Patent ID: 7287233

Claim:
A method of displaying information on a display device of a computer system, comprising: displaying a first view on the display device, the first view including an area comprising a plurality of objects, the area being configured to have at least two predefined minimized states, a first minimized state in which at least one of the objects that was selected before minimization is visible, and a second minimized state in which none of the objects are visible; receiving an input to minimize the first view, the input made using an input control that causes the area to be presented in the first minimized state if the at least one object had been selected before receipt of the input, and that causes the area to be presented in the second minimized state if no object had been selected before receipt of the input; determining, in response to receiving the input, whether a user has selected any of the plurality of objects in the first view; displaying, after the determination, a second view on the display device instead of the first view, the second view including the area presented in either of the first and second minimized states based on the determination; wherein the user has selected the at least one object from the plurality of objects and wherein the selection causes additional information about the selected at least one object to be presented in the first view; wherein the first view further comprises a work area, the work area including the additional information, further comprising including the work area in the second view; wherein the work area includes several sub-objects associated with the selected at least one object; the method further comprising: receiving, while displaying the second view, another input to minimize the work area; determining, in response to receiving the other input, whether the user has selected any of the several sub-objects in the work area; displaying, in response to determining that the user has selected at least one sub-object in the work area, a third view instead of the second view, the third view comprising an object control mechanism, the selected at least one object, and the selected at least one sub-object; and displaying, in response to determining that the user has not selected any of the several sub-objects in the work area, a fourth view instead of the second view, the fourth view comprising an object control mechanism, the selected at least one object, and none of the several sub-objects.