Patent ID: 7343568

Claim:
A method for managing navigation in mobile devices, comprising: providing a user interface in a mobile device; constructing a mobile photo album directory as a tree-shaped hierarchy of nodes; providing the directory such that any node on the directory is selectable by a user via the user interface, whereby navigation can flow up-down through the directory; associating a state and one or more action items with each node; saving the state of each node, the state being an expanded or collapsed condition of the node, wherein if the state of a particular node is expanded additional nodes at a lower level of the hierarchy are presented to the user, otherwise if the state is collapsed only that particular node is presented and the other nodes are hidden; and for a node selected by the user providing in the user interface the node's associated one or more action items in a menu, wherein the menu is displayable on the mobile device's screen as a pull-down menu or a pop-up menu, and displaying a photo associated with the node selected by the user, wherein the photo is downloaded from a server onto the mobile device, wherein the action items include save to mobile, email photo, thumbnails, online albums, home, or a combination thereof, and selection of an action item brings up a page that corresponds to the action item, wherein selection of home causes display of a page having mobile album and online album options, wherein the mobile album is an album of photos stored locally on the mobile device, and the online album is an album of photos stored on the server, selection of online album allows the user to access and manipulate photo images that have been uploaded to the server, and selection of mobile album allows the user to access and manipulate photo images that have been downloaded from the server into the mobile album.