Filtering RDF trees

I have seen a few posts here regarding filtering a tree based on some 
criteria like Thunderbird's "quick search" mechanism, but I haven't 
found any really useful answers.

I see Thunderbird uses the nsMessageScope interfaces etc, which won't be 
available on Firefox.

The way I'm thinking currently:

1. Create a broadcaster that the <treeitem> listens for the "hidden" 
attribute. Use a timed <textbox> that sets this attribute to hide the 
treeitems then, run through selectively unhiding treeitems whose 
treecells match. I suspect this maybe a little slow.

2. Create an overlaid template whose <rules> are based on the search 
values of the criteria, then just get the tree to rebuild. Again, here 
I'm not sure how one would handle partial matches in the rule.

I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but I want to filter the tree 
not the datasource, as other UI elements will be using the same datasource.

If anyone has any thoughts or ideas, I'd much appreciate it.

Cheers,


Neil