Method And System For Defining Relationships Among Labels

Abstract

In a content system where labels are used to organize content, relationships between labels may be defined. A relationship may be unidirectional or bidirectional. A label may have multiple relationships to or from other labels. When the user selects a first label, information corresponding to a second label may be displayed in accordance with the relationship between the first and second labels. Relationships between labels may also be inferred by examining the labels and the content associated with the labels.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A user interface method, comprising:
 displaying on an electronic display a plurality of labels that can be applied to data items stored on a computer system, such labels being distinct from a logical storage scheme associated with the data items;   displaying on the electronic display a view of at least a subset of the data items;   enabling the user to associate with particular ones of the data items selected from the view at least one of the labels;   displaying on the electronic display a plurality of relationships that can exist between the labels;   enabling the user to define for one or more pairs of the labels at least one of the relationships;   enabling the user to select a specific label and, in response to such selection, displaying a view of at least a subset of the data items, wherein the subset of the data items is selected from:
 at least one of the data items associated with the specific label; and 
 at least one of the data items associated with one or more other labels with a defined relationship to the specific label. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the defined relationship is an arbitrary relationship between the specific label and the other label. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the defined relationship comprises one of the group consisting of: a child-of relationship, a synonym-of relationship, a more-important-than relationship, a prerequisite-of relationship, a member-of-relationship, a related-to relationship, and a current-version-of relationship. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user is a particular user in a plurality of users, further comprising:
 enabling a first group of at least two of the plurality of users to associate labels with at least a subset of the data items; and   enabling a second group of at least two of the plurality of users to define relationships among at least a subset of the labels;   wherein the subset of the data items displayed in response to selection by the particular user of one of the labels is based on the relationships defined for the one label by the second group.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising: discovering relationships among a second subset of the labels in view of instances in which different ones of the second subset of the labels are assigned to a particular data item.