Browsing deep hierarchies in spatial mode



All this desktop/panel talk got me thinking about browsing files, go
figure.

Right now in GNOME under spatial mode, it's a pain to get to a given
folder that's several layers deep. You have to double-click through
folder after folder. Double-middle-clicking on a folder closes each
folder as you pass through it, which at least cleans up the windows you
don't care about... but you do the same amount of clicking. Tedium.

The BeOS Tracker solved this problem elegantly several years back. The
first option on every folder's context menu was a menu item that allowed
you to drill down through the hierarchy below the selected folder.
Clicking on any folder in the resulting menu opened a spatial window
targeting that folder. This might sound clunky to the uninitiated, but
it worked spectacularly and was a damned sight cleaner and much more
natural-feeling than GNOME's middle-clickfest.

Under BeOS you could also right click the desktop and drill down through
folders on the desktop, using the same system. Also, files were shown in
the hierarchy of menus - if you knew there was a file in a folder 2
levels down, you didn't need to click through 2 windows to get to it!

What are people's thoughts on this? IMO, this simple improvement could
improve the GNOME spatial experience immensely. It might even boost
spatial mode's popularity with the fanatical "Browser mode" sect. 

-- 
Gabriel Bauman <gabe bravenet com>
Senior Software Developer
Bravenet Web Services Inc.

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