Patent ID: 8682908

Claim:
An information processing apparatus comprising: a processor; a storage device; a display device that displays a list of files accessed by the processor and a portion of a plurality of items of attribute information of the files, the list being sorted using an item of the plurality of items of attribute information of the files as a sort key; a storing unit that stores in the storage device, upon receiving a sort key change command, information pertaining to current display positions of the files in a currently displayed list on the display device and information pertaining to the sort key used to sort the currently displayed list, the storing unit associating a number representing a display order of each file in the currently displayed list with a corresponding file name and storing the file name and the number representing the display order of each file in the storage device as display position information of each file; a display command unit that directs the display device to display a list of some or all of the plurality of items of attribute information in addition to the portion of the plurality of items of attribute information of the files already displayed, the list including one or more items of attribute information not included in the portion of the plurality of items of attribute information of the files; a selecting unit that selects another item of the plurality of items of attribute information of the files as a selected sort key from the list of some or all of the plurality of items of attribute information; a sorting unit that performs re-sorting operations on the currently displayed list using the selected sort key and generates a re-sorted list that is displayed by the display device; and a restoring unit that, upon receiving a restoration command, temporarily displays the re-sorted list on the display device and uses the information pertaining to the sort key and the display position information stored in the storage device to restore the temporarily displayed re-sorted list back to the list displayed prior to the execution of the re-sorting operations by the sorting unit, wherein the sort key change command is issued upon the information processing apparatus detecting that the currently displayed list is sorted, and the information pertaining to the current display positions of the files in the currently displayed list on the display device includes information of an actual order that the files are currently displayed.