Re: Patches improving tree view (multi-root and auto-follow)

[Darryl Rees <rees netnam vn>]

Alexander Larsson wrote:

> The main use cases i see for the tree-view is:
> a) quick browsing for a specific directory. select it and it loads in
> the main view.
> b) drag-destination for file copying. Position the tree in the right
> place, navigate the view to the source directory and dnd the files.
>
> For both these operations the current behaviour is pretty much optimial.
> What are the operation you want the tree-follows-view behaviour for?
>
> maybe:
> c) copy files to the parent directory of the directory they're in now
> d) get an idea of where in the tree the current directory is.
>
> Is there anything else? And is there a possible behaviour that allows
> that operation but doesn't break the other?
>
>  

As you know windows has always had treeview-follows-main-view (as does 
squeak, but squeak doesn't show subdirs of cwd). I can't remember having 
seen a file-mangler with a treeview that doesn't follow the mainview, 
other than nautilus.

When I use windows machines, I simply navigate with the treeview ALL the 
time. It's much quicker than going up up up up down down down or 
whatever. It's more 'visual' in terms of seeing the heirarchy. Hard to 
say its good for this or that in a reductionist kind of way, its just 
integral to the way I use the browser. Currently I don't really use the 
treeview so much in nautilus, precisely because for me its pretty 
useless without treeview-follows-main-view - I tend to type directly 
into the location bar. But I 'd just love to use it again if/when this 
patch is integrated.

In principle it doesn't break your (a) or (b). For (a) if anything 
treeview-follows-main-view is better? (if you wanted to copy to parent 
or grand-subfolder, for instance).

For (b), after you get your source dir in the main view, then you have 
to make sure your destination dir is in the treeview. You have to do 
that whether you have treeview-follows or not. I understand that if:
(1) you do not use the treeview for navigating (in which case it would 
be open at cwd anyway), and
(2) the treeview opens up a big heirarchy in the current working 
directory, and
(3) you previously had the destination dir in sight in the treeview
then there is a possiblity that the destination dir which was previously 
in sight in the treeview will now be pushed out of sight and necessitate 
scrolling of the treeview.

But in actual-use, I don't find this a problem. Just my opinion.

Regards,
Long.