Show HN: hColumns – a jQuery plugin that looks like OS X Finder Column View

by buweichiu • 13 years ago

26 9 13 years ago

sachleen• 13 years ago

Pretty neat! One thing though: when the horizontal scroll bar shows, a vertical one shows as well. See this: http://i.imgur.com/ZzqDv0C.png

buweichiu3• 13 years ago

Thanks, it seems happen to very deep folders.

i will fix that. And i found IE * will not show up at all.

buweichiu3• 13 years ago

This bug fixed, and after tested, IE 8 is known not working.

ronj• 13 years ago

Crisp! By the way:

- Any idea why this view isn't used in file managers other than Finder? (especially Windows Explorer & GNOME Nautilus/Files). This view has so many advantages (very visual, enable quick round-trips in a hierarchy, show the path leading to a leaf while conserving screen space, enable copying files from anywhere to anywhere, more adapted to our horizontal screens and vision than traditional WindowsExplorer-ish views) that I can't understand why it wasn't copied elsewhere. Is it patented?

- Any option for such a file manager under Linux/Windows? Maybe a Nautilus extension/fork (and under windows, an Explorer patch/extension)?

tanishaj• 13 years ago

On Linux, I guess there is always GWorkspace: http://www.gnustep.org/experience/GWorkspace.html

tzaman• 13 years ago

It's nice, but I can't think of a use case for behaviour like this on the web.

buweichiu3• 13 years ago

i use this for displaying a very deep set of FAQ (img below) that once used a treeview but found it too messy.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/702/53758010151491375964161.j...

of course it has some improvement, like use some custom type and more css styling.

ianstormtaylor• 13 years ago

LayerVault could use it for their file browser.

joubert• 13 years ago

Browsing of tree structures using Miller columns has a fairly long tradition.

Think Smalltalk's code browser: http://www.pharo-project.org/about/screenshots

Or NeXSTEP where you see the Cocoa ancestry for this columnar display: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GNUstep-liveCD.png

Beyond Finder, you'll notice that on your iPhone / iPad this paradigm is everywhere. When you see a list, you can select an item and dive into the next level. The only difference is that a single column consumes the entire screen width. See UINavigationController: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/...

In Cocoa, there is a general NSBrowser class, which implements this paradigm: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa...

Another application that uses faceted browsing is of course iTunes: http://screenshots.oahermes.com/6/large_4_itunes_store.png

One project which I tracked long ago, called mSpace, has some good stuff: http://research.mspace.fm

Show HN: hColumns – a jQuery plugin that looks like OS X Finder Column View

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