Patent ID: 8122359

Claim:
An apparatus for topological display, the apparatus comprising: a storage device storing a computer readable program; a processor executing the computer readable program, the computer readable program comprising: an input/output (I/O) module receiving a selection of a user interface element (UIE); a topology display module displaying a topology view of the selected UIE and child UIEs of the selected UIE; and a relationship display module displaying navigation relationships between parent UIEs and child UIEs, the navigation relationships comprising a modified navigation relationship indicator (NRI) with a first appearance for each navigation relationship between UIEs wherein at least one UIE in the navigation relationship comprises modified functionality, the modified functionality comprising added plug-in functions and upgraded functions, a new NRI with a second appearance for each navigation relationship between UIEs wherein at least one UIE in the navigation relationship comprises new functionality, and an existing NRI with a third appearance for each navigation relationship between UIEs wherein no UIE in the navigation relationship comprises modified functionality and no UIE in the navigation relationship comprises new functionality.