StephenUK
08-08-2007, 07:21 PM
I posted this in the wrong place yesterday, and repost here some suggestions (most probably not new) as to how the Data Explorer tree might in future be improved.
- At the top of the Data explorer pane a row of buttons (maybe with toggle on and off functions).
- The buttons would allow one to do the following:
1. Determine to what depth to display the tree, as in an outliner.
2. Possibly access the excellent hoist functions from this point rather than from the menu bar.
3. Possibly have more than one possible list of hoist functions. (The existing straight drop down list soon gets quite long). Thus, there can be different sets of hoists associated with different projects.
4. Whereas hoisting shows only one branch of the tree, it would be nice to have a way to hoist several branches at once. Put another way, it would be useful to have a dialog with tick boxes against directories, to indicate which ones to view. (Searches would then only be against those shown, of course). A view that represented only part of the tree would be in a different color to avoid confusion. And maybe one could save several different subsets of the tree in some way.
5. A button to toggle on and off viewing of all of the Templates, Recycle bin and Imported items directories. (This can already be achieved by a workaround using hoisting, but it would be nice for newcomers to have an easy way to reduce clutter).
6. As a slight aside, the ability to background color rows (not just text color) in the Data Explorer. Then to say "display red rows" etc. (This is really just an alternative approach to No 4). I use colored rows in ListPro and in Excel and they are really helpful visual clues and yet simple. I know there are already flags, but I feel colored rows that go the whole width of the data explorer screen are easier on the eye and they can have a different function to flags.
7. I would like easily to be able to choose different colors for directory icons. This is not a filter, but it provides an easy way to set up visual clues. Or just maybe, when searching, those directories containing search results might change color?
- At the top of the Data explorer pane a row of buttons (maybe with toggle on and off functions).
- The buttons would allow one to do the following:
1. Determine to what depth to display the tree, as in an outliner.
2. Possibly access the excellent hoist functions from this point rather than from the menu bar.
3. Possibly have more than one possible list of hoist functions. (The existing straight drop down list soon gets quite long). Thus, there can be different sets of hoists associated with different projects.
4. Whereas hoisting shows only one branch of the tree, it would be nice to have a way to hoist several branches at once. Put another way, it would be useful to have a dialog with tick boxes against directories, to indicate which ones to view. (Searches would then only be against those shown, of course). A view that represented only part of the tree would be in a different color to avoid confusion. And maybe one could save several different subsets of the tree in some way.
5. A button to toggle on and off viewing of all of the Templates, Recycle bin and Imported items directories. (This can already be achieved by a workaround using hoisting, but it would be nice for newcomers to have an easy way to reduce clutter).
6. As a slight aside, the ability to background color rows (not just text color) in the Data Explorer. Then to say "display red rows" etc. (This is really just an alternative approach to No 4). I use colored rows in ListPro and in Excel and they are really helpful visual clues and yet simple. I know there are already flags, but I feel colored rows that go the whole width of the data explorer screen are easier on the eye and they can have a different function to flags.
7. I would like easily to be able to choose different colors for directory icons. This is not a filter, but it provides an easy way to set up visual clues. Or just maybe, when searching, those directories containing search results might change color?