Expand/Collapse via side mouse buttons

ivan · Post by **ivan** » 30 Jun 2008 13:30

Hello,

First of all, congrats on 7.30, great to see things moving at a break-neck pace

Onto my feature wish...

Many mice these days have 2 buttons on the side that are great for going back/forward between pages in your browser. Having had it on my Logitech MX400 Laser for about 6 months I just can't live without them

I don't know how many people know but those buttons can also be used with XYplorer and they work well. Now imagine this situation:

1. I browse down the tree (to some subfolder in a folder in Program Files or whatever). Obviously, for that I need to browse down the tree and expand folders into lists of other folders.

2. So, hypothetically, this is the way I would go: C:\ --> Program Files --> ABC --> XYZ, clicking on each of those folders.

3. I then backtrack collapsing the folder lists as I go.

4. Now that I'm back to C:\, if I click the "Back" side button on the mouse, it takes me step by step back to that XYZ folder that I just came from. This will result in folder lists to be expanded once again.

5. Here's the interesting part. Once I reach XYZ with those side button actions, if I start clicking with the "Forward" side button, it will take me back all the way up to C:\, which is perfect.

The one thing this "Forward" action doesn't do is collapse the tree lists as I go back up to C:\. If this was to be implemented then it would be fantastic. Clearly the mechanism for expanding tree lists for the "back" action is there but the collapsing mechanism for "forward" isn't. The potential of this is huge because in a few quick clicks I could be back where I was at the top of the tree and I don't have to fiddle with the bottom slider and make sure I don't miss the "[-]" that's next to a folder list with my cursor.

Is it asking too much or the great convenience is just too tempting? Thanks in advance.

ivan · Post by **ivan** » 03 Jul 2008 10:26

Is something like this unlikely to come in the near future or the power of the mouse will be upgraded to almighty?

Post by **admin** » 03 Jul 2008 10:43

ivan wrote:Is something like this unlikely to come in the near future or the power of the mouse will be upgraded to almighty?

From the length of your explanation it does not seem to be a very natural behavior.

What do others think?

jacky · Post by **jacky** » 03 Jul 2008 11:27

admin wrote:
ivan wrote:Is something like this unlikely to come in the near future or the power of the mouse will be upgraded to almighty?
From the length of your explanation it does not seem to be a very natural behavior. What do others think?

No, doesn't sound natural to me either... Plus, if we're talking about History retaining the nodes state, scrolling position, etc that might be a lot of stuff for not much, really (I feel).

But I'm wondering if some might be interested in an option so that XY always expands the current node and collapses all others, so that wherever you are there's always only one node expanded on Tree : the current one.

I'm not sure if this would be doable, or liked (I know I wouldn't want it), but...

ivan · Post by **ivan** » 03 Jul 2008 11:52

Being a Java programmer myself, I kinda got used to garbage collection.

It's clearly natural for the tree to expand as you go down it I was wondering if it would be possible for the tree to collapse back as I go back up the chain. You can call it FlexTree if you want, it's not trademarked. Vertical space is the one that's always more limited than horizontal so something like this would have XYplorer tidying things up as you go along. Sure, something like this is not for everybody but if people can gradually embrace it then I am certain it will grown on them.

fishgod · Post by **fishgod** » 06 Jul 2008 21:42

ivan wrote:Being a Java programmer myself, I kinda got used to garbage collection.

It's clearly natural for the tree to expand as you go down it I was wondering if it would be possible for the tree to collapse back as I go back up the chain. [...]

I fully agree with you, most the time I spend on the tree is clicking on the tiny [-]-buttons. Also STRG+SHIFT+F4 (rebuild tree) works very well for me, but its anoying to press it so often.

There is no need for a history of open/closed tree-branches for me, a simple auto-collapse-all-branches-deeper-then-the-current-path would be very great for me.

But this should be possible to turned on and off to fit to all users.

Post by **admin** » 21 Jul 2008 11:02

fishgod wrote:
ivan wrote:Being a Java programmer myself, I kinda got used to garbage collection.

It's clearly natural for the tree to expand as you go down it I was wondering if it would be possible for the tree to collapse back as I go back up the chain. [...]
I fully agree with you, most the time I spend on the tree is clicking on the tiny [-]-buttons. Also STRG+SHIFT+F4 (rebuild tree) works very well for me, but its anoying to press it so often.

There is no need for a history of open/closed tree-branches for me, a simple auto-collapse-all-branches-deeper-then-the-current-path would be very great for me.

But this should be possible to turned on and off to fit to all users.

Numpad+Divide (you can assign any other key of course) does fully collapse the current branch.

Auto-collapse branch... could get quite annoying IMO.

ivan · Post by **ivan** » 25 Jul 2008 17:55

admin wrote:Auto-collapse branch... could get quite annoying IMO.

Then people don't have to use it. It is meant to be a special wish that wouldn't necessarily apply to the masses

Post by **admin** » 25 Jul 2008 21:06

ivan wrote:
admin wrote:Auto-collapse branch... could get quite annoying IMO.
Then people don't have to use it. It is meant to be a special wish that wouldn't necessarily apply to the masses

ivan, do you have the impression that I don't know what to do with my loads of free time? you are posting wishes like a machine gun out of control. you know, i myself am the type of guy that comes out of the loo with 10 new brilliant ideas 4 times a day.

know these 2 things:
(1) i could cover the walls of versailles, the pentagon, and my loo with my todo lists and still have enough to make a big fire!
(2) the basic idea of XY is not to do everything possible; it is to do everything i like!

ivan · Post by **ivan** » 27 Jul 2008 17:07

admin wrote:(2) the basic idea of XY is not to do everything possible; it is to do everything i like!

I hope you weren't meant this in the way I interpreted when I read it for the first time. If the development of XY is just about what you like then I see it being kind of pointless to have this wishes part of forum

Post by **admin** » 27 Jul 2008 20:19

ivan wrote:
admin wrote:(2) the basic idea of XY is not to do everything possible; it is to do everything i like!
I hope you weren't meant this in the way I interpreted when I read it for the first time. If the development of XY is just about what you like then I see it being kind of pointless to have this wishes part of forum

Why? I might like your wishes!

ivan · Post by **ivan** » 28 Jul 2008 11:06

admin wrote:Why? I might like your wishes!

That's a different kettle of fish. For you to like a wish you've got to be actually using the wished feature on more or less frequent basis. It makes further sense because people who wish for something are wishing because it's something they'd do often. Now you only have a certain amount of time during a day to do things, so doing everything that XY offers at least once a day is almost impossible, would you not agree?

Therefore, one can create the following chain: wish -> you like? -> if yes then added -> used often -> less time to use other "wishes"

Looks to me that you hinging your decision on whether you like it or not would actually be constricting the XY's development. I just think sometimes it should be less about what you like and be about what other people like, but it's your product and you develop it the way you want