Community
Participate
Working Groups
Brainstorming with Simon and Ken about navigation issues, and how things start to play with multiple file systems. Even with one file system, we have the oddity that the top level "folders" are different than the ones once you get into the top level. For example, i can't create a file at the top level, and I can "link folder" at the top level. We also have folks who want to contribute "top level" behavior (see bug 359541). What if we had a left hand pane (like the mac finder or windows explorer) which shows the high level groupings of top level folders. This might also be the place to actually add new file systems, etc. We would have room for this in the navigator, esp if we move favorites as described in bug 347058 . (or maybe favorites could be shown as a group in this list). I'll try to make a mockup...
Created attachment 205865 [details] screenshot of quick mockup
Yes, this is what I was thinking of as well. In your mockup then the "repositories" link on the top right wouldn't be necessary correct? It was also the thought that you could select a repository and then it might go to a new page that had more specific items for repository interaction vs. putting them all on the navigator page. The navigator page was a soft landing to minimal but usable functionality
From very beginning, I've been a big fun of this left-right pane. Can we make it a generic widget? I even think we should use this for global search : navigate on left and show details on the right pane.
(In reply to comment #2) > Yes, this is what I was thinking of as well. In your mockup then the > "repositories" link on the top right wouldn't be necessary correct? Yes, I think this is correct. The thing I'm not sure about is that we'd have the same issue with Repositories that we have with Favorites. How do you get to those grouped things on a page that doesn't have this left hand side top nav (or does everyone have access to it?). For example, see bug 347058. > > It was also the thought that you could select a repository and then it might go > to a new page that had more specific items for repository interaction vs. > putting them all on the navigator page. Yes. The git workflow issues are covered in bug 359621, I'm going to make a mockup there, too. I see much of the functionality that is currently deep in the repositories page (branch management, rebase, reset,etc.) as being on the repository page. This may just be some tweaks/improvements to git log. I am going to play with mockups in that other bug. > > The navigator page was a soft landing to minimal but usable functionality The other point we've discussed is that some navigator commands are appropriately shown in the editor. So something like "switch branch" might be available in the nav and therefore also from the editor. (see bug 361003) (In reply to comment #3) > From very beginning, I've been a big fun of this left-right pane. > Can we make it a generic widget? > I even think we should use this for global search : navigate on left and show > details on the right pane. Libing, do you mean the same contents in the left hand pane (grouped top level items) or are you referring to something different in global search?
(In reply to comment #4) > > From very beginning, I've been a big fun of this left-right pane. > > Can we make it a generic widget? > > I even think we should use this for global search : navigate on left and show > > details on the right pane. > > Libing, do you mean the same contents in the left hand pane (grouped top level > items) or are you referring to something different in global search? Susan, I was nicely reminded of using left-right pane in the global search. I meant the same flavor but not contents and also thought if the pattern in navigator pane is reusable. But discussing that here is quite noisy to navigation pane. Please see my comments in bug 361564 at comment 10, which was just added.
fixed with c39e9ec34ad3ce1694fe9b95c05751b388279b4d Note that I was not nearly as ambitious as in the original discussion. The more I got into our multi file system UI, the more I realized how screwed up we are, and we need to fix that first before biting off things like pretending that the git repos are a file system. So this bug focuses on the part where we are showing file systems. I first tried implementing the mockup, where we list a category for each file system and links to the top level folders. Several problems with this approach: - you have to load every workspace for every file system to find out top level links - when there were more than just a few top level folders (>3) the left hand pane started to become unusable. And the list of folders repeats what you get if you navigate to the root of a file system. It seemed like a waste. What I did is to add a section called "File Servers" and in that table I list all the services and the top level file URL. So you'll see: File Servers ------------ Orion Projects WebDAV Folders RTC This can be done without loading any workspaces at all, and keeps the nav model quite clean. Then there's no need to add commands like "new folder" to the left and pane because the commands are there in the rooted nav area. I like the idea of the nav area always showing content from a particular system and being unaware of the plugin model for file systems. This leaves the left hand area as the knowledgeable one about switching roots. There is further work to do to get rid of the "multi rooted" workspace in the nav area and clean up the breadcrumb and meaning of root. I've opened bug 368282 to discuss this.
