Patent ID: 8732597

Claim:
A method for displaying content items on a computer display, comprising: displaying the content items within a display area on the computer display, wherein the content items appear to a user to be located on a plane in the computer display, and wherein content items surrounding a current point of interest are displayed within a visible region of the display area; receiving a selected content item that is selected from the content items by the user, wherein the selected content item is between a first set of the content items and a second set of the content items; when the visible region has insufficient space to display some of the content items, selecting a portion of the content items to be collapsed, wherein the portion of the content items comprises the first set and the second set of the content items; collapsing the selected content items into at least two folds within the display area, wherein one of the folds corresponds to the first set of the content items and another of the folds corresponds to the second set of the content items, and wherein each fold in the folds appears to the user to be an inset area in the plane that conceals the corresponding set of the content items; and for each fold in the folds, displaying a summary for the corresponding set of the content items in a portion of the inset area for the fold, wherein the summary comprises a set of visual cues that include a first visual cue for the fold and a second visual cue for the fold, wherein clicking on the first visual cue causes the fold to expand into the visible region from a first content item in the fold down to another content item that is after the first content item in the fold, and wherein clicking on the second visual cue causes the fold to expand into the visible region from a last content item in the fold up to another content item that is before the last content item in the fold.