XYplorer Beta Club

Ya gotta love that Catalog window. I have a ton of stuff in there: Favorite Folders, Visual Filters, Special searches, Program Launcher, Url launcher, etc.

But there is a problem. I have so much in there, that I am constantly scrolling, scrolling to get at items, which is putting a slight damper on continuing to add to it.

So my wish is, it would be great if the Catalog had its own vertical strip in the window.

Well I had a nice diagram but the phpBB editor screwed it all up so:

instead of
Treeview Listview
Catalog

we have
Catalog Treeview Listview

Each in its own vertical strip.

Far less scrolling if you have a lot of entries in the Catalog.

John

Win2K
1,081ms

John Bee apparently doesn't like to categorize his entries in the catalog, but as long as I can keep my layout, why not.
Maybe this comes in handy for me as well one day...

I'd find it handy for the reason I mentioned previously here in another thread -- I don't often use the tree, but would like to fairly often use the catalog. I'd find it ideal to be able to open the catalog independent of the tree. At present, the tree must be open in order to use the catalog.

RalphM wrote:John Bee apparently doesn't like to categorize his entries in the catalog, but as long as I can keep my layout, why not.
Maybe this comes in handy for me as well one day...

Hi RalphM

Ah, but I do have Categories (the ones mentioned in the original message). I just have a lot of items in each one of them.

John

Win2K
0032
2,197ms

allen wrote:At present, the tree must be open in order to use the catalog.

True, but there is no requirement that the tree be open more than enough to show one entry that I can see...so catalog can occupy 98% or so of the space...and with the High Tree opt on, it makes almost the entire vertical column usable by catalog...

What I'd see as more practical than having two columns might be a toolbar icon that would exchange the amount of vertical space used for tree and catalog...that is, say you have 10% of space for tree and 90% for cat...use this icon and it would go to 90% and 10%...sorta like max/min of Info Panel in a way...

j_c_hallgren wrote:

allen wrote:At present, the tree must be open in order to use the catalog.

True, but there is no requirement that the tree be open more than enough to show one entry that I can see...so catalog can occupy 98% or so of the space...and with the High Tree opt on, it makes almost the entire vertical column usable by catalog...

While this is true, there's still no convenient way to hide all this. I'd mentioned prior I don't usually have the tree open. Now, if I hit the shortcut to hide the catalog the tree is still there -- there's no shortcut (that I have yet found) to close the tree panel. So, yes, I could have a great big catalog and a little tiny tree -- but I'd still be at the mercy of a number of clicks through the window menu each time I wanted to hide/show it. :(

Perhaps an alternative approach would to be an option to have the catalog/tree split by tabs instead of sharing the panel simultaniously. In such a mode, toggling the shortcut for the currently active view would hide the panel altogether while toggling the opposing would simply switch.

Some possible keyboard approaches to handling a tabbed tree/catalog view:
* F8 cycles through tree/catalog/close (repeat)
* F8 shows/hides panel while ctrl+F8 toggles the active view
* F8 = catalog, ctrl+F8 = tree; hitting either while the side panel is hidden causes it to open in the respective mode. HItting the shortcut for the currently active mode causes the panel to close; hitting the shortcut for the opposing panel causes it to toggle to the other view.

Again, it would be option -- so those who like to have tree/catalog always available would have no change of functionality. For those of us who want to be able to quickly easy toggle among all or none of the above, it would be more flexibility. Also, I should mention I didn't take care to make sure the shortcuts I'd proposed were actually available. Were the idea not horrible (it very well may be an approach only I'd value), I'd leave the key mapping to The Man with The Plan :)

j_c_hallgren wrote:What I'd see as more practical than having two columns might be a toolbar icon that would exchange the amount of vertical space used for tree and catalog...that is, say you have 10% of space for tree and 90% for cat...use this icon and it would go to 90% and 10%...sorta like max/min of Info Panel in a way...

Not for me. I use and like a large treeview view. This is why I asked for the Catalog in its own vertical strip or column. This way, they are both maximized to the full height of the main window.

John

JB, I presume from your comments that you must have a very large monitor/screen and/or be running at much higher resolution, as on my laptop at 1024x768, having just the tree column reduces my list area to a width that is just workable, so having a third column would make list area way too narrow...

So..would a way to swap tree and catalog in same area of screen via toolbar and possibly shortcut be a way to handle this? As using both at the exact same time seems unlikely, at least the way I use XY...this, together with a way to swap dominance of which takes most area in column as alternative, should give enough flexibility of layouts, IMHO.

j_c_hallgren wrote:JB, I presume from your comments that you must have a very large monitor/screen and/or be running at much higher resolution, as on my laptop at 1024x768, having just the tree column reduces my list area to a width that is just workable, so having a third column would make list area way too narrow...

Ya, just recently my old trusty Optiquest Q71 17" monitor died after almost 8 years of trouble free service. I replaced it with a Phillips 19" LCD (1280 x 1024). I needed to go to 19" as 1280 x 1024 on a 17" LCD made the icons and especially the text way too small for these old eyes of mine.

j_c_hallgren wrote:So..would a way to swap tree and catalog in same area of screen via toolbar and possibly shortcut be a way to handle this? As using both at the exact same time seems unlikely, at least the way I use XY...this, together with a way to swap dominance of which takes most area in column as alternative, should give enough flexibility of layouts, IMHO.

Well, the problem with this is - I like both the treeview and catalog up at the same time. I don't want one OR the other.

I think utilizing a docking method, thereby giving the user the ability to arrange the treeview/listview/catalog windows the way he/she wants in the main window is probably the best way around this. But I don't know how hard this would be to program/addin at this stage of XY's evolution.

However, my wish remains: Catalog | Treeview | Listview. I doubt this will happen, but one can wish.

John

Win2K
0035

John Bee wrote:Well, the problem with this is - I like both the treeview and catalog up at the same time. I don't want one OR the other.

Fine...but IF that was an option, wouldn't it be better than now exists? The old half-a-loaf is preferred to no-loaf routine...I'm constantly using toolbar to switch High Tree on/off, and being able to do similar with Tree/Cat would seem an improvement over current...

j_c_hallgren wrote:

John Bee wrote:Well, the problem with this is - I like both the treeview and catalog up at the same time. I don't want one OR the other.

Fine...but IF that was an option, wouldn't it be better than now exists? The old half-a-loaf is preferred to no-loaf routine...I'm constantly using toolbar to switch High Tree on/off, and being able to do similar with Tree/Cat would seem an improvement over current...

You mean a TB button for Tree (w/ catalog) on/off?

John Bee wrote:Ya gotta love that Catalog window. I have a ton of stuff in there: Favorite Folders, Visual Filters, Special searches, Program Launcher, Url launcher, etc.

But there is a problem. I have so much in there, that I am constantly scrolling, scrolling to get at items, which is putting a slight damper on continuing to add to it.

So my wish is, it would be great if the Catalog had its own vertical strip in the window.

The place will always be too small if you're the packing kind of guy. So the "own vertical strip" solution will just encourage you to pack even more stuff into the Catalog and you'll have the same scrolling problem again.

Apart of self-control , I think it would be better to look for a solution for the problem "How to deal with limited space?".

One idea: in catalog, optionally auto-close all other categories when opening a category. Hm, how's that?

Welcome to this thread, Don..
The two toolbar icons (and shortcuts too?) that I proposed above were:

1) Swap/toggle amount of space used in column between tree and cat
(which thus becomes kinda a vertical up/down thing)
2) Swap/toggle contents of entire column between tree and cat
(which thus becomes kinda a horizontal left/right thing)

There are getting to be SO many k-b values that I'm losing track of them , but having a TB icon makes it quick and easy to use for all...

admin wrote:One idea: in catalog, optionally auto-close all other categories when opening a category. Hm, how's that?

Hi Don;

Yes, that would be nice as an option.


John