Patent ID: 7287018

Claim:
A method of browsing electronically-accessible resources using descriptions of the resources, said method comprising the steps of: generating descriptions of the electronically-accessible resources, the generated descriptions being separate from the content of the resources and comprising descriptor components classified as either table-of-contents descriptor components or index descriptor components, each said table-of-contents descriptor component having a link to a corresponding portion of the electronically-accessible resources; displaying items for selection, each displayed item corresponding to a table-of-contents descriptor component of a generated description; receiving a selection of one or more of said displayed items; displaying further items for selection, the further items corresponding to index descriptor components that are associated with one or more table-of-contents descriptor components corresponding to the selected one or more of said displayed items; receiving a selection of one of said displayed further items; providing a representative value associated with said selected further item; forming a query from the index descriptor component corresponding to said selected one of said displayed further items and said provided representative value; searching said generated descriptions to return one or more table-of-contents descriptor components that satisfy said query and are contained in the one or more table-of-contents descriptor components corresponding to the selected one or more of said displayed items; and displaying for selection one or more still further items corresponding to said returned one or more table-of-contents descriptor components.