configured to select at least one section of the electronic document; and an edit right assignment unit configured to assign at least one of the multiple users who has an edit right to each of the at least one section.

Preferably, there is provided an apparatus for maintaining a shared electronic document, wherein the electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously and includes a plurality of sections, each of which is assigned to at least one of the multiple users who has an edit right, the apparatus includes: a section marking unit configured to mark on the plurality of sections of the electronic document based on the assignment; an edit right recording unit configured to record the multiple users and their respective edit rights; an edit right extraction unit configured to extract information about the edit rights for the plurality of sections; an verification unit configured to verify whether a user has the edit right based on the information about the edit rights extracted by the edit right extraction unit; and an updating unit configured to update at least one section of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right according to the contents edited by the user who has the edit right . Preferably, there is provided an apparatus for editing a shared electronic document, wherein the electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously, the apparatus includes: an editor configured to edit the contents of the electronic document; a section selection unit configured to select at least one section of the electronic document; and an edit right declaring unit configured to declare an edit right for the selected at least one section of the electronic document; wherein the editor only edits the contents of the at least one section of the electronic document for which the edit right has been declared.

Preferably, there is provided an apparatus for maintaining a shared electronic document, wherein the electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously, the apparatus includes: a section marking unit configured to mark on at least one section of the electronic document based on declaration of an edit right of each of the multiple users for the at least one section of the electronic document; an edit right recording unit configured to record the multiple users and their respective edit rights; an edit right extraction unit configured to extract information about the edit right for the at least one section of the electronic document; and an updating unit configured to update the at least one section of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right according to the contents edited by the user who has the edit right .

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig.l is a flowchart diagram showing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.2 is a flowchart diagram showing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.3 is a flowchart diagram showing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to still another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.4 is a schematic block diagram showing a system for implementing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention; Fig.5 is a schematic block diagram showing a system for implementing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.6 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus for editing a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.7 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus for managing a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.8 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus for maintaining a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.9 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus for editing a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig.10 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus for maintaining a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

It is believed that through following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention, taken in conjunction with the drawings, above-mentioned and other objectives, features and advantages will be more apparent.

Fig.l is a flowchart diagram showing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a shared electronic document to be edited is located in a remote computer, such as a server.

As shown in Fig.l, at Step 101, an edit right for at least one section of the electronic document is assigned to each of the multiple users respectively. In this embodiment, this step is performed by an administrator using an apparatus for managing a shared electronic document described later, for example, the administrator may be a manager of a team, an organizer of an activity, etc. Specifically, the administrator divides the electronic document into a plurality of sections, marks on start and end positions of each section of the electronic document, and then assigns each section to at least one user. In this way, the edit right for each section of the electronic document is assigned to at least one user. Then the users and their respective edit rights are recorded. In this embodiment, various recording ways may be used, one of which is to record an identifier and an edit right of each user in the electronic document, such as in the access control list of the electronic document; another way is to record an identifier and an edit right of each user in an edit right recording file different from the electronic document.

At Step 105, each user is notified to edit the electronic document. When multiple users wants to open the electronic document, at Step 110, it is determined whether each user has the edit right, that is, determining whether each user is capable of editing the electronic document and which section or sections the user can edit. For instance, if the user's identifier is in the access control list of the electronic document or in the file in which the identifiers and edit rights of multiple users are recorded, the user can access and edit the electronic document.

If the determination result of Step 110 is that the user has no edit right, the user's operation will be rejected. If the user has the edit right, the user is allowed to open the electronic document. Then at Step 115, each of the multiple users who have the edit rights edits the contents of one or more sections of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right at the same time. Preferably, other sections of the electronic document for which the user has no edit right will be displayed to the user under Read-only mode.

