Patent ID: 7984388

Claim:
A method of displaying a plurality of items in a hierarchical tree structure, the method comprising: selecting at least one child item in a plurality of items residing in a hierarchical tree structure, wherein the at least one child item is a child of at least one other item in the plurality of items; selectively associating, in response to selecting the at least one child, a visibility state with the at least one child item; modifying a current view of the hierarchical tree structure by one of collapsing at least a viewable portion of the hierarchical tree structure, wherein the viewable portion comprises at least the at least one child item and its immediate parent item, and expanding the portion of the hierarchical tree structure; and dynamically adjusting the current view which has been modified, wherein the dynamically adjusting includes applying the visibility state that has been selectively associated with the at least one child item to its immediate parent in response to i) collapsing the viewable portion at a parent of the immediate parent of the at least one child item and ii) the visibility state being set to visible; and displaying the at least one child item simultaneously with its immediate parent in response to i) collapsing the viewable portion at the parent of the immediate parent of the at least one child item; ii) the visibility state being set to visible; and iii) applying the visibility state to the immediate parent.