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View Modes

View Modes

Some users prefer more of a vertical scrolling behavior when displaying hierarchical relationships between items, while others prefer more of a horizontal scrolling behavior. We think both behaviors have merit, so we provide both options. At the top of the Option Menu are a couple of Action that allow you change which mode is used.

View as List

This is the default mode for the view. It displays each level of the container hierarchy in its own alpha-numerically sorted column along with all of its sibling containers - that is, containers at the same level and branch within the hierarchy. Clicking on a container that is displayed within a column causes any assets associated with that container to be displayed in the Asset View and also causes a new column containing the next level of the hierarchy to be displayed to that column's immediate right. As you dig deeper into the hierarchy of containers and more columns are added, a horizontal scrollbar will appear at the bottom of the view, allowing you to quickly navigate to a higher level container. When a particular level of the container hierarchy has more siblings than can be displayed in the allotted height, a vertical scrollbar will appear on the right side of that column, allowing you to quickly locate a sibling container that is out of view.

Column Resize Handle

As containers are selected and child columns are added, the width of the child column is automatically sized. If the text of a container is longer than that which can be displayed in the width of the column, the text is elided - that is, some of the characters are replaced by an ellipsis (…) to indicate that there are more characters than can be seen in the current width. In the bottom right corner of each column in the view, below the vertical divider or scrollbar that separates the adjacent columns, is a handle that allows you to resize that column so that you can see the obscured characters.

View as Tree

This mode displays each level of the container hierarchy in an alpha-numerically sorted, vertically oriented list of expandable/collapsible branches. Each item in the list can be selected, causing any assets associated with that container to be displayed in the Asset View. Containers that also contain sub-containers display some sort of indication, on the left, that the item can be expanded or collapsed - whether that be arrows that point down or to the right, or + and - symbols, or something else is dependent on the style in use.

Keyboard Navigation

Both modes allow you to use the keys on your keyboard to navigate the container hierarchy. The arrow keys will change which item you have selected by stepping in the direction of the arrow key pressed. In the case of the View as Tree mode, the left and right arrow keys also collapse or expand those containers that are expandable/collapsible. Pressing a character key on your keyboard will scroll the view so that the next visible item starting with that character in the list is within view, and will also cause that item to become selected.