Back and forward don't work as expected in column view

Looking into this, I am not sure this is, in fact, a fault. If you regard the column view as a kind of rotated tree_view with expanders, with the subdirectories expanding horizontally to the right rather than vertically, then it behaves the same way as list view and icon view. The left most panel of the column view corresponds to the root directory of the list view and the displayed directory of the icon view. It is this that is affected by the browse buttons and the back button. If you change this directory then all the subdirectories that were expanded out from it will collapse - the same as in list view.

It would add significant complications to alter the behaviour so that navigation within expanded subdirectories was recorded in the navigation history and would also make the behaviour of this view inconsistent with the other two views.

There is the facility to navigate left and right within the expanded subdirectories using the left and right arrow keys.

I would propose setting this to "Won't fix" unless someone objects

Replacing fm_columns_view with a modified fm_list_view in the Miller column view addresses most of the issues raised in this bug, I think. The back and forward buttons are operational and the backspace key navigates to the parent directory. A possible issue is that when these are used, the directory navigated to becomes the root of a new Miller view; it is uncertain whether this is the desired behaviour.

Fixed in files/all-views-vala

But the behavior can be refined.
If I have a view where I expanded a folder on three columns like /home | cran | Desktop I expect one level to be rewinded each time I hit backspace (or the back button).
Instead the view is reverted to one column that displays /home/cran

This feels very weird.

I see what you mean, but the rationale for this was consistency with the
other views which load a new root folder when the back button is pressed.
It could be argued that expanding folders sideways in column view should
not actually be recorded in the browser history - in list view, expanded
folders are not recorded. In column view you go backwards through the
expanded folders by pressing pressing the left arrow (the same as in list
view).

On 12 November 2014 16:19, PerfectCarl <email address hidden> wrote:

> Fixed in files/all-views-vala
>
> But the behavior can be refined.
> If I have a view where I expanded a folder on three columns like /home |
> cran | Desktop I expect one level to be rewinded each time I hit backspace
> (or the back button).
> Instead the view is reverted to one column that displays /home/cran
>
> This feels very weird.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a bug assignee.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1074664
>
> Title:
> Back and forward don't work as expected in column view
>
> Status in Pantheon Files:
> In Progress
>
> Bug description:
> When navigating in column view with the mouse or keyboard arrow keys,
> the back and forward buttons remain grayed out. I would expect them
> to behave as in list and column view, so that when I enter a folder I
> can hit back to return to the parent folder.
>
> Hitting backspace to go back also results in weird behavior in column
> view, probably related. Example: open pantheon-files in home
> directory /home/username, navigate to a folder in the home directory
> like /home/username/Documents, then hit backspace. pantheon-files
> will navigate to /home instead of /home/username.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/pantheon-files/+bug/1074664/+subscriptions
>

Hm this is a really difficult situation since I agree that columns are much like expanding folders in list view. It does seem odd that pressing the back button clears out all our other columns. But I'm not currently sure what the best path of action is here. Maybe a good middle ground would be just "closing" the last column.

OK, I agree that the current solution is not ideal and a compromise is necessary. However, rather than hold up merging of the current linked branch I would rather unlink this bug and fix it in a separate branch.