63615 - RFE FTP directory listings tree should indicate empty directories

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

When the listing for a directory is empty, the tree should assert an empty node
there.  The name/text for this should be in italics "<empty>".

Comment 1

[Bradley Baetz]

I wanted to do something like this for error notification for gopher. There is
currently no way to make such a node unselectable, so I left it.

If someone's going to do this, note that gopher trees have error items, and they
shouldn't be sorted, because they can go over multiple lines, and be
followed/preceded by "normal" content. Error messages returned by the FTP
server, and/or .message/README files in the directory could be displayed that
way as well.

Have I moved away from the original bug here? :) See also bug 19073 on the lack
of error reporting for most protocols - this would be one way to do it, I
suppose.

Comment 2

[Robert John Churchill]

No offense, but I dislike this idea of a "<empty>" node...  ugly UI.  Better 
perhaps would be something where directories display a count of the # of items 
contained in them.

Comment 3

[Bradley Baetz]

What's wrong with some status information? If the node is not selectable, then
it should be fine. "This directory contains no entries" is fairly clear. Then a
directory where the user lacks appropriate permissions could be reported as
"permission denied", etc.

Currently permission denied and file not found both egive an empty directory.

Maybe nsDirectoryViewer.cpp could just display comment entries (100 & 101 in the
application/http-index file format IIRC). That would be the most generic
solution, I suppose. Currently the directory viewer just ignores them. Or do
something with onmouseover and the cursor. That doesn't seem like good UI
either? My gopher patches (dougt: #49334 - I got your vacation autoresponder)
add a status bar update with the current url being displayed - "no files found"
could be appended, or something, but I don't see how to add that easily. I'm not
sure that thats good UI either, although it could be used in addition to
something else.

Alternately the fact that the twisty is down and not loading and nothing is
showing could be a large clue as well :) That doesn't mean that the directory is
empty though, it just means that you can't see anything in it.

Comment 4

[Chris Waterson]

dougt, wouldn't this require an extra FTP transaction for each directory to 
determine if the directory has any files in it?

Comment 5

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

If the twisty of the tree control is "opened", yes, we will have to make a new 
request.  What is your concern here?   

Robert, no offense taken.  I don't care too much about how we indicate to the 
user that the directory is empty... I care more that we *do* indicate something.

Comment 6

[Chris Waterson]

Oh, I thought you were going to make it so that the twisty wouldn't even appear 
if the directory was empty. So, you're suggesting that an empty directory that's 
been `opened' would appear as follows...

  > closed_folder
  v opened_empty_folder
      *empty*
  > closed_folder_2

If so, that seems weird to me. Isn't that what the twisty is for?

Comment 7

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

I think a twisty indicates a container - empty or otherwise.  

Comment 8

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

Directory Viewer bugs - Reassigning to XPApps / [e-mail]

Comment 9

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

-> bbaetz

Comment 10

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

dirviewer triage.

Comment 11

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

xul viewer -> 0.9.7

Comment 12

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

Given the <tree>-><listbox> changes, which mean that <tree> will become
<outliner> automatically (and my current time constraints), I'm going to push
this off for the moment. 0.9.8 is out for me, so that means 0.9.9

The bugs being changed this way either require <outliner> support, or would be a
lot easier with such support

Comment 13

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

OK, moving all XUL dirviewer bugs to post 1.0. I don't want to be doing this,
but there are only so many hours in the day. These will be taken earlier if
someone submits a patch, or I find time.

Comment 14

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

Following the roadmap, 1.0.1 is a maintenance release, so pushing off features
(xul direviewer) to 1.1

Comment 15

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

xul dirviewer bugs -> 1.2. I have no time..

Comment 16

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 17

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 18

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 19

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 20

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 21

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 22

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but still has no comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project 5 years ago.

Because of this, we're resolving the bug as EXPIRED.

If you still can reproduce the bug on SeaMonkey 2 or otherwise think it's still valid, please REOPEN it and if it is a platform or toolkit issue, move it to the according component.

Query tag for this change: EXPIRED-20100420