Folder Tree Options

These options let you control how the Folder Tree behaves.

• Start Folder Tree at: This drop-down lets you choose the starting folder for the tree. The options are:
  
  • Desktop: This is the normal starting position - at the root of the system namespace, everything else appears below the Desktop.
  • Computer: The tree will begin at the Computer level, without showing the Desktop or any of the desktop's other children.
  • Drives: This is similar to Computer, except displays a cut-down Computer item that only lists your disk drives, omitting any other folders under Computer.
  • Current Drive: This starts the tree at the root of the current drive. For example, if you navigated to C:\Data\Temp, the tree would begin at the root of C:.
  
  If you navigate to a location that is normally hidden as a result of this option (e.g. you have selected to start at Computer, but you navigate to the Network folder which is under Desktop), the tree will automatically "re-root" itself in order to make the location you have navigated to visible. When you return to the original location the tree will reset itself to the configured starting location.
• Automatically expand to current folder: If this option is on, the tree will expand to track your location as you navigate in the file display. If you turn this option off, the tree won't automatically track your location - you can still navigate with the tree by expanding and selecting folders yourself, but it won't follow you when you navigate by other methods. When this option is on, you can choose how the folders are populated when they expand automatically to show you your current location:
  
  • Fully populate contents: All automatically expanded folders are fully populated - the tree will show the full contents of all folders leading up to your current location.
  • Populate contents for local devices only: Only folders on local devices (hard drives, USB drives, etc) will be full populated. Folders on network drives or FTP sites will only display the member folder that forms part of your current location.
  • No content population: No automatically expanded folders will be fully populated - you will need to manually populate them by clicking their expansion button to reveal their full contents.
  
  The tree will always show you your current folder (and the path leading to it) so the population options only affect the display of other items in the expanded folders. When you expand an item manually, its contents are always fully populated - so if the tree has partially expanded an item, you can click on its expansion button to fully expand it and reveal the rest of its contents. These options can dramatically improve performance when navigating folders on slow devices like networks - rather than having to read the full contents of all folders leading up to your current location (which can be very slow over a network), the tree will simply display the folders leading to your current path (and since it already knows what those folders are, it doesn't have to read any information from the network to do this).
• Collapse non-selected branches: If this option is on, the tree will automatically collapse any expanded branches that aren't needed to show you your current location. This can help keep the tree compact and easier to navigate as you move around the file system.
  • Unless open in other tabs: Branches will not be collapsed if they contain a folder that is currently displayed in another folder tab.
• Expand branches when dragging over the tree: When you drag files over the tree, this option causes the tree to automatically expand any collapsed folders that you hover over with the mouse. This lets you drag and drop files to sub-folders that arent necessarily visible when the drag and drop begins. Turn on the Spring-loaded option to have folders that automatically expand this way automatically collapse again when the drag is complete.
• Expand 'My Computer' when tree opens: This option causes the Computer branch of the tree to be automatically expanded when the tree opens.
• Expand selected branch: This option causes the tree to automatically expand the branch of the tree that represents your current location. Normally only folders leading up to your current location are expanded (subject to the options above) - with this option on, the current location's branch will also be expanded.
• Expand/collapse all child branches when parent double-clicked: When you double-click a folder's expand/collapse icon, the first level of its child folders will also be expanded or collapsed.
• Horizontal scrolling style: This option lets you control how and when the tree scrolls horizontally. Since Microsoft have trouble making up their minds, Explorer has had different behaviour in this regard with every version of Windows lately, and the options here let you choose from these various behaviors:
  • Fully automatic scrolling: This is the style used by Explorer in Vista. There is no horizontal scroll bar shown at all, and horizontal scrolling is fully automatic. The tree will scroll left and right as you move the mouse over it to let you access items that may be scrolled out of the display. This option is not available in Windows XP.
  • Manual scrolling with automatic adjustment on folder changes: This is the horizontal scrolling style used by Explorer in Windows XP. The tree displays a horizontal scroll bar (if needed), which lets you scroll manually. The tree will also adjust the horizontal scroll position automatically when you change folder to attempt to display as much of the currently selected folder as possible.
  • Manual scrolling only: This option disables all automatic scrolling behavior. A horizontal scroll bar will be shown if needed and you can scroll left and right manually, but the tree will never move by itself.
  • No scrolling or scrollbar at all: This is the style used by Explorer in Windows 7. The tree never scrolls horizontally at all - no scroll bar is shown and it doesn't move left or right by itself either. If items are out of view to the right of the tree you need to resize the tree to see them.
  • Prevent scrolling during drag and drop: This option prevents the tree from scrolling left or right during a drag and drop operation. It doesn't affect how horizontal scrolling works normally.
• Open second Folder Tree in dual display mode: If this option is turned on and you set a Lister to dual-display mode, a second tree for the second file display will be automatically displayed. If this option is turned off you can open the second tree manually if desired.
• Position selected item in the middle of the tree: This option causes the tree to automatically scroll vertically to keep the selected item as close to the middle of the display as possible. The scrolling only happens when the tree selection is changed automatically (to follow your navigation), so if you're navigating using the tree itself this option has no effect.
• Share single tree between dual file displays: If you have dual file displays but only one tree, this option causes the single tree to be shared by both file displays. Whichever file display is source has "ownership" of the tree, and the tree will reflect the current folder shown in that file display only. When you switch source and destination displays the tree will automatically update to reflect the new location (if any). If this option is turned off, and you have dual displays with only one tree, then the tree is owned by the left/top file display only, and the right display doesn't have one.