Patent ID: 7203701

Claim:
A method for navigating and displaying a plurality of relational objects, the method comprising: receiving a selection input; identifying, based on the selection input, a focus node, the focus node being one of a plurality of relational objects, wherein: the plurality of relational objects comprise a node link structure; the node link structure further comprising a plurality of hierarchies of nodes; a first of the plurality of hierarchies shares the focus node with a second of the plurality of hierarchies; the focus node has a first parent node in the first hierarchy and a second parent node in the second hierarchy; the focus node is a parent node for a first child sub-tree of one or more nodes in the first hierarchy and is a parent node for a second child sub-tree of one or more nodes in the second hierarchy; the first hierarchy does not include the second child sub-tree of one or more nodes; and the second hierarchy does not include the first child sub-tree of one or more nodes; displaying the focus node on a display medium; determining a context for the focus node, wherein determining a context for the focus node includes receiving a selection identifying one of the first and second parent nodes and the context identifies the hierarchy containing the parent node identified by the received selection; and displaying the parent node and at least one child sub-tree from the hierarchy identified by the determined context without displaying the parent node and child sub-tree in the hierarchy not identified by the determined context.