Importance

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Abstract

Method and apparatus of accessing and displaying hierarachical files on an electronic workstation screen that includes: (1) an Open Next-To operation that opens a separate window for a file to prevent the window from which the file was originally opened from being obscured, (2) a combination of both Open Next-To and Open-Within operations for opening different combinations, (3) 'Chording' for displaying general options and depth display options to give the user a choice of a window OPEN method and hierarchical display depth as well as a choice of selecting 'display all levels' format, (4) a FIND capability that enables finding of strings in a folder display, including forward and backward search and automatic text type conversion based on selection, (5) Iconic Pretty-Printing, that is, the icon optionally combined with text is offset as a function of its depth in a hierarchy including, (6) Folding of the display when the indentation reaches a desired column width, (7) a visual method of indicating the extent of the contents of a folder or directory, including visual highlighting indicating the files that will be affected by any operation, e.g. copy, move, or delete, and (8) the visualization of nested hierarchical relationships for movement of icons and folders.

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First Claim