The user may edit an electronic document in online mode, that is, the user may edit the electronic document directly. Further, the user may also edit the electronic document in offline mode, that is, the user edits the electronic document in a local computer. In latter mode, the user may copy the electronic document to the local computer first, and then edit the one or more sections of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right and submit the edited one or more sections to the remote computer for saving. When the contents of corresponding sections of the electronic document are edited by users, at Step 120, operation of saving the edited one or more sections is executed in the computer in which the electronic document is located. In order to prevent confliction caused by the operations of saving the edited contents executed by multiple users simultaneously, generally the operations of saving are not executed concurrently, that is, when the contents edited by one user are saved, the edited contents submitted by other users will not be saved at the same time. Specifically, when a user needs to save the edited contents, the electronic document is locked in exclusive mode, then the contents of the electronic document corresponding to those edited by the user are updated, and finally the electronic document is unlocked

When multiple users have completed the operation of editing and saving the contents of one or more sections of the electronic document for which the users have edit rights respectively, the edit rights of these users may be canceled at Step 125.

In this embodiment, the administrator assigns the edit rights for a plurality of sections of a shared electronic document to the multiple users, so this embodiment may be called as Administrator Initiated Mode. The basic idea of this embodiment is that editing the same electronic document by multiple users simultaneously may be realized by assigning the edit rights for different sections of the same electronic document to multiple users, and saving the contents edited by multiple users who have the edit rights into the same electronic document may be realized by updating only the contents edited by the users who have the edit rights.

From above description, it can be seen that by using this embodiment multiple users may have the different edit rights for editing one shared electronic document so that multiple users who have the respective edit rights may edit the same electronic document simultaneously without confliction, and the contents edited by the users may be saved into the electronic document.

Fig.2 is a flowchart diagram showing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention. Next, the description of this embodiment will be given in conjunction with Fig.2, wherein the same reference numbers are used for the parts similar to those in the embodiment of Fig.l and their explanations are properly omitted.

As shown in Fig.2, after Steps 101 to 110 have been executed, if the user who wants to open the electronic document has the edit right, the user is allowed to open the electronic document. Then at Step 201, it is determined whether one or more sections for which the user has the edit right have been assigned to multiple users, that is, whether there are multiple users who have the edit rights for this or these sections. If not, the process proceeds to Step 105.

If the determination result of Step 201 is that the administrator has assigned this or these sections of the electronic document to multiple users, following steps will be executed for each section that has been assigned to multiple users who have the edit rights. At Step 205, the user selects at least one subsection of one section for which multiple users have the edit rights, and at Step 210, the edit right of the user for the selected subsection is determined. Specifically, the marks are added on start and end positions of the subsection in the electronic document and the user and his/her edit right for this subsection is recorded, the specific recording way is similar to that in the embodiment of Fig.l, for instance, the user's edit right for the subsection may be recorded in the previous access control list of the electronic document or the edit right recording file. It should be noted that when a user who has the edit right for the one section of the electronic document has selected and determined one subsection of the one section, other users who have the edit rights for the same section of the electronic document would not be able to select this subsection.

Then, Step 115 is executed in which multiple users edit the contents of one or more subsections simultaneously, for which these users have their respective edit rights. The subsequent steps are the same as those of the embodiment shown in Fig.l.

From above description it can be seen that by using this embodiment, for the case that multiple users have the edit rights for the same section of the electronic document, the edit rights of the multiple users who have the edit rights for the same section could be further refined by selecting the subsections of the same section and determining the edit rights for the subsections, so that multiple users can edit one shared electronic document simultaneously without confliction. Under the same inventive concept, Fig.3 is a flowchart diagram showing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to still another embodiment of the present invention. Next, the description of this embodiment will be given in conjunction with Fig.3.

The differences between this embodiment and the one shown in Fig.l are: an edit right of a user is declared by the user himself/herself, and the subsequent users can only select the sections of the electronic document for which the edit rights are not declared; in addition, when the electronic document is opened, the edit right of the user may not be verified.

As shown in Fig.3, at Step 301, multiple users open the electronic document and each of them selects at least one section as the section to be edited by him/her. In this way, each section of the electronic document is edited only by one user. At Step 305, the edit right for the at least one section selected by each of the multiple users is determined. Specifically, the marks are added on start and end positions of each section selected by each of the users in the electronic document and then each user and his/her respective edit right are recorded. It should be noted that the subsequent users can only select those sections that are not selected by the previous users and for which the edit rights are not determined. The operation of marking on start and end positions of one or more sections selected by the users in the electronic document comprises the following steps: firstly, the electronic document is locked in exclusive mode, then the marks are added on corresponding positions in the electronic document, and finally the electronic document is unlocked. The specific recording way may be that the user's identifier and his/her edit right are recorded in the electronic document or in a file different from the electronic document.

