Hoisting, multiple trees, tree clutter - User feedback welcome...

[srdiamond]

One test for needing a certain new feature is how easily can the operation be accomplished using the existing features.

With tree columns you can expose all the values you need at the same time, without needing to manipulate anything. But mere exposure doesn't usually get you passed the jumble, so you would also need to filter on the columns. Thus the two suggestions complement and promote each other.

With columns in the child pane, you can see all the values you want, neatly lined up, by selecting the relevant infoitems, copying them, creating a new empty topic, and then pasting the items, thereby creating clones of those and only those you need under a given topic. Select the new parent topic, and you have your metadata columns in the Child pane, for those infoitems of interest and only those.

'Tree columns and filtering' comprise a messy and inefficient procedure when compared to 'cloning and displaying.' Best of all, the feature is available now.

One question: Why do some people want to insert their pet feature into every program they encounter?

Originally posted by reesd
I'll add that the other related missing feature is columns in the tree view. Otherwise the user is forced to click on each item (or each of their parents) to see their fields rather than seeing them all together.

So essentially what I am suggesting is we need the features of the "child items" window (filtering and columns) in the tree view. UR's semi-unique alternative for this is the Child Items window. Child Items is an interesting approach that avoids the programming difficulties of a multi-column, tree widget, but (IMHO) its just not intuitive to users and also is not as powerful as true columns and filtering in the tree view.