Patent ID: 7499925

Claim:
In a computer system having a display, a method for displaying items, the method comprising: defining a scope of a plurality of physical memory locations from which items are to be drawn, the scope comprising a present computer memory and at least one other physical location, the items including metadata properties that facilitate grouping the items into categories; receiving a query; in response to the query, retrieving data from a virtual folder description database said data comprises a list of types of the items to display in one or more virtual folders, and the physical locations of the items; drawing items from the plurality of physical memory locations whose metadata properties are defined by the query, wherein drawing items from the plurality of physical memory locations comprises: (a) inspecting a relational database that stores the metadata properties of the items; (b) matching the query against metadata properties of the items within the scope; and (c) drawing the matching items according to the data retrieved in response to the query; and presenting the items defined by the query in a view on the display within one or more virtual folders based on the metadata properties of the drawn items instead of an actual physical underlying file system, wherein the view on the display can be switched from the one or more virtual folders to a location-dependent view which indicates physical locations where the items are stored on the actual physical underlying files system, wherein the items drawn from the query include both file items and non-file items, and wherein the non-file items are items stored in the relational database and not in the plurality of physical memory locations.