Hierarchical user interface

摘要

In one embodiment, one or more components of a user interface are arranged in a hierarchy of layers. The user interface is presented according to the structure of the hierarchy, with one or more first components from a first layer floating on top of a second component from a second layer beneath the first layer. The first components are children of the second components. A user may interact with components uniformly, meaning that each specific user interaction applied to each component results in similar response from each component.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
arranging a plurality of components on a user interface in a hierarchy, the hierarchy having one or more layers and each layer having at least one of the components of the user interface; presenting the user interface according to a structure of the hierarchy, comprising:
presenting one or more child objects in the hierarchy as floating on top of, and covering at least a portion of, one or more parent objects, the first-level child objects being child components of at least one of the parent objects according to the structure of the hierarchy, the first-level child objects being presented in a first layer of the user interface and the parent objects being presented in a second layer of the user interface beneath the first layer,presenting one or more second-level child objects in the hierarchy as floating on top of, and covering at least a portion of, the one or more child objects according to the structure of the hierarchy, the second-level child objects being presented in a third layer above the first layer,wherein the first-level child objects are presented as a strip of a plurality of thumbnail versions of content that are floating across a length of a scroll direction of content across the user interface, or a length of a direction perpendicular to the scroll direction across the user interface,wherein each of the first-level child objects is displayed with a first border surrounding the child object, and each of the parent objects is displayed with a second border surrounding the parent object different from the first border of the child object, andwherein content of each first-level child object is linked with at least one parent object; and enabling a user to interact with the first-level child objects and parent objects uniformly, such that when the user interacts with one of the first-level child objects using a user interaction of a group of user interactions, the user can interact with one of the parent objects using the same user interaction after interacting with the one of the first-level child objects, enabling a user to lock the first-level child objects to their respective linked parent objects, such that movement of the child object generates corresponding movement of the linked parent object, wherein when the user selects one of the first-level child objects by selecting one of the thumbnail versions of content, the thumbnail version expands to display content corresponding to the thumbnail version of content on the user interface, and wherein when the user interface transitions from the second layer to the first layer, the parent objects are displayed to fade out of the user interface and the first-level child objects are displayed to fade into the user interface.