Patent ID: 8091037

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing an overview of an object, the method comprising: receiving a request to display to a user a first object in a graphical user interface (GUI) of a computer system, the first object being one of multiple objects that are contained in the computer system, the multiple objects having more than one object type, some of the multiple objects being associated with the first object; displaying an overview screen on the GUI in response to the request, the overview screen comprising: a first GUI component for presenting attributes of the first object; and at least one second GUI component, each second GUI component for presenting information from a group of objects that are associated with the first object and that are of an object type that is assigned to the second GUI component, each second GUI component being configured to operate in (i) an auto load mode where the second GUI component with the information is automatically loaded and presented upon the overview screen being displayed, and (ii) a deferred load mode where the second GUI component is presented upon the overview screen being displayed but the information is loaded and presented upon the user activating the second GUI component that has been displayed in the overview screen, wherein each second GUI component uses one of the auto load mode and the deferred load mode based on a single operation mode setting specific to the second GUI component, the operation mode setting for each second GUI component being read in response to the request and before loading the information, wherein the single operation mode setting of each second GUI component is read when presenting the second GUI component in response to requests to display to the user objects of a certain type in the first GUI component, and wherein another single operation mode setting of the second GUI component is read when presenting the second GUI component in response to requests to display to the user objects of a different type in the first GUI component; receiving user selection in a particular second GUI component of the at least one second GUI component of an input control that identifies a selected object from the group of objects that are of a type assigned to the particular second GUI component; updating the first GUI component to present attributes of the selected object as opposed to attributes of the first object; and updating the at least one second GUI component to display information for one or more groups of objects that are associated with the selected object as opposed to one or more groups of objects that are associated with the first object, wherein the one or more groups of objects that are associated with the selected object can include the first object.