Patent ID: 7693915

Claim:
A method of enabling a user to browse media items, said method comprising the steps of: (a) presenting, on a display, graphical icons representing folders containing said media items, said folders being arranged in a hierarchical tree structure; and (b) in response to designating one of the graphical icons with a pointer of a pointing device, displaying a window on which is displayed a thumbnail image of a media item that satisfies a filter criterion from among a plurality of media items contained in a designated folder represented by the designated graphical icon, the filter criterion including a constraint on the depth below the designated folder in the hierarchical tree structure; (c) defining a previous filter criterion as previously selected by the user and which is independent of the filter criterion; and (d) selecting for presenting by the step (a), from a set of graphical icons, those graphical icons representing folders containing media items satisfying the previous filter criterion.