File Directory Tree browsing

[Mitchell Wyle]

Is it just me, or are system-software developers trying to make our lives
harder?  Visualizing and browsing a file tree is difficult.  In unix,
using cd and ls is plain silly.  Xtree on DOS is ok for 2-3 directory
levels, but we're using Sun OS :-).  Finder on MacOS is a joke; it is the
mouse equivilant of cd - ls, as only one "folder" is current, and the
screen is so small, only one folder's contents are shown.  Sun UK released
a finder-like program called browser which was distributed through STB.
Additionally, there is a PD program called "finder" which mimicks the
macintosh "file" dialog box on a sun.  These programs still show only one
directory level at a time.  Smalltalk shows two directory levels, but I
want five plus or minus two [1]!

Even the file browser in NeXt has only two directory levels.  When I saw
the 386i demo'd, there was a file-tree display program which showed many
levels of directories, but the system was slow, and you still had to cd to
the directory to do any useful work.  There is also a PD program called
dtree (not vtree!) which displays a directory listing graphically.  This
program is also slow, and again just *displays* a directory tree.

What we want is a mouse-based system which displays a file-tree at many
levels.  The system should allow one to point at a file and "shoot"
(double-click) to start a default application associated with that type of
file, or point and "select" a menu of possible commands associated with
that file.  For example, a C-program text file should have many actions
associated with it (make, lint, diff) but one default (vi or emacs).

I have written two scripts which use Chuck Musciano's tooltool package
(thanks Chuck!) which sort of do what I want.  The first one called msh
for menu-shell displays a directory tree hierarchy via WALKING MENUS in
suntools; at the moment msh can start a new shell in the sub-directory,
edit text files, or start meta-tool.  Meta-tool examines all the files in
the current directory, and generates another "tool" with menu choices
associated for each file.  There is some special support for troff
documents and modula-2 source files, but both applications are really just
skeletons.

I am looking for information, comments, and software.  I shall send wnl
shar's of msh and mtt to include in his sunspots archives.

Thag you bery buch.

[1] Schneiderman, B., Association of Computing Machines Special Interest
Group for Computer Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) Winter 1987

-- 
-Mitchell F. Wyle                         wyle at ethz.uucp
Institut fuer Informationsysteme          wyle at inf.ethz.ch
ETH Zentrum / 8092 Zurich, Switzerland    +41 1 256 5237