Exploring information by topic

A system comprising one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

• determining, from a user input, a topic;
• selecting a first node from a plurality of nodes, wherein the first node is a collection of data about the topic;
• identifying a stack of threadlets that are sequentially viewable by a user starting from a first threadlet visited at a top of the stack until a last threadlet at a bottom of the stack, each threadlet associated with a role of the threadlet, wherein the first threadlet of the stack of threadlets includes i) an instance of the first node and ii) a projection menu that includes a respective link to each of one or more projections, and wherein each of the one or more projections includes one or more second threadlets of the stack of threadlets that are instances of nodes that share a relationship to the topic, and the stack of threadlets indicating a particular linear path of nodes of the plurality of nodes;
• providing, for display in a user interface, a maximized representation of the first threadlet based on determining that the first threadlet has a body threadlet role, the body threadlet role indicating that the first threadlet was a last visited threadlet of the stack of sequentially viewable threadlets;
• receiving a user input selecting a particular projection from the one or more projections of the first threadlet;
• and
• in response to receiving the user input:
• i) updating a role of a particular second threadlet associated with the particular projection to the body threadlet role and updating the role of the first threadlet from the body threadlet role to a tail threadlet role, the tail threadlet role indicating the first threadlet was previously visited, and
• ii) providing, for display in the user interface, a) a maximized representation of the particular second threadlet associated with the selected particular projection based on determining that the particular second threadlet has a body threadlet role, and b) a minimized representation of the first threadlet instead of the maximized representation of the first threadlet based on determining that the first threadlet has the tail threadlet role, the minimized representation of the first threadlet provided for display adjacent to the maximized representation of the particular second threadlet.

A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

• determining, from a user input, a topic;
• selecting a first node from a plurality of nodes, wherein the first node is a collection of data about the topic;
• identifying a stack of threadlets that are sequentially viewable by a user starting from a first threadlet visited at a top of the stack until a last threadlet at a bottom of the stack, each threadlet associated with a role of the threadlet, wherein the first threadlet of the stack of threadlets includes i) an instance of the first node and ii) a projection menu that includes a respective link to each of one or more projections, and wherein each of the one or more projections includes one or more second threadlets of the stack of threadlets that are instances of nodes that share a relationship to the topic, and the stack of threadlets indicating a particular linear path of nodes of the plurality of nodes;
• providing, for display in a user interface, a maximized representation of the first threadlet based on determining that the first threadlet has a body threadlet role, the body threadlet role indicating that the first threadlet was a last visited threadlet of the stack of sequentially viewable threadlets;
• receiving a user input selecting a particular projection from the one or more projections of the first threadlet;
• and
• in response to receiving the user input:
• i) updating a role of a particular second threadlet associated with the particular projection to the body threadlet role and updating the role of the first threadlet from the body threadlet role to a tail threadlet role, the tail threadlet role indicating the first threadlet was previously visited,
• ii) providing, for display in the user interface, a) a maximized representation of the particular second threadlet associated with the selected particular projection based on determining that the particular second threadlet has a body threadlet role, and b) a minimized representation of the first threadlet instead of the maximized representation of the first threadlet based on determining that the first threadlet has the tail threadlet role, the minimized representation of the first threadlet provided for display adjacent to the maximized representation of the particular second threadlet.