Patent ID: 7814437

Claim:
A method comprising: displaying a hierarchical representation of one or more related items and sub-items in a tree structure, wherein at least an item of said items has a sub-item that is displayed as being subservient to said item by associating a symbol to represent said item as having said subservient sub-item; and further displaying said tree structure to include a check-box associated with and displayed next to each of said items and sub-items, wherein said check-box of each of said items and sub-items is checked, unchecked, or half-checked indicating said items and sub-items as being opened, closed, or partially opened, respectively, said tree structure having check-boxes to eliminate manual opening of each said items and sub-items to determine their corresponding status, said check-boxes having a check-box corresponding to an item of said items, said check-box when checked results in checking of sub-items associated with said item, said check-box when unchecked results in unchecking of said associated sub-items, and said check-box when half-checked results in one or more of associated sub-items being checked and remaining associated sub-items being unchecked, wherein a checked/unchecked status of each of said associated sub-items relating to said check-box being half-checked is preserved and said preserved status of each associated sub-item is re-displayed each time said check-box is half-checked; and associating Boolean values to each of said items and sub-items via one or more modules, the module having the Boolean values representing configuration settings of said items and sub-items to facilitate conversion of textual representation of said items and sub-items into the hierarchical representation of said items and sub-items in the tree structure.