System and method for scrolling among categories in a list of documents
View Patent ↗A system and method is provided to assist a user in selecting, identifying, and handling email messages. A selection color module may provide for the display of color coding and selection highlighting. The selection color module may provide a secondary highlighting color to indicate messages related to a selected message. A category navigation module may provide one or more of the following: an indicator that provides the user with a number of items that are off the screen for a particular category, a command that causes the first entry for a category to be scrolled into view, a label to indicate the number of items in a particular category matching a particular criteria, and/or a control for scrolling between next or previous categories.
1. A method for presenting categories of related items to a user via a display, the display presented using a display device and having a plurality of display lines, the method comprising:
presenting at least a portion of a list, the list comprising:
a plurality of related items separated into different categories, the related items for each of the different categories being consecutively grouped together; and
a plurality of category separators, each category separator (i) pertaining to and positioned in the list adjacent to one of the categories of consecutively-grouped related items and (ii) having a separate displayed area when presented;
providing a separate scroll mechanism positioned inside the displayed area of each corresponding presented category separator that is configured for automatically scrolling directly, via a single user-action, to another category separator that pertains to another category of consecutively-grouped related items; and
in response to user-selection of a presented scroll mechanism, automatically scrolling directly to another category separator such that the another category separator is displayed on the same display line where the presented category separator associated with the user-selected scroll mechanism was previously displayed.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein providing the scroll mechanism comprises:
presenting the category separator with a first mechanism configured for automatically scrolling directly to a category separator that pertains to a previous category of related items; and
presenting the category separator with a second mechanism configured for automatically scrolling directly to a category separator that pertains to a next category of related items.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting the category separator comprises presenting the category separator with a mechanism for contracting the category of related items for which it pertains to.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein presenting the category separator further comprises presenting the category separator with a mechanism for expanding the category of related items for which it pertains to.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting the category separator comprises presenting the category separator with indicia corresponding to a number of items in the category for which it pertains to that correspond to a particular criteria.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the number of items in the category for which it pertains to that correspond to a particular criteria includes at least one of a number of items in the category, a number of the items in the category having a particular status, or a number of items in the category having a particular level of importance.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the items are electronic messages.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
maintaining a presented category separator at a predetermined position on the display in response to one or more actions by the user once the category separator reaches the predetermined position of the display.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the predetermined position is the top line of the display.
10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
removing the category separator from the display when none of related items thereof are currently presented.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting a category separator comprises presenting the category separator with indicia corresponding to a number of items in the category that are not currently presented.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein if a first item of a presented category is not currently presented,
presenting a mechanism configured for automatically scrolling the first item of the presented category into view; and
in response to user-selection of the mechanism, automatically scrolling the first item of the presented category into view.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the presented categories remain in their positions relative to one another in the list, in response to changing the presented category to another category.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein only the presented category is scrolled, in response to scrolling the presented category to another category, such that other presented categories remain presented.
15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the single user-action comprises: receiving a single click of a mouse from the user.
16. The method of claim 1 , wherein related items are grouped together by category according to: date, author, subject matter, or importance.
17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
presenting a scroll bar in the display that is configured to enable a user to manually scroll the list.