Patent ID: 7552395

Claim:
A method for providing a graphical user interface in a computing system for building Boolean queries and viewing search results, comprising: defining a window including a workspace, a toolbar, and a folder tree hierarchy; providing two or more search folders located within the folder tree hierarchy, each search folder capable of being moved within the folder tree hierarchy and configured for displaying a search by type icon, a text field, and a hit count; and providing one or more combination folders, each combination folder capable of being moved within the folder tree hierarchy and having a combine icon, wherein the toolbar is further defined to include a search by group, a combine group, and an actions group: a) the search by group being further defined to have a category button, a keyword button, and a date button, wherein: i) when the category button is selected, one search folder is generated with a category icon as the search by icon; ii) when the keyword button is selected, one search folder is generated with a keyword icon as the search by icon; and iii) when the date button is selected, one search folder is generated with a date icon as the search by icon; b) the combine group being further defined to have a logical AND button, a logical OR button and a logical MINUS button, wherein: i) when the logical AND button is selected, one combination folder is generated with a logical AND icon as the combine icon; ii) when the logical OR button is selected, one combination folder is generated with a logical OR icon as the combine icon; and iii) when the logical MINUS button is selected, one combination folder is generated with a logical MINUS icon as the combine icon; and c) the actions group being further defined to have a remove button, a results button, an expand/collapse button and a quit button, wherein: i) when the remove button is selected, selected combination folders and selected search folders are removed from the workspace; ii) when the results button is selected, a query defined by each selected combination folder is executed and a results tab is generated; iii) when the expand/collapse button is selected, the selected combination cell is alternately collapsed into itself and expanded to show search cells within the selected combination cell; and iv) when the quit button is selected, the window is closed.