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files-community / Files

A modern file manager that helps users organize their files and folders.
https://files.community
MIT License
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Feature: Dual Pane Sidebar #14373

Open Horizon82 opened 9 months ago

Horizon82 commented 9 months ago

What feature or improvement do you think would benefit Files?

Add a second, independent sidebar when using Files in dual pane mode. Negates the need to refocus a panel when jumping between them.

Requirements

Split up the dual pane to facilitate the addition of a new side panel dedicated to the 2nd pane. Detach the original side panel from the 2nd pane

Files Version

3.0.15.0

Windows Version

11 Pro 23H2

Comments

Feature utilized in FreeCommander.

Josh65-2201 commented 9 months ago

Thanks for the feedback, I've added this to the project board.

yaira2 commented 9 months ago

I’m not against this idea but it would have a significant impact on performance on memory usage. The reason for this is that the sidebar is reused across all tabs and panes, if we were to have a sidebar for each pane, we would spin up another sidebar and all the events and watchers for each pane.

yaira2 commented 9 months ago

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “removing the need to refocus the panel when switching between them”?

Horizon82 commented 9 months ago

If I'm in a given pane at the designated folder I have to manually activate the other pane(bring that pane into focus) and then I can utilize the side panel. With dedicated side panels that requirement is eliminated.

If a toggle for this feature is an option and two panels is not a requirement of dual pane, I imagine a disclaimer about memory usage would suffice.

yaira2 commented 9 months ago

If I'm in a given pane at the designated folder I have to manually activate the other pane(bring that pane into focus) and then I can utilize the side panel. With dedicated side panels that requirement is eliminated.

Thanks for clarifying.

If a toggle for this feature is an option and two panels is not a requirement of dual pane, I imagine a disclaimer about memory usage would suffice.

That is one way to do it, but the sidebar is such an integral part of the code base that building an option to have it both ways isn't very feasible. Our goal is to continue improving performance so that we can build these types of features, but I wanted to be transparent so that there isn't any confusion about this feature request.

As a side point, if there is a way to break something or cause reduced performance, users are going to find it and the complaints will start pouring in. For instance, the option to calculate folder sizes can be pretty resource intensive and we often get complaints despite a warning. Another good example is the option to "replace File Explorer", there was a time where uninstalling Files wouldn't revert the registry changes so we had multiple warnings in place before a user could enable it. Thankfully we found a way to auto revert the changes on removal but not before getting hundreds of complaints (and an urgent email from Microsoft regarding all the complaints they noticed in the Store reviews).