Described is a system and system by which application programs provide
data to auxiliary display device (that is associated with a main computer
system) for display, including at times when the main computer system is
powered down. The cache maintains the user data in association with
structured navigational information, to allow navigation within the data
via the structure. When online, the main computer system prepares the
data cache from program data in combination with navigational
information, and transfers the cache to an offline medium such as
auxiliary storage in firmware. The cache may be arranged as a tree
structure, such that navigation commands result in output according to
data in the tree. Other events such as time-based events can change the
auxiliary device output.