Patent ID: 8832598

Claim:
A file management apparatus, comprising: a storage unit that stores therein a plurality of pieces of file management information, each piece of file management information being associated with at least one file and serving as a unit for managing the associated at least one file; a first display control unit that displays, in a non-hierarchical, one level, two-dimensional matrix form including a plurality of places in two-dimensional form on a display, a plurality of symbol images including registered symbol images each of which corresponds to one piece of the file management information and an unregistered symbol image that is in an unregistered state and is not associated with the file management information, wherein the first display control unit displays all of the registered symbol images, corresponding to all of the file management information stored in the storage unit, at the one level in the non-hierarchical, two-dimensional matrix form, and the first display control unit displays the unregistered symbol image on one of edge places in the plurality of places in the two-dimensional matrix form; a receiving unit that receives an instruction from a user; a second display control unit that displays, when the receiving unit receives an instruction for selecting a first symbol image of the symbol images displayed on the display, a first thumbnail image of a file on the display, the first thumbnail image being stored in association with a first piece of the file management information corresponding to the first symbol image, and displays, when the receiving unit receives a shift instruction for shifting upward, downward, to the left, or to the right while the first thumbnail image is displayed on the display, a second thumbnail image of a file on the display instead of the first thumbnail image, the second thumbnail image being stored in association with a second piece of the file management information corresponding to a second symbol image placed in a direction indicated by the shift instruction from the first symbol image within the two-dimensional matrix, wherein the second display control unit displays thumbnail images on the display three-dimensionally; a third display control unit configured to display thumbnail images on the display two-dimensionally, wherein the three-dimensionally displayed thumbnail images displayed by the second display control unit are switchable to the two-dimensionally displayed thumbnail images displayed by the third display control unit in response to a switch instruction received from the user; and a fourth display control unit that reads, when the receiving unit receives an instruction for selecting a thumbnail image displayed on the display, a file corresponding to the selected thumbnail image, and displays the read file on the display.