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Miller columns (also known as cascading lists) are a
browsing Browsing is a kind of orienting strategy. It is supposed to identify something of relevance for the browsing organism. When used about human beings it is a metaphor taken from the animal kingdom. It is used, for example, about people browsing o ...
/ visualization technique that can be applied to tree structures. The columns allow multiple levels of the hierarchy to be open at once, and provide a visual representation of the current location. It is closely related to techniques used earlier in the
Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan K ...
browser, but was independently invented by Mark S. Miller in 1980 at Yale University. The technique was then used at Project Xanadu, Datapoint, and NeXT. While at Datapoint, Miller generalized the technique to browse directed graphs with labeled nodes and arcs. In all cases, the technique is appropriate for structures with high degree (large fanout). For low-degree structures, outline editors or graph viewers are more effective.


History

Miller columns are most well known today as the “Columns view” mode of the Mac OS X Finder, as well as the "Browser" view in
iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...
. The columns in Finder descend directly from the NeXTSTEP File Viewer's use of Miller columns going back to 1986. The GNUstep project continues to offer a Miller column browser that closely follows the NeXT approach, bringing the advantages of a column browser to Linux,
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, and other operating systems with large tree structures. The
iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes wa ...
's browsing of categories and audio file tag attributes is reminiscent of column browsing, although only one column is visible at a time. Many software music players implement a "tag browsing" feature that utilizes Miller columns.


Issues

Miller columns have several issues from usability standpoint: * The use of horizontal scrollbars when displaying deeper folder structures, though their use can be reduced or eliminated by using the keyboard to navigate through directories instead of the pointer * Sort options and metadata display are limited, though this can be mitigated by changing the view of the current directory when appropriate either using the pointer or a shortcut on the keyboard and, as in the macOS, metadata can be seen in a preview column when a file is selected instead of a directory


Use in file browsers

* '' Finder'', the default file browser on Mac OS X, uses Miller columns in its "Columns" view. * '' Path Finder'' is a
shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...
file browser for Mac OS X supporting Miller column view amongst others. * ''GWorkspace'', a workspace manager for GNUstep which can be used as file browser, uses Miller columns. * '' ranger'', a terminal-based file browser with Vi-like key bindings, uses a multi-column mode similar to Miller columns. * ''evidence'', an apparently obsolete file browser for Enlightenment, used Miller columns in its “browser-view”. * '' Thunar'', the default file browser for Xfce, used to have a
branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...
called “columns-view” which was given up later. * '' Dolphin'', the default file browser of
KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...
, also canceled the further development of Miller columns due to the source code being too complex – making it difficult to maintain. * '' Tkdesk'', a file browser for the
X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...
, uses Miller columns. * ''Marlin'' is a file browser written in GTK 3 which implements Miller columns. Marlin does not have any download files registered with Launchpad as of November 2016. * ''Pantheon Files'' (or just ''Files'', for short) is a fork of Marlin actively developed by the Elementary team. * ''FSViewer'' is an obsolete file browser for Window Maker using Miller columns. * ''Greg's Browser'' is an NeXT-inspired column browser for the
Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. Th ...
. * ''WinBrowser'' and ''Ultraexplorer'' are file browsers for Microsoft Windows supporting Miller columns. * ''One Commander'' is a file browser for Microsoft Windows using automatically scaled Miller columns in a tabbed interface. * ''ThatFile'' is a file browser for Microsoft Windows with Miller columns. It additionally has tools to optimize user workflow. * ''Direttore File Manager'' is a file browser for Microsoft Windows 10 using Miller columns in one of its views. * Yet another Windows file manager that supports miller columns is xplorer2 * The storage explorer on the ''Supabase'' dashboard uses Miller columns in its "columns" view.


See also

* Shelf: NeXT GUI element that can be combined with columns to make a
file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files inclu ...
.


References

{{Reflist


External links


NSBrowser
The Cocoa/NextStep class that represents a generalized Miller Column widget
RBrowser
a Miller Column FTP browser that started on NeXTSTEP
Responsive Miller Column
is a jQuery plugin implementing Miller columns User interface techniques File managers NeXT MacOS user interface