NavTracks: supporting navigation in software

Any modification to a software system involves investigating the source code with the goal of understanding it. In turn, this investigation usually requires significant navigation effort. However, relatively little research has been conducted on software developer navigation patterns and tool support for improving navigation. Our research addresses this issue. We present NavTracks, a tool that supports browsing through software. NavTracks keeps track of the navigation history of software developers, forming associations between related files. These associations are then used as the basis for recommending potentially related files as a developer browses the software system.