Patent ID: 8302024

Claim:
A paging control method enabling a user to navigate through a plurality of data elements displayed on a display of a computer of the user, a subset of the plurality of data elements being displayable in each of a plurality of pages, the plurality of pages including at least a first page and a last page, the method comprising: (a) designating paging control elements for the first and last pages; (b) receiving information identifying a currently selected page; (c) when the currently selected page is either the first page or the last page: determining whether additional paging control elements are to be displayed according to either a serial progressive approach or a binary subdivision approach and choosing between these approaches for subsequent display of paging control elements, and designating additional paging control elements for display between the paging control elements for the first and last pages in accordance with the approach chosen in the determining; (d) when the currently selected page is between the first and last pages: determining, for a first sub-range corresponding to a range between the first page and the currently selected page, whether additional paging control elements are to be displayed according to either a serial progressive approach or a binary subdivision approach and choosing between these approaches for subsequent display of paging control elements, determining, for a second sub-range corresponding to a range between the currently selected page and the last page, whether additional paging control elements are to be displayed according to either a serial progressive approach or a binary subdivision approach and choosing between these approaches for subsequent display of paging control elements, and designating additional paging control elements for display between the paging control elements for the first and last pages in accordance with the approaches chosen for the first and second sub-ranges in the determining; and (e) formatting the currently selected page for display on the display of the user such that it includes all designated paging control elements.