Branch view

[myrnalarson]

I've used Branch View in the past, but today it wasn't working.

I discovered the problem: on the View menu, Show items, I had unchecked Show Folders in List.

From the discussion in Help, I can see why this happens. But is this an 'unintended consequence'? Is it possible (or desirable) to ignore that setting when doing the recursive search for files?

[admin]

But is this an 'unintended consequence'?

Well, I'd say it's a logical consequence.

(moved topic to "Tips & Tricks, Questions & Answers")

[myrnalarson]

Except that Branch view, once it has been invoked, can show 1) files and folders, 2) files only, or 3) folders only.

Why should the view before branch view is invoked (in my situation it was files only) affect whether Branch view works at all?

The program 'knows', under the hood, that the folders exist. It should be able to search that existing file structure, whether some of the items (i.e. folders) are displayed or not. As it is, the assumption seems to be "If you can't see it, it doesn't exist."

[admin]

Yes, I agree. I think with this combination of settings the result should be identical to Branch view type "files only". The folders are recursed but not shown themselves.

Note that there has been a longer discussion on this: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16422

And now I'm about to change my mind in this way: I will still hide folders that are HIDDEN or SYSTEM if those are set to be hidden by the user. But I will let pass folders that are just hidden by the "Hide Folders in List" setting.

[myrnalarson]

That sounds good to me.

Another thought I had about the current situation: if the Branch View button shows only files in the current folder, the user might assume that it has no sub-folders. Only when the tree is displayed in the side panel, it is immediately obvious that isn't true, and one has to search for the way to get Branch View working again.

PS: Branch View, for me is REALLY HELPFUL!

[myrnalarson]

Also, thanks for pointing out the previous discussion. Before posting, I did search for something similar, but didn't find this. I obviously didn't use the right words -- I wasn't aware of the 'shorthand', i.e. BV

[bdeshi]

@myrnalarson "BV" alone wouldn't have returned anything anyway since it's too short for a search string (less than three letters).

Anyways, thanks @Don, for finally knocking this off the wishlist.

[myrnalarson]

I infer from your proffered 'thanks' that I'm not alone in this