Patent ID: 7627552

Claim:
In a computer system having a display and a memory for storing items with metadata properties, a method of filtering items, comprising: representing a plurality of items on the display, wherein individual items within the plurality of items have metadata properties, wherein a metadata property is a category of metadata and a metadata value is the entry in a metadata property for a specific item; displaying a quick link that is associated with a specified metadata value within a category of metadata; responsive to a user selection of the quick link, providing a view on the display of a first subset of the plurality of items associated with the specified metadata value; dynamically determining, in the computer system, a common metadata property that is associated with at least two of the plurality of items; representing a second subset the first subset of the plurality of items that are associated with the metadata property as a stack, wherein a stack is a virtual folder, and wherein the stack displays a number of items within the stack; selecting a first metadata value from an item within the second subset as a filter term; representing the filter term on the display; receiving a user selection of the filter term; and responsive to the user selection, reducing the items that are represented on the display by representing on the display only those items within the second subset that have the metadata value that corresponds to the filter term, wherein the representation of the stack is modified to indicate a new number of items within the second subset that have the meta data value.