Then, at Step 310, multiple users edit the contents of one or more sections of the electronic document for which the users have their edit rights respectively. Preferably, other sections of the electronic document for which the user has no edit right will be displayed to the user under Read-only mode. The electronic document may be edited by the users in online mode or in offline mode, the specific description of which could reference to the description of the embodiment of Fig.l. The subsequent Steps 320 and 325 are the same as Steps 120 and 125 in the embodiment shown in Fig.l, so the corresponding description is omitted here.

From above description it can be seen that in this embodiment, multiple users' edit rights for editing one shared electronic document are determined by the users themselves, so this embodiment may be called as User Initiated Mode. The basic idea of this embodiment is that editing the same electronic document by multiple users simultaneously may be realized by selecting different sections of one shared electronic document and determining the edit rights for these sections by multiple users themselves, and saving the contents edited by multiple users who have the edit rights into the same electronic document may be realized by updating only the contents edited by the users who have the edit rights.

By using this embodiment, users may have their respective edit rights for editing some sections of the same electronic document in sequence without the need of administrator's intervention, thereby realizing the editing of the same electronic document by multiple users without confliction.

Fig.4 is a schematic block diagram showing a system for implementing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention. The system may execute the method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document referred to as Administrator Initiated Mode. As shown in Fig.4, an administrator 401 divides a shared electronic document located in a remote computer 402 into a plurality of sections and assigns each section to at least one of five users 403, then notifies the five users to edit the electronic document.

Fig.5 is a schematic block diagram showing a system for implementing a method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention. The system may execute the method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document referred to as User Initiated Mode. As shown in Fig.5, three users 501 want to edit a shared electronic document located in a remote computer 502, and each of them opens the electronic document respectively, selects at least one section of the electronic document and determines the edit right for the selected one or more sections, thereby editing the electronic document by multiple users simultaneously without confliction. Under the same inventive concept, Fig.6 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention, wherein the shared electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously and includes a plurality of sections, each of which is assigned to at least one of multiple users who has an edit right. Next, the embodiment will be described in conjunction with Fig.6.

As shown in Fig.6, the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document includes an editor 601 for editing the contents of the shared electronic document, a section identification unit 602 for identifying the plurality of sections of the electronic document, and an edit right extraction unit 603 for extracting information about the edit rights for the plurality of sections.

The editor 601 can be any known kind of electronic document editors in the prior art, such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint in Microsoft Office, or Notebook, Writing Board, or Adobe PDF editor and so on. Besides, the type of the editor 601 should correspond to the type of the shared electronic document .

Next, the operation process of the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document will be described. When multiple users who have the edit rights want to edit a shared electronic document by the apparatus 600, at first the edit right extraction unit 603 extracts the information about the edit right of each of the multiple users for one or more sections of the electronic document according to the user's identifier. The information including the user's identifier and his/her edit right may be recorded in the electronic document or another file. Each section of the electronic document has a mark on start position and a mark on end position. Based on these marks, the section identification unit 602 identifies one or more sections for which multiple users have their respective edit rights. Then, multiple users who have the edit rights may simultaneously edit only the contents of the identified one or more sections for which the users have their respective edit rights by means of the editor 601.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, multiple users may edit the shared electronic document simultaneously according to their edit rights without confliction. Further, the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document includes a copy saving unit 604 for locally saving a copy of the electronic document. When the user is editing, the copy saving unit 604 may be used to save the electronic document from the remote shared location to a local computer, then the contents of one or more sections for which the user has the edit right can be edited by the editor 601.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, the user may also edit the contents of one or more sections of the shared electronic document for which the user has the edit right in offline mode.

Further, the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document includes a subsection selection unit 605 and a subsection edit right declaring unit 606. If multiple users who have the edit rights are assigned to one section of the electronic document, when multiple users who have the edit rights for this section of the electronic document are editing the contents of this one section, each of the multiple users uses the subsection selecting unit 605 to select one or more subsections of the one section and declares the edit right for the selected subsection (s) by the subsection edit right declaring unit 606. It should be noted that the subsequent users who have the edit rights for this one section are not allowed to select the subsection (s) for which the edit right has been declared. Then, multiple users edit the contents of the subsections for which they have their respective edit rights by means of the editor 601.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, the problem may be further solved that multiple users who have the edit rights for one section of the shared electronic document edit the electronic document simultaneously.

The apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment and its components may be implemented by hardware circuits, such as very large scale integrated circuits or gate arrays, semiconductors such as logic chips and transistors, or programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays and programmable logic devices, or may be implemented by software executed by various types of processors, or may be implemented by combination of above hardware circuits and software. Under the same inventive concept, Fig.7 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention, wherein the electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously. The apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document is an apparatus used by an administrator to assign edit rights for different sections of the shared electronic document to multiple users. Next, this embodiment will be described in conjunction with the figure.

As shown in Fig.7, the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document includes a section selection unit 701 for selecting at least one section of the electronic document, an edit right assignment unit 702 for assigning the edit right for each of the at least one section to at least one of the multiple users who has the edit right.

When the administrator uses the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document, the section selection unit 701 is used to select one or more sections of the electronic document, and then each of the one or more sections is assigned to at least one user who has the edit right by the edit right assignment unit 702. In this way, multiple users who have the edit rights for at least one section of the electronic document may use the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document shown in Fig.6 to edit the electronic document.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, it is possible to assign the edit rights for different sections of a shared electronic document to multiple users.

Further, the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document includes a notification unit 703 for notifying multiple users who have the edit rights to edit the electronic document. When multiple users receive the notification from the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document, they may use the apparatus 600 for editing a shared electronic document shown in Fig.6 to edit the electronic document.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, it is possible to automatically notify multiple users who have the edit rights. The apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document of this embodiment and its components may be implemented by hardware circuits, such as very large scale integrated circuits or gate arrays, semiconductors such as logic chips and transistors, or programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays and programmable logic devices, or may be implemented by software executed by various types of processors, or may be implemented by combination of above hardware circuits and software.

Under the same inventive concept, Fig.8 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document according to an embodiment of the present invention, wherein the shared electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously and includes a plurality of sections, each of which is assigned to at least one of multiple users who has an edit right. Next, the embodiment will be described in conjunction with the figure.

The apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document is used to maintain an electronic document, for instance, including operations of marking and recording the edit rights for the plurality of sections of the electronic document, verifying the edit right of a user who wants to open the electronic document and updating the electronic document.

As shown in Fig.8, the apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document includes a section marking unit 801 for marking on the plurality of sections of the electronic document based on the assignment with which each section of the plurality of sections of the electronic document is assigned to at least one user who has the edit right; an edit right recording unit 802 for recording identifiers of the multiple users and their respective edit rights; an edit right extraction unit 803 for extracting information about the edit rights of the multiple users; an verification unit 804 for verifying whether a user has the edit right based on the extracted information about the edit rights; and an updating unit 805 for updating at least one section of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right according to the contents edited by the user who has the edit right.

When the edit right assignment unit 702 of the apparatus 700 for managing a shared electronic document shown in Fig.7 assigns at least one section of the electronic document to at least one user, the section marking unit 801 of the apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document marks on start position and end position of each corresponding section of the electronic document, and the edit right recording unit 802 records each user and his/her edit right. The edit right recording unit 802 may record the identifier of each user and corresponding edit right in the electronic document, or record the identifier of each user and corresponding edit right in a file different from the electronic document.

In the apparatus 800, when a user who wants to open an electronic document needs to be verified, the edit right extraction unit 803 extracts the information about the edit right of the user based on the user's identifier, wherein the information including the user' s identifier and his/her edit right is recorded in the electronic document or another file. Then the verification unit 804 verifies whether the user has the edit right based on the extracted information about the user's edit right. If the user has no edit right, the apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document would reject the user to edit the electronic document. If the user has the edit right, the user would be allowed to edit the electronic document.

When a user wants to edit the contents of one or more sections for which the user has the edit right and to save the edited contents, the updating unit 805, based on the user's edit right, identifies the corresponding section (s) of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right and updates the corresponding sections (s) of the electronic document according to the edited contents. Specifically, when being updated, the electronic document is locked in exclusive mode and then the updating unit 805 makes updating operation, the electronic document is unlocked after the updating.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document of this embodiment, it is possible to mark on the sections of the electronic document for which multiple users have their respective edit rights based on the assignment with which the edit rights for different sections of the electronic document are assigned to multiple users respectively, and execute operations of verifying the user's edit right and updating the edited contents, thereby realizing the editing of the shared electronic document by multiple users simultaneously without confliction.

The apparatus 800 for maintaining a shared electronic document of this embodiment and its components may be implemented by hardware circuits, such as very large scale integrated circuits or gate arrays, semiconductors such as logic chips and transistors, or programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays and programmable logic devices, or may be implemented by software executed by various types of processors, or may be implemented by combination of above hardware circuits and software.

Under the same inventive concept, Fig.9 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the shared electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously. Next, the embodiment will be described in conjunction with the figure.

As shown in Fig.9, the apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document includes: an editor 901 for editing the contents of the electronic document; a section selection unit 902 for selecting at least one section of the electronic document; and an edit right declaring unit 903 for declaring an edit right for the selected at least one section of the electronic document.

Similar to the editor 601 in the embodiment shown in Fig.6, the editor 901 can be any known kind of electronic document editors in the prior art, such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint in Microsoft Office, or Notebook, Writing Board, or Adobe PDF editor and so on. Besides, the type of the editor 901 should correspond to the type of the shared electronic document .

When multiple users use the apparatus 900 to edit a shared electronic document, firstly, each of the multiple users selects at least one section of the electronic document as the sections to be edited by the section selection unit 902, then the user declares the edit right for the selected at least one section by the edit right declaring unit 903. It should be noted that the subsequent users can only select other sections of the electronic document for which the edit rights are not declared. Then, the users may use the editor 901 to edit only the contents of one or more sections of the electronic document for which the edit rights have been declared.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, a user oneself can select one or more sections of the electronic document and declare the edit right for the selected section (s), thereby realizing the editing of a shared electronic document by multiple users simultaneously without confliction.

Further, the apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document includes a copy saving unit 904 for locally saving a copy of the electronic document. When the user wants to edit the electronic document, the copy saving unit 904 may be used to save the electronic document from the remote shared location to a local computer, then the editor 901 may be used to edit the contents of one or more sections for which the edit rights have been declared.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment, a user may also edit the contents of one or more sections of the electronic document for which the edit rights have been declared in offline mode.

The apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document of this embodiment and its components can be implemented by hardware circuits, such as very large scale integrated circuits or gate arrays, semi-conductors such as logic chips and transistors, or programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays and programmable logic devices, or can be implemented by software executed by various types of processors, or can be implemented by combination of above hardware circuits and software.

Under the same inventive concept, Fig.10 is a schematic block diagram showing an apparatus 1000 for maintaining a shared electronic document according to another embodiment of the present invention, wherein the shared electronic document is allowed to edit by multiple users simultaneously. Next, the embodiment will be described in conjunction with the figure.

The apparatus 1000 for maintaining a shared electronic document is used to maintain an electronic document, for instance, including operations of marking and recording edit rights for a plurality of sections of the electronic document, and updating the electronic document.

As shown in Fig.10, the apparatus 1000 for maintaining a shared electronic document includes: a section marking unit 1001 for marking on at least one section of the electronic document based on the declaration of the edit rights of the multiple users for the at least one section of the electronic document; an edit right recording unit 1002 for recording identifiers of the multiple users and their respective edit rights; an edit right extraction unit 1003 for extracting information about the edit right for the at least one section of the electronic document; and an updating unit 1004 for updating at least one section of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right according to the contents edited by the users who has the edit right.

When the edit right declaring unit 903 of the apparatus 900 for editing a shared electronic document shown in Fig.9 is used to declare a user's edit right for at least one section of the electronic document, the marks are added on start position and end position of each corresponding section of the electronic document by the section marking unit 1001. Specifically, the electronic document is locked in exclusive mode, and the section marking unit 1001 marks on the sections of the electronic document, the electronic document is unlocked after completion of the marking. Then, each user and his/her edit right are recorded by the edit right recording unit 1002. The edit right recording unit 1002 may record the identifier of each user and corresponding edit right in the electronic document, or record the identifier of each user and corresponding edit right in a file different from the electronic document.

