Dual Pane Inventory Window

Why not have a dual pane window in Inventory. You could select a folder on the right side, select several items on the left side, then click on either a Copy or Move button, and all those items would go to the folder selected in the other pane. The Amiga had file managers like this back in the 1980's, so I know how much time it saves.

I remember the Amiga! Workbench!

For now, you can create two (or more) inventory windows. FILE ---> NEW WINDOW in Inventory

I wrote one of the popular enhanced workbenches for the Amiga, though not one of the dual-pane jobbers. I prefer multiple windows to multiple panes in a window, it's much more flexible, but it's not really obvious that the inventory supports multiple windows... it took me a few weeks before I noticed that option in the menu.

The inventory window should have one pane for folders and one for files. This would allow easier file manipulation and MUCH less scrolling (which has been MUCH slower since SL 1.7 or so).

Same comment... just open two windows.

Why should the user be forced to do that when the single window could be designed better to PREVENT having to open a 2nd window in the 1st place? <blink> The 2nd window should at least open with the same folder open in the 1st window...

Why should the user be forced to have the wasted space of a dual-pane window when they could open a second window on the occasions when it was actually needed? And since I have to navigate to or find the destination anyway, why should I have to go to the trouble of closing all the folders so I can find and open a different one?

Not to be the voice of reason or compromise here or anything.

Why not support both modes? Make it a radio control in the menu to pick the style. Then there would be no forcing of anything.

I really like the idea and would have it on permanantly myself, but agree with Strife.

Oh, and Argent, the dual pane thing that's being descibed is like when you have the folders pane in Windows Explorer - folders only (no files) are shown in the left hand pane. You can't do that by opening two windows in SL.

It's not wasted space. Navigating dual-panes is MUCH easier than a single pane. You already have to go to the trouble of closing folders to reduce vertical scrolling with SL's current inventory design. A dual-pane design would GREATLY reduce the need to do this--especially in JUST the folder pane. Do you even USE Windows Explorer or a comparable file manager with a dual-pane setup?

That's not what the original poster was describing. Windows Explorer doesn't have "copy" and "move" buttons, it uses drag-and-drop. The old dual-pane interfaces from the '80s, like the ones on the Amiga, were things like the old Midnight Commander, where you had two panes and (MOVE--> and (COPY--> buttons between them. You still see these on a lot of file managers and FTP clients, and they're really wasteful of space.

But, now that you mention it, I tend to use multiple windows rather than Explorer windