Patent ID: 7818689

Claim:
An information managing method of managing a plurality of information files stored in at least one of information storage sections of an information processing apparatus or another information processing apparatus connected to the information processing apparatus via a network, wherein the plurality of information files are managing objects, the method comprising: (a) acquiring one or two classification standards which are standards to classify the information files; (b) selecting one of classification units of each of the acquired classification standards; (c) classifying the information files which are managing objects for each of the acquired classification standards and the selected one of the classification units; (d) producing a file object which represents each classified information file; (e) disposing and displaying the classification unit in a one-dimensional direction on a display screen of a display device, and disposing the file object produced for each classification unit in another one-dimensional direction, in a case where one classification standard is acquired; (f) disposing and displaying the produced file object of the information file in each of two-dimensionally divided regions in a case where two classification standards are acquired, the two-dimensionally divided regions being obtained by dividing the display screen for each classification unit of one classification standard in a predetermined one-dimensional direction and for each classification unit of the other classification standard in the other predetermined one-dimensional direction; (g) producing a list of items including the file attributes or the data attributes of a plurality of information files which are the managing objects as a classification standard list; (h) selecting at least one item as the classification standard from the classification standard list; (i) limiting a range of values of the attribute with respect to the selected file attribute or data attribute; (j) selecting an information file having the attribute value in the limited range from a plurality of information files which are the managing objects, and setting the information file as a new second managing object; executing the process of (a) to (f) with respect to the second managing object; selecting a plurality of second file objects from a plurality of first file objects classified and displayed on the display screen; setting a plurality of information files corresponding to the plurality of selected second file objects as new managing objects; and executing the process of (a) to (f) again, wherein the file object representing the information file is an icon representing the information file by a diagram or a file name displayed by a text, and wherein the classification unit includes items divided by at least a file attribute of the information file or a data attribute of data included in the information file.