Hierarchical, multilevel, expand and collapse navigation aid for hierarchical structures
First Claim
1. A navigation aid for hierarchical structures having multiple levels of nodes, the navigational aid comprising:
- means for displaying the nodes in a multilevel hierarchical structure;
means for displaying a conventional expand/collapse icon in the vicinity of the name of each node; and
means for displaying a dynamic menu when the cursor is hovered over an activator used to swap the expanded/collapsed state of a node displayed in the hierarchical structure.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A software utility navigation aid for hierarchical structures such as file managers, taxonomies, or tables of contents that displays a dynamic menu when the mouse cursor is hovered over an activator used to swap the expanded/collapsed state of a node displayed in a hierarchical structure. The menu contains entries that identify in which display level of expansion the node resides based on the structure'"'"'s fully collapsed condition (from the root node), the number of display levels to which this branch of the hierarchy can be expanded, and the number of nodes that will be exposed when this branch is expanded to each of those levels. Each displayed entry in this menu, positioned both below and above the identified node, can be clicked to cause the hierarchical structure to expand or collapse to that display level.
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Citations
9 Claims
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1. A navigation aid for hierarchical structures having multiple levels of nodes, the navigational aid comprising:
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means for displaying the nodes in a multilevel hierarchical structure;
means for displaying a conventional expand/collapse icon in the vicinity of the name of each node; and
means for displaying a dynamic menu when the cursor is hovered over an activator used to swap the expanded/collapsed state of a node displayed in the hierarchical structure. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A computer program product for navigating hierarchical structures having multiple levels of nodes, the computer program product comprising a computer usable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer readable program code comprising:
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computer readable program code means for displaying the nodes in a multilevel hierarchical structure;
computer readable program code means for displaying a conventional expand/collapse icon in the vicinity of each node'"'"'s name; and
computer readable program code means for displaying a dynamic menu when the cursor is hovered over an activator used to swap the expanded/collapsed state of a node displayed in the hierarchical structure.
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Specification