myBrowser: Introduction

Introduction

MyBrowser is a special kind of browser view intended to coexist with Be«s Browser and not to replace it.

Hierarchical list views

Its heart is a hierarchical row of list views. Each list view represents the contents of a folder or the result of a query. These parent items are displayed as large icons above each list view together with their names. You can select single items in the lists with the mouse or keyboard in the standard way. Selected items are highlighted with a golden background and become the parent item of the next list view (see figure).

The number of simultaneously visible list views can be chosen by menu (Window->Columns), shortcut (Command-[Number Key]) or by dragging the resize corner of the window.

Shelf

In the right part of the window is a "shelf", which can be hidden and shown by marking a menu item (Window->Show Shelf), shortcut (Command-H) or by clicking on the button with the red arrow which is located at the right of the menu bar.

The shelf is home to

a temporary shelf

a group area

The temporary shelf is a list view where items may be put temporarily to shuffle them around more easily. Important: Only references to these items are stored on the shelf. The items itself are not moved within the file system. In this respect the shelf behaves like the Dock. Dragging and dropping a reference from the shelf, though, is the same as moving the item itself (this is different to the Dock). See an example.

The group area consists of a menu bar to select and display the current group and a list view to display the contents of the group. Groups are used to gather similar items in one list, regardless of their location in the file system or database. Similar to the temporary shelf, the groups store references and not the real items. The contents of a group are stored in the database, though, and are therefore remembered over time.

Note: All lists including the shelf and groups are updated live upon changes.