FIELD

This disclosure relates to content management systems, and more particularly to techniques for handling previews of remotely stored content objects.

BACKGROUND

Modern computing systems have one or more user interfaces that provide access to certain components of the systems. The most numerous and familiar of such components are the files and folders that are persistently stored at a local storage facility (e.g., comprising hard disk drives, solid state drives, etc.). Such files and/or folders are often hierarchically organized in accordance with a file system and/or namespace implemented at the computing system. Users need a way to access and manage the files and/or folders.

The operating systems of many user devices (e.g., desktops, laptops, smartphones, etc.) are equipped with content object viewers (e.g., a file finder, a file explorer, etc.) that provide a graphical user interface configured to facilitate navigation over a hierarchy of content objects (e.g., files, folders, etc.) associated with the storage devices of the user devices. To aid its users, such content object viewers support many different views. Some views present a graphical depiction of the hierarchical relationships between the content objects. Some views present a list of items in a particular folder, where each item is identified by an icon in combination with a file name such that the file type (e.g., a document, or a spreadsheet, or a 3D CAD model, etc.) is easily identifiable. Some views comprise a display area (e.g., frame, window, etc.) that is specially configured to present a preview of a selected file.

Unfortunately, in order to efficiently generate and present a preview of a file, file viewers need to have a copy of the selected file on the same machine as the file viewer. This presents many barriers to efficient generation and presentation previews of files. For example, files that are located elsewhere (e.g., at a network location) and/or files that are very large might consume a hefty amount of bandwidth and a hefty amount of storage resources to bring the file from the network location to store at the local machine. Additionally, certain types of files need an underlying application to be able to generate a preview, which application might be expensive both in terms of the computational cost of running the application to generate a preview as well as the economic cost of hosting the application at the local machine.

Therefore, what is needed is a technique or techniques that address presenting previews of remotely stored content objects in a local content object viewer—without having a local copy of the content object.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure describes techniques used in systems, methods, and in computer program products for handling previews of remotely stored content objects, which techniques advance the relevant technologies to address technological issues with legacy approaches. More specifically, the present disclosure describes techniques used in systems, methods, and in computer program products for presenting previews of remotely stored content objects in a content object viewer in a timely fashion. Certain embodiments are directed to technological solutions for intercepting preview requests from a content object viewer to deliver URLs that refer to preformatted previews of shared content objects in an embedded browser element at the content object viewer.

The disclosed embodiments modify and improve over legacy approaches. In particular, the herein-disclosed techniques provide technical solutions that address the technical problems attendant to presenting previews of remotely stored content objects in a local content object viewer in a timely fashion. Such technical solutions involve specific implementations (i.e., data organization, data communication paths, module-to-module interrelationships, etc.) that relate to the software arts for improving computer functionality.

The techniques for intercepting preview requests from a content object viewer to deliver URLs that refer to preformatted previews of shared content objects in an embedded browser element at the content object viewer overcome long-standing yet unsolved technological problems associated with presenting previews of remotely stored content objects in a local content object viewer that arise in the realm of computer systems.

Many of the herein-disclosed embodiments for intercepting preview requests from a content object viewer to deliver URLs that refer to preformatted previews of shared content objects in an embedded browser element of the content object viewer. Such are technological solutions pertaining to technological problems that arise in the hardware and software arts that underlie collaboration systems. Aspects of the present disclosure achieve performance and other improvements in peripheral technical fields including (but not limited to) human-machine interfaces and distributed storage systems.

Further details of aspects, objectives, and advantages of the technological embodiments are described herein, and in the drawings and claims.

