Tree view support for FTP and SFTP

[sublimeye]

Seems tree view doesn't work in FTP and SFTP connections for me

Maybe I do something wrong? I suppose it can't be truth that TC doesn't support treeview on FTP servers.

I see FTP in tree view in the bottom, but there are nothing "inside" of it and it can't be expanded.
But I have several FTP connections in "connect to ftp server" manager.

Also I'm connecting to SFTP using Hans-Jürgen Petrich SFTP plugin.

[petermad]

I see FTP in tree view in the bottom, but there are nothing "inside" of it and it can't be expanded.

You have to start an FTP session (Ctrl+F) before you can see it in the tree (they will show up as "subfolders" 0,1,2 etc.) - and the tree only shows the root of the FTP connection.

[sublimeye]

the tree only shows the root of the FTP connection

It is what I asked about ... too bad

But why tree view for FTP doesn't implemented yet?
Its not too hard to implement, imo.

[ghisler(Author)]

I have tried to add it, but it was too slow - TC had to read all the parent and grandparent dirs of the current directory to fill the tree.

[Sob]

But if someone really needs an overview of all ftp directories, it's much better to wait five minutes and let TC make the tree than going through the folders manually one by one and spend an hour doing that. ;)
Of course it'd be wise to leave it off by default and show some "are you *really* sure you want this?" dialog before enabling it. Or make it an ini option, only advanced users use those.

[Henrie]

I have to agree with Sob.

In the past it has happened before that a function was not implemented because it takes to long but when one has to do the same manually it takes longer (like copying from one ftp-server to another which do not support it, it can be done by TC by using a temp folder, but TC simply does not support this, so i have to do it myself manually by using a temp folder the same way that TC could support directly).

[sublimeye]

TC had to read all the parent and grandparent dirs of the current directory to fill the tree.

Hmm, TC had to read ALL parent and grandparent dirs necessarily?

Why it can't just load /remote_dir/ or /root_dir (if remote isn't defined) only by reading name of parent/grandparent dirs?
(check out how WinSCP do this)

Also it will be good to have option to cache folder tree locally, so you will not need to rescan after every discconnect (like FileZilla)

btw, WinSCP and FileZilla has tree view, and its very handy and don't lag at all.

[petermad]

Also it will be good to have option to cache folder tree locally

In the "FTP: connection details" dialog, check the box marked: "Remember contents of all visited directories (in cache)"

[sublimeye]

In the "FTP: connection details" dialog, check the box marked: "Remember contents of all visited directories (in cache)"

Ehm, thanks, but seems it is not related to "tree view"

[madmurdock]

I have tried to add it, but it was too slow - TC had to read all the parent and grandparent dirs of the current directory to fill the tree.

hey christian,

to bump this old issue: i understand your speed concern, but cant you add only the directories already listed to the tree view? that way, it would grow while the used explores the site. imho a perfect compromise.

maybe even an site-option to store the gathered list for next connection. if you find a dead directory, just remove it from tree view.

[JohnFredC]

In the past it has happened before that a function was not implemented because it takes to long but when one has to do the same manually it takes longer

This ably describes an issue pervasive in every single piece of software I use, including TC.

No offense intended to anyone, but developers tend to focus on the efficient implementation of individual functions, whereas their concerns really should start at the much higher "task" level: what are the bottlenecks for manual execution of any particular task? Address those first please, then tune the individual steps.

This reminds me of arithmetic in primary school. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division: these were easy. The "word" problems, though, those were always hard. One needed the arithmetic skills to solve them, of course, but other skills were required to correctly interpret the problem and string together the necessary steps to solve it.

TC (and most other file managers, for that matter) is extraordinarily good at the "arithmetic", but not so good at the "word problems".

[ghisler(Author)]

TC would just become unusable if every directory change on a server would take several minutes to read all the parent directories. I think that this does have some relevance, right?

[madmurdock]

maybe i wasnt clear.

when you connect to an ftp, leave the tree empty. but while the user browses through that ftp, just add the directories he enters. no speed issues or background activity involved, but makes surfing a huge server much easier.

btw: i totally disagree with john and arithmetic.

[ghisler(Author)]

I see - but the user could have configured a start directory for ftp, or used the history to jump directly to a subdirectory.