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Comment by OskarS | Hacker News Reader

I never use this view in Finder. I get the idea, to show multiple levels of the hierarchy at once, but I always liked the "collapsable list" view more. The horizontal space is better used as a table for further file attributes (filesize, last modified, etc.).

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I could imagine you could have the best of both worlds:

  +-+-----+-------------------------+
  | |     |                         |
  | |     |                         |
  | |     |                         |
  |A|  B  |           C             |
  | |     |                         |
  | |     |                         |
  | |     |                         |
  +-+-----+-------------------------+

Where B is the previous level of the tree, C is the detailed table view of the current level, and A is a compressed representation of all the previous levels (you could e.g. click on it to replace B with B's parent, and C would get replaced with details of B).

Did anyone try something like this out?

IIRC, Spotify used to do something like this, at least in the desktop app?

Not OP, but this is basically the same dream layout I've sketched for myself!

Unfortunately it would give me the most day-to-day benefit on OSX, which is probably the place I'm least likely to see it implemented...

That seems a bit similar to the Ranger[1] given as an example in the article. There's also ranger.el[2] for Emacs. By default in ranger.el (and I assume Ranger too, but I haven't used it), B is the current level, A is the previous level and C is a preview of whatever you have selected in B. You can hide the preview (so the current level would be C) and add more previous levels. There's no compressed view of all previous levels though.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_(file_manager)

[2]: https://github.com/ralesi/ranger.el

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_tree has some of the same strengths as this idea. Perhaps it hasn't been pursued because it was under patent the whole time when desktop UIs were still evolving.

Another reason to hate software patents.

I've had a few co-workers who preferred this view. And without exception, they came from a Windows background, preferring some kind of indication where in the file system they are. Like the old Explorer tree or at least the breadcrumb view of its sad contemporary version. (Sometimes showing them them "path bar" helps, but not always.)

Interesting. I haven't used Windows for about a decade and I switched to exclusively using this view in the last couple of years. I just find it much quicker to use with my keyboard etc as I don't want to be using my trackpad to navigate.

I agree completely, this is the "oh shit I clicked the wrong button" -view in finder.

Its even worse in save dialogs. Sometimes using this abomination is the only way to go "up" in the filesystem.

It only really makes sense for trees that have low depth.

Sometimes using this abomination is the only way to go "up" in the filesystem.

Yes! So annoying that finder doesn't just have button for "go up in hierarchy" at least somewhere on every screen (whether it's regular Finder or a save/open dialog). It's totally baffling to me. We can find room for the "Tag file" feature nobody uses, but a "go up in hierarchy" button is apparently too much to ask for.

I know that some people still prefer a button, but cmd-up on your keyboard will go up a level in both Finder and in file dialogs.

Thanks, I've only been using macs for ten years or so and never knew :-). Discoverability of features is a thing. Having something that is hard to discover is almost the same as not having the feature at all.

Took me a loooong time to realize Visual Studio can pop out source windows, so I can put them on another screen, for instance.

Wait... how?

If you have 2012 or newer, just grab the item tab and pull it to another screen.[1] You can also rearrange the tabs within a window to have for example, several files open side by side.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/customizin...

My default VS layout is to have two full screens: editor on the left screen where I often have a source file and its tests open side by side and on the right screen - the source tree, the test runner, the output window, team explorer etc.

There is a menu option Go → Enclosing Folder, which clearly lists the keyboard shortcut.

In general, responsibly designed Mac programs should have a menu option for every available command. This is highly discoverable (assuming users know to look in the menus, and the menus aren’t so long or deeply nested that the commands are buried).

Unfortunately in an era of web apps, mobile devices, hacky cross-platform software, etc., fewer and fewer users properly learn the basic Mac platform UI conventions. This particular convention (commands available as menu options with keyboard shortcuts listed next to them) has been largely unchanged for >30 years.

I’m not sure about the precise origin of the shortcut for opening the enclosing folder, but it dates from at least the beginning of OS X.

One Finder shortcut which is less discoverable which you might also find useful is ⌘↓ (command-down) for opening a selected item.

The SO Apple site has some suggestions. Sadly some of the 'app buttons' are outdated. I'm interested making an updated one and throwing it on the App Store. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/25813/add-an-up-bu...

There's a dropdown menu at the top-center of every file browser dialog that lets you jump to any parent level in the hierarchy, no?

Yes, but you have to cmd-click or right-click it.

No? You seem to be talking about title bar behavior. There is a normal dropdown menu right in the top center of the standard 'Save' and 'Open' dialogs.

This was my selected finder view for many years and I found it visually busy, cramped, and kept way too much information on the screen than I needed.

Finder is just awful. Macs are only good for their screens and the cli.

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