Method and apparatus for displaying a thought network from a thought's perspective

• US 6,031,537 A
• Filed: 07/14/1997
• Issued: 02/29/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: TheBrain Technologies, LP
• Original Assignee: Natrificial LLC
• Inventors: Hugh, Harlan M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Breene, John E.
• Application Number:
  US08/892,548
• Time in Patent Office: 960 Days
• Field of Search: 345/326-358, 345/145, 345/146
• US Class Current: 715/854
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/904 Browsing; Visualisation therefor for navigating the web G06F16/954; browsing optimisation for the web G06F16/957

Abstract

A method and apparatus for organizing and processing pieces of interrelated information (or "thoughts") is used with a digital computer. The invention employs a graphical user interface to facilitate user interaction with highly flexible, associative "matrices" that enable users conveniently to organize digitally-stored thoughts and their network of interrelationships. Each of the thoughts may be affiliated with one or more application programs, such as a word processing or spreadsheet utility, or an Internet browser. Users are able conveniently to select a current thought along with any applications or content associated with that thought by interacting with the graphical representation. That representation is automatically reoriented about the selected thought, and is revised to reflect only those thoughts having predetermined relations to that current thought. Users can easily modify the matrix by interactively redefining relations between thoughts. Further aspects of the invention include techniques permitting automated generation of thought matrices, delayed loading to facilitate navigation amongst thoughts without undue delay due to bandwidth constraints, and matrix division and linking to allow optimal data structure flexibility. Finally, the present invention is interoperable with computer networks including the Internet, and offers an intuitive scalable methodology for the navigation and management of essentially immeasurable information resources and knowledge bases that transcends the limitations inherent in traditional hierarchical approaches.

Claims

1. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought on the display, wherein indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed and are rearranged upon the selection of said new central thought in a manner that graphically reflects the relationship between said thoughts and said new central thought.

2. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display, the current central thought being associated with said information;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought;

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display;

loading the contents of said central thought; and

viewing, editing or processing said information.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said loading step is performed automatically.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said loading step is delayed for a predetermined period of time so that a user may optionally navigate to another thought in a plex prior to the loading of the contents of said central thought and wherein said loading step is not performed with respect to said central thought in the event that said user navigates to another thought prior to the expiration of said predetermined period of time.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the user is appraised by a visual display of the extent to which said predetermined time has elapsed.

31. The method of claim 3 wherein files containing said viewed, edited, or processed information are saved automatically without user interaction upon the deactivation of their associated thought.

6. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought;

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display; and

creating a file that contains the full location of the computer on which said network is initially defined, said file configured so that said thought documents organized by said network are subsequently accessible from a remote computer having access to the information organized by said network.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the steps of:

identifying at least one thought document that does not reside in the memory or storage of a local computer;

copying selected ones of said identified thought documents to a local computer; and

changing the recorded location of said copied thought documents to reflect the new local location of said documents.

8. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, and further comprises the step of setting sharing characteristics of at least one thought document;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

9. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, wherein said network relationships may be forgotten;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein said network relationships may be forgotten automatically in accordance with particular usage statistics.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the memory of said network relationships is of more than one type, and wherein the user may selectively display the relationships remembered by one or more of said memory types.

33. The method of claim 9 wherein all thoughts childward of a first forgotten thought and not having parent relations to any thought other than to a forgotten thought are themselves automatically forgotten.

12. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts and adding at least one thought to said network by dragging with a pointing device from a thought in a plex to a window associated with said thought document, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

13. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, and wherein at least one thought contains more than one version of a single document and wherein a user may select from among these multiple versions of said thought when said user interactively designates said current thought or thereafter;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

14. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought maybe related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display in which a Train of Thought is highlighted or otherwise made visible or differentiated from the other graphical elements comprising the graphical representation of said matrix.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein arrows are further used to indicate the order of said Train of Thought.

16. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, and wherein said matrix references a second matrix;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein an administrator may independently assign access privileges to each of said matrices.

18. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, and wherein a user can divide a single matrix into one or more individual matrices;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

19. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, and further comprising automatically generating a matrix based upon a hierarchical file management structure, wherein said generated matrix may subsequently be modified to incorporate nonhierarchical associations among thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought;

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

20. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts, and further comprising automatically generating a matrix based upon a preexisting self-referencing network;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said generated matrix may subsequently be modified to incorporate nonhierarchical associations among thoughts.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein said self-referencing network comprises the Internet.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein said self-referencing network comprises a hypertext document.

27. The method of claim 20 wherein the step of automatically generating is performed in accordance with a web crawling technique and in which the self-referencing network comprises at least one site on the World Wide Web.

24. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts and is performed, in whole or in part, automatically in response to a user'"'"'s serial selection of files or Internet browsing, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

25. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts and is performed, in whole or in part, automatically based upon the results of a database search, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on said display, the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought; and

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein said database represents an index of content on the Internet.

28. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought;

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display; and

wherein at least one file having information associated with a thought resides remotely on a server device, and wherein said user accesses said matrix from a client device.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising the steps of:

based upon the current thought and the defined matrix relationships, identifying all thoughts that could possibly be selected as a new central thought from a current plex, and all thoughts that would join said new central thought in the resulting new plex upon the selection of any one of said thoughts;

identifying the thoughts for which the desired information is presently stored at the client location; and

sending from the server only that data associated with each thought that could join the plex upon the selection of a new central thought that is not already stored at the client location.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the results of at least one of said steps of identifying are stored in a ThoughtList.

32. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought;

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display; and

maintaining a list of parentless thoughts so that it is unnecessary to ensure that each thought has a relationship with at least one other thought.

34. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts, and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein each thought may be related to at least one other of said thoughts, and wherein at least one of the thoughts is directly related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying an indicium of a first thought as a central thought on a display;

displaying an indicium of a second thought on the display, wherein the second thought having a direct relation to the first thought;

selecting said second thought to be a new central thought, whereby indicia of those thoughts having defined relations with the second thought will be displayed on the display; and

enabling the entry of notes relating to at least one thought, wherein said notes are automatically loaded and saved upon the activation and deactivation of the thought to which said notes correspond.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein said notes are entered by a word processor that links at least one OLE or similar object.

36. A method for organizing and processing information using a computer, said information comprising a plurality of thoughts and said method comprising the steps of:

defining a matrix comprising the plurality of thoughts and further comprising a plurality of network relationships among the thoughts, wherein at least one of said thoughts is related to one of the other thoughts;

displaying a graphical representation of the matrix, the graphical representation comprising a plurality of display icons corresponding to the thoughts, and further comprising a plurality of connecting lines corresponding to the relationships among the thoughts;

receiving a communication from an application program;

automatically identifying at least one command within said communication, said command a request to make a particular thought the current thought; and

viewing, editing or processing information associated with said current thought.