How to visualize a long conversation thread?

开发者_StackOverflow中文版

Suppose I have a long conversation thread (A replied to B, which replied to C, which replied to D, etc.). I would like to display the entire conversation as a tree but what if the tree does not fit the window?

I can display the whole tree anyway but the user will have to scroll the window left/right and up/down. Are there any better solution?

Do you know examples of UI (web/desktop), which display large trees (not only conversations) properly?

---

There is the very cool Remail project, which has arc diagrams for email threads among other interesting views. The arc diagrams were incorporated into the Thunderbird plugin, ThreadVis.

SpaceTree is another interesting research project for showing large trees with limited space:

SpaceTree is a novel tree browser that builds on the conventional layout node link diagrams along a single preferred direction. It adds dynamic rescaling of branches of the tree to best fit the available screen space, optimized camera movement, and the use of preview icons summarizing the topology of the branches that cannot be expanded. In addition, it includes integrated search and filter functions. This paper reflects on the evolution of the design and highlights the principles that emerged from it. A controlled experiment showed benefits for navigation tasks to already previously visited nodes and estimation of overall tree topology.