Abstract: Mechanisms to assist a user in obtaining content may be integrated with the tools that allow the user to author an e-mail message or any other type of document. For example, an e-mail composition system may offer various buttons that allow users to obtain certain types of content—e.g., movie times, restaurant menus, etc. When the user clicks the button, the requested type of content may be obtained, and the user may be offered the opportunity to insert the obtained content into the document that is being authored. The content that is obtained may follow a particular structure. For example, a system might be configured to respond to a request for movie-related content by returning a list of show-times and theaters for a particular movie.

Abstract: A sender can create a message for transmission to an intended recipient. During creation of the message, the sender may insert data into the message that is expressed with reference to the context of the sender. When the sender inserts data into a message that is expressed with reference to their own context, they may be asked whether the data should be dynamically transformed to the context of the intended recipient. If the sender indicates that the data should be transformed to the context of the intended recipient, the context of the intended recipient is determined. Once the context of the intended recipient has been determined, the data in the message is transformed to the context of the intended recipient and the message containing the transformed data is transmitted to the intended recipient.

Abstract: Techniques are described to provide theme based content interactions. In an implementation, a user interface is provided to enable interactions with a variety of services from a service provider. The user interface may have one or more content portions that are arranged in accordance with a theme associated with a user and/or a corresponding account or client. One or more theme preferences are stored that describe a theme that may be specified by the user through interactions with a service provider. Accordingly, when the user interacts with services provided by the service provider, the service provider may detect a theme associated with the user and output a user interface that includes content portions corresponding to the associated theme.

Abstract: User name generation techniques are described. In an implementation, one or more words are received to be used as a user name to access a resource. One or more characters of at least one of the words are modified such that the word having the one or more modified characters is available as a user name.

Abstract: In-line secondary transaction is described. In an embodiment, an on-line shopping interface is displayed via which an item can be selected for purchase. When a selection is received to initiate a purchase of the item, a determination is made that a secondary transaction is needed to complete the purchase of the item. An in-line secondary transaction user interface is displayed over a portion of the on-line shopping interface to facilitate the secondary transaction where the in-line secondary transaction user interface is displayed to maintain a context of the purchase on the on-line shopping interface. An input of transaction information is received via the in-line secondary transaction user interface to complete the secondary transaction such that the purchase of the item can be completed via the on-line shopping interface.

Abstract: Techniques are described to output help elements that correspond to selectable portions of content. Content, for instance, may be output in a user interface having a plurality of selectable portions and a help element. The user interface may be updated in response to sequential selection of the plurality of selectable portions by retrieving corresponding help elements stored locally on the client and outputting the corresponding help elements as synchronized with the sequential selection.

Abstract: The techniques and technologies described herein enable real-time user identity information to be maintained by a network server architecture such that the user identity information can be provided across multiple client devices and/or across multiple collaborative applications supported by the client devices. The client devices and the collaborative applications can be designed to receive and process the network-based user identity information for presentation in a consistent display format regardless of the client device type and in the context of different collaborative applications.

Abstract: A physical presence indicator as described herein generates indicia of the real-time user presence status for one or more users of a collaborative communication application, such as an instant messaging application. The physical presence indicator communicates with the collaborative communication application, which may be hosted by a computing device. The physical presence indicator conveys the real-time user presence status outside the domain of the graphical user interface of the collaborative communication application. One example implementation utilizes an illumination element that is controlled to have at least two states, where one state indicates an “available” user presence condition and the other state indicates an “unavailable” user presence condition. The illumination element is distinct from, and external to, the computing device.