to make it clear to a user which pictorial element is being moused over at a given time preferably the listing which is brought to the top of the list of contents 34 is highlighted or otherwise distinguished from the remainder of the list in a preferred embodiment the invention provides for a choice between different hierarchies for the same set of entities for example in a hierarchy of file folders and files the only real physical entities are the files while the file folders are just logical groupings while these logical groupings may make sense for one user they may not make sense for another user according to the invention a method is provided which permits a user to select between different containment hierarchies for this embodiment collectively somewhere in either the computer system software or storage devices the various different hierarchies must be stored preferably a screen switch is provided on the display which allows a user to switch between the different available containment hierarchies preferably an option exists to switch between the display of different hierarchies for a given file entity in the illustrated embodiment of fig3 an area 80 of the display contains two screen switches.