Smart tree pane

PhD · Post by **PhD** » 2004 Dec 02, 21:19

For those who know, Ansys (FEA program) provides a very smart functionnality in tree view.

When you navigate in tree and select many folders or subfolders in tree, this can bring you to a very long (high) tree because of many expanded folders, especially when you are in network drivers.

In Ansys, when you select a folder, it un-expands other folders from root, so as you can have only one expanded path at a time.
When using such a tree mode, it becomes much more easy to navigate.

This could be an idea for future versions.

Brad · Post by **Brad** » 2004 Dec 02, 22:41

I'm not sure what I think of this, so it should definitly be a configurable option if it were added. This change may make it more difficult to jump (or copy and move files) between different folder locations in the tree for people who use the mouse a lot. You have to keep waiting for each node of the tree to expand.

FYI, you can always use the "Locate in tree" command (Alt-T) to find a folder in the tree that you are currently browsing. You can also enable the "Keep synchronized with folder in active view pane" option under Tools -> Options -> Window. You probably know about these two commands, and they don't fully address your concern of the tree pane getting very busy, but I thought I'd mention them just incase.

P.S. Welcome to the Forums, hope you enjoy xplorer2 as much as we all have.

WimdeLange · Post by **WimdeLange** » 2004 Dec 03, 07:18

The idea sounds nice, but it must be very easy to swithc the behaviour (keyboard?). I almost never use the expanded tree, I almost never use the tree manager at all, it is not visible.

But using tabs, two panes, a new instance, it is not necesarry at all to use the tree pane for copying files to another locations.

Maybe it is an option to have multiple tree panes (two tree panes, which could be tabbed?). Does remind me about a discussion I was following minutes ago about MNS Messenger and Windows Messenger and that the first one is so bloated......

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Dec 03, 08:20

i am contemplating a sort of "filtering" mode for the tree, or perhaps a quick way to switch from full and "pruned" mode. But i haven't really figured it out yet

PhD · Post by **PhD** » 2004 Dec 03, 18:35

Hello everybody.

A little precision concerning Ansys tree behaviour.

When you expand a path, the current expanded path in unexpanded, but when you expand back a folder which had already been navigated in, it comes back to its previous expansion.

And expansion switch is done at the same tree level (root, N-1, N-2, ...) .

An other interest is that when you click on a higher level folder (closer to root), the unexpansion allows you to get a narrow tree (because of no more uninteresting lexpanded ow level path), and the horizontal "elevator" (sorry, I can't find the right translation from french !) is more accurate in width and focused, or even not present any more.

You also have a color code : each level is the same color. It's quite easy that way to feel where you are in the arborescence.

Thanks for your comments.