Patent ID: 8464167

Claim:
A method for communicating in an online electronic chat environment having multiple communication devices connected to each other in a communication network, the method comprising: displaying on a display screen of an electronic communication device of the multiple communication devices, a chat region, a graphics region, and a boundary indicator, the chat region and the graphics region positioned on a common electronic canvas of the display screen, visually identified as separate regions by the boundary indicator; inputting text into the chat region; providing time stamps to the text in the chat region; moving at least a portion of the inputted text from the chat region to the graphics region across the boundary indicator; inputting graphic objects into the graphics region; providing time stamps to the graphic objects in the graphics region; synchronizing the time stamps of the graphic objects and the time stamps of the text; moving at least a portion of the inputted graphic objects from the graphics region to the chat region across the boundary indicator; and operating a time control to visit past states of a communication session shown on the display screen, wherein graphic objects are deleted, added, and/or modified in the canvas in synchrony with the corresponding state of the text in the chat region at the corresponding time, as text and graphics had been input and modified during the communication session.