In the apparatus 1000, when a user needs to save the edited contents, the edit right extraction unit 1003 extracts the information about the user's edit right from the electronic document or another file based on the user's identifier, and the updating unit 1004, based on the user's edit right, identifies the corresponding section (s) of the electronic document for which the user has the edit right and updates the corresponding section (s) of the electronic document according to the edited contents. Specifically, when being updated, the electronic document is locked in exclusive mode, then the updating unit 1004 makes updating operation and the electronic document is unlocked after the updating operation.

The apparatus 1000 for maintaining a shared electronic document of this embodiment and its components can be implemented by hardware circuits, such as very large scale integrated circuits or gate arrays, semiconductors such as logic chips and transistors, or programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays and programmable logic devices, or can be implemented by software executed by various types of processors, or can be implemented by combination of above hardware circuits and software.

From above description it can be seen that by using the apparatus 1000 for maintaining a shared electronic document of this embodiment, it is possible to mark on the sections of the electronic document for which multiple users have their respective edit rights based on the declaration with which the edit rights of multiple users for different sections of the electronic document are declared, and execute operations of verifying the edit right of the user and updating the edited contents, thereby realizing the editing of a shared electronic document by multiple users simultaneously without confliction.

Though a method and corresponding apparatus for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document of the present invention has been described in details with some embodiments, it should be understood that those skilled in the art may make various modifications to above embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document, including: assigning an edit right for at least one section of the electronic document to each of the multiple users respectively; determining whether each user who wants to open the electronic document has the edit right for at least one section of the electronic document, if not, rejecting the user's operations; editing the respective at least one section of the electronic document for which the multiple users have their respective edit rights by the multiple users who have the edit rights; and saving the at least one section of the electronic document edited by each of the multiple users who have the edit rights .

2. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 1, characterized in that the step of assigning an edit right for at least one section of the electronic document to each of the multiple users respectively including: marking on start position and end position of each of the at least one section of the electronic document; assigning at least one of the multiple users to each of the marked sections; and recording the multiple users and their respective edit rights.

3. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 2, characterized in that the step of recording the multiple users and their respective edit rights including the step of recording the multiple users and their respective edit rights in the electronic document.

4. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 2, characterized in that the step of recording the multiple users and their respective edit rights including the step of recording the multiple users and their respective edit rights in a file different from the electronic document.

5. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 1, further including: after assigning an edit right for at least one section of the electronic document to each of the multiple users respectively, notifying the multiple users to edit the electronic document.

6. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 1, characterized in that the multiple users edit the electronic document shared in a remote computer by using local computers, wherein the step of editing the respective at least one section of the electronic document for which the multiple users have their respective edit rights by the multiple users who have the edit rights including: copying the electronic document to the local computers of the multiple users who have the edit rights; editing the respective at least one section of the copied electronic document for which the users have their respective edit rights in their respective local computers by the multiple users; and submitting the at least one section edited in each local computer to the remote computer.

7. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 1, characterized in that the step of saving the at least one section edited by each of the multiple users who have the edit rights including: locking the electronic document in exclusive mode; updating each of the at least one section according to the contents edited by the users who have the edit rights; and unlocking the electronic document.

8. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 1, further including: after saving the at least one section edited by each of the multiple users who have the edit rights, canceling the edit rights of the multiple users for the electronic document.

9. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 1, characterized in that multiple users have the edit rights for one section of the electronic document, the method further including: selecting at least one subsection of the one section by each of the multiple users who has the edit right for the one section; determining the edit right for the selected at least one subsection of each of the multiple users who have the edit rights for the one section; editing the respective at least one subsection by the multiple users who have the edit rights for the one section; and saving the editing results of the respective at least one subsection edited by the multiple users who have the edit rights for the one section in the one section.

10. The method for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a shared electronic document according to claim 9, characterized in that the step of determining the edit right for the selected at least one subsection of each of the multiple users who have the edit rights for the one section including: marking on start position and end position of each of the at least one subsection of the one section; and recording the multiple users who have the edit rights for the one section and their respective edit rights.

11. A apparatus comprising means adapted for carrying out all the steps of the method according to any proceeding method claim.

12. A computer program comprising instructions for carrying out all the steps of the method according to any proceeding method claim, when said computer program is executed on a computer system.