Orthogonal browsing in object hierarchies

• US 6,816,175 B1
• Filed: 09/15/1999
• Issued: 11/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Opalka, Annette, Mueller, Adrian, Hamp, Birgit, Neumann, Frank, Seiffert, Roland
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Shahid
• Assistant Examiner(s): TRUONG, CAM Y T
• Application Number:
  US09/396,595
• Time in Patent Office: 1,882 Days
• Field of Search: 707/100, 707/104, 707/10, 345/845, 345/854, 345/828, 345/734, 345/853
• US Class Current: 715/854
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/168 Details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems, e.g. browsing and visualisation, 2d or 3d GUIs query results presentation G06F16/156
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90344 by using string matching techniques

Abstract

The present invention relates to means and a method executable by a computer system for navigation within a tree structure with leaf nodes representing arbitrary types of objects, i.e. of related data treated as a unit.

According to the current teaching a travel point representation step is suggested, wherein after selection of at least one non-leaf node as travel point only the path and non-leaf nodes in said tree structure from said travel point to the root of said tree structure is represented in a tree view area. Moreover the complete sub-tree of said travel point is represented in said tree view area. In addition or alternatively after selection of said travel point, a travel box is represented for said travel point, said travel box representing object identifications of all objects of all leaf nodes in said sub tree of said travel point.

Claims

1. A file system navigator, comprising:

a first window displaying a listing of attributes of objects in a file system, each file, directory, and subdirectory in said file system corresponding to one of said objects;

an attribute selector for selecting one or more said attributes; and

a second window displaying a customized tree-structure image of said file system, as based on which of said attributes is selected, said customized tree-structure image comprising a tree-structure representation of an entirety of said file system wherein only the objects in said file system having said selected one or more attributes are included in said tree-structure representation of said file system; and

a third window including a travel box display, said travel box display comprising a representation of files in said file system that satisfy said selected one or more attributes, said travel box display further comprising a direction selector for selecting one of an upward travel direction in said file system and a downward travel direction in said file system,

wherein said travel box display and said customized tree-structure image each change to reflect a selection made by said direction selector.

2. The file system navigator of claim 1, wherein said customized tree-structure image comprises a flat representation of objects that are files having said selected one or more attributes, plus a representation back to a root of said file system as being all objects of said file system that comprise subdirectories and directories that contain said files in said flat representation.

3. The file system navigator of claim 1, wherein said attributes comprise at least one of the following for each file:

file type;

file author;

file format,

creation date; and

terms occurring in said file.

4. The file system navigator of claim 1, wherein said attribute selector includes a selection of an attribute by a process of entering a search string via an input field.

5. The file system navigator of claim 1, wherein said first window provides a single contiguous listing of all attributes in said file system.

6. A method of navigating through an information space, said method comprising:

for each object in an information space, determining attributes of said object and determining a child-parent relationship of said object with other objects in said information space;

providing a display of said attributes in a first window, said display comprising a listing of at least a portion of said attributes;

providing an attribute selector for selecting one or more said attributes;

providing a customized tree-structure image of said information space in a second window, said customized tree-structure image dynamically based on which of said attributes is selected, said customized tree-structure image comprising a tree-structure representation of an entirety of said information space wherein only the objects in said information space directly related to said selected one or more attributes are included in said tree-structure representation; and

providing a travel box display in a third window, said travel box display comprising a representation of objects in said information system satisfying said selected one or more attributes, said travel box display further comprising a direction selector for selecting one of an upward travel direction in said file system and a downward travel direction in said file system,

wherein said travel box display and said customized tree-structure image each chance to reflect a selection made by said direction selector.

7. A system comprising means adapted for carrying out the method according to claim 6.

8. A data processing program for execution in a data processing system comprising software code portions for performing a method according to claim 6.

9. A computer program product stored on a computer-usable medium, comprising computer-readable program means for causing a computer to perform a method according to claim 6.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein said tree-structure representation comprises:

a flat representation of all objects in said information space containing said attribute; and

a representation of parent objects back to a root of said information space.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein said attributes comprise lexical affinities contained in said objects.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein said first window provides a single contiguous listing of all attributes in said information space.

13. An information space navigator of claim 6, comprising one of:

an apparatus executing said method; and

a computer programmed to execute said method.