Method and apparatus for incorporating expandable and collapsible options in a graphical user interface

摘要

A graphical user interface ("GUI") incorporating one or more subpanels. Each subpanel has a presentation control and can have one or more GUI objects displayed on the computer screen. Each subpanel may be toggled between an expanded state or a collapsed state by operating the presentation control. Expanding and collapsing the subpanels changes the appearance and the functionality of the GUI, but the size of area of the screen used by the subpanels remains unchanged.