7. The "Browse Files" tool

This tool is displayed after you select any of the menu items of the FileFolder submenu.

You may need to enable the FileFolder submenu by checking "Enable the 'File|Folder' Submenu" in OptionsPreferences, General|Features section.

This tool is similar to the file manager applications which are native to all operating systems: Windows Explorer, Mac OS X Finder, Linux/KDE Nautilus, etc. The main advantages of using one or more "Browse Files" tools over the native counterparts are:

Figure 7.3. The "Browse Files" tool showing the source files of our DITA tutorial
The "Browse Files" tool showing the source files of our DITA tutorial

Notice in the above screenshot that the "Show image thumbnails" option (see below) is turned on and that the icon next to "concept.dita" has a small lock, meaning that is file is currently locked[13].

Toolbar buttons:

Back

Browse previously visited folder.

Forward

Browse previously visited folder by undoing the Back action.

Go up one level

Browse parent folder.

Split

Split the "Browse Files" tool in two parts, making it easy to drag/drop or to copy/paste files between these tools.

Search

Open a "Search Files" tool allowing to search by their contents the XML files found in this folder.

Show image thumbnails

This checkbox adds a thumbnail after each list item corresponding an image file.

This facility makes use of all the image toolkit plug-ins currently installed in XXE. If you are missing an image format (e.g. SVG), please install the corresponding image toolkit plug-in (e.g. "Apache Batik image toolkit plug-in") using OptionsInstall Add-ons.

Sort files by...

Displays a menu letting you sort the listed files according to different file properties: name, date, size, etc, in either ascending or descending order. Note that only files are sorted using selected choice; folders are always listed before any file and are always sorted by their name.

[Note]

Just like "Show image thumbnails", the choice made using this menu is not a user preferences. (The choice made by the user will not “survive” editing sessions.) A newly created "Browse Files" tool uses default "Sort by Name, A-Z". However a "Browse Files" tool created by clicking Split uses the same sort option as its originating "Browse Files" tool.

Refresh

Update what is displayed by the "Browse Files" tool. Clicking this button is needed when the content of the folder is modified outside XMLmind XML Editor.

Below the toolbar is found an interactive pane containing a visual representation of the folder:



[13] Details about the lock are given by the tooltip of the file icon.