Patent ID: 8645858

Claim:
A handheld electronic device for presenting and browsing in metadata, the display device comprising: a display for displaying a graphical user interface for browsing in metadata; a pointing device for receiving user input for browsing and selecting in the graphical user interface; a sensor for detecting rotation of the display device; a graphical user interface controller configured to: determine a hierarchical ordering of metadata arranged in different categories; represent each category by a menu of category entries in the displayed graphical user interface, wherein each menu of category entries is shown in a separate pane when displayed in the graphical user interface; determine rotation between different orientations of the display device by input from the sensor; and responsive to a rotation of the display device: maintain a pane in the displayed graphical user interface that comprises a menu of category entries (i) being browsed before the rotation and (ii) which corresponds to a last menu of category entries being subject to a user selection or navigation before the rotation; and add or remove at least one pane in the displayed graphical user interface that comprises an extra menu of category entries representing a hierarchical super- or sub-category of the category represented by the menu of category entries (i) being browsed before the rotation and (ii) which corresponds to the last menu of category entries being subject to the user selection or navigation before the rotation, wherein the pointing device is a multi point touchpad and wherein selection and browsing make use of multi-point touch gestures, and wherein the graphical user interface controller is further configured to determine, by input from the multi point touchpad, an expansion or pinching gesture of the user, and add or remove, respectively, at least one pane in the displayed graphical user interface that comprises a menu of category entries representing a hierarchical super- or sub-category, respectively, of the category represented by the menu of category entries being browsed when the expansion or pinching gesture of the user was determined, and further wherein responsive to an expansion gesture of the user with respect to a pane of a given category menu of various category menus in the displayed graphical user interface, the graphical user interface controller produces space for an additional pane within the displayed graphical user interface, wherein (i) displayed panes are reduced in dimension and (ii) menus of the displayed panes are skewed with a skewing angle in order to make space for the additional pane and still be visible to the user.