43873 - Browse local file system via the sidebar

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Sidebar, enhancement, P3)

Description

[timeless]

Explorer, IE, and other applications allow you to browse a tree (ftp, file, 
[maybe other]) in a pane (on the left, which by coincidence is where the 
sidebar lives).
We should be able to do this.

<button>browse</button>: <editbox>file:///C|/</editbox>
<tree>
/
-/C|/
  -/Temp/
  +/Windows/
  ./Autoexec.bat
  ./example.html
</tree>
clicking example.html should load it into the main window.
clicking windows should load the more detailed file browser into the main 
window.
clicking the plus by windows should example the windows directory.
clicking the minus by temp should collapse temp (which happens to be empty)

+ - . should be whatever the tree widget set actually uses

Comment 1

[Chris McAfee]

rfe/future

Comment 2

[Blake Ross]

Reassigning 50 Sidebar bugs to Matt.  I was told this was going to be done 
shortly about two months ago, but it clearly hasn't been.  I think that's long 
enough for all these bugs to remain assigned to nobody.

Feel free to filter all this spam into the trashcan by looking for this string 
in the message body: ducksgoquack

Comment 3

[shrirang khanzode]

spam : changing qa to sujay (New Sidebar QA)

Comment 4

[AriB]

You might be interested in the Meow project:
http://meow.mozdev.org/

Comment 5

[Blake Ross]

reassigning matt's old bugs.

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 137728 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 141685 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Michael Lefevre]

*** Bug 151578 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Michael Lefevre]

*** Bug 151562 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[Christophe Thalet]

the solution is even simpler. just let

file:/// 

be displayed as a sidebar - and you're done

of course, Bug 151579 and Bug 13607
have to be solved to let this work

Comment 11

[Bill Mason]

*** Bug 157265 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[imran.geriskovan]

Copying the dupe:
--------------------------------

What we now have:
1- A local folder bookmark can ve expanded and explored in sidebar. (Including
files)
2- Clicking on a folder on bookmark sidebar displays contents of the folder
(Including sub folders) in the browser in tree mode.

What else we can/should_not have:
1- The bookmark sidebar may not display files in the when we expand a local
folder bookmark.
2- The folder contents view of a folder in browser may not in tree view mode.

The result:
Bookmark side bar + folder view in browser result may mimic "Windows Explorer"
which is a fairly good file manager.


Further we may have file manupulation functionalities such as file
copy/paste/rename/delete/etc..... Then I will definitely stop using
WindowsExplorer in favor of Mozilla.

Comment 13

[Michael Lefevre]

*** Bug 170047 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

*** Bug 184040 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Mark Stier]

A local file tree brwoser should be implemented as a tool, no matter if sidebar
or separate window -- maybe both, similar to the bookmarks manager.

I think it is required because DnD seems has to implement on all platforms.
Therefore many DnD tasks should be doable inside Mozilla. Accessing the local
file system is an important task.

The file browser should have at least a small "bookmark" utility to remember
directories. Additionally, there should be a bunch of buttons at the bottom:
"save without conversion", "convert to ps", "convert to pdf", ...

Additions to this simple functionality (rename, delete etc.) are welcome, but my
primary intention is to have a simple way to export data from mozilla -- even
for users of window managers like IceWM that do not have a desktop that allows
for DnD to the file system.

Comment 16

[Mark Stier]

(In reply to comment #15)
> I think it is required because DnD seems has to implement on all platforms.

Of course I meant "seems _hard_ to implement".

Comment 17

[Robin Monks]

*** Bug 154550 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Bamm Gabriana]

*** Bug 154550 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[benc]

corrected depends, clarified summary to reflect majority of dupes (reopened bug
154550 for FTP).

Comment 20

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Gecko/2008040301 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre

AFAICT, there's no way I can have any directory (local or remote) in a sidebar tab. I just voted for this bug. Anyone (Samir?) still working on it?

Comment 21

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

No reply to comment #20; latest comment before that is from 3 years ago. Resetting A+QA on the assumption that they aren't current anymore -- please undo if I assumed wrong.

Comment 22

[benc]

This bug is probably applicable to Firefox and Seamonkey, because both still support the same sidebar architecture (although the look and feel has changed a lot).

So, I don't know how you handle these bugs in the here-and-now. Maybe you need another placeholder bug for Firefox as well, for the same functionality in Firefox...

Email me directly if you want to discuss this, I got on these bugs when I worked at Netscape because people felt that these were problems related to Necko/Networking because it involved file: URLs. I'm taking myself off the cc for this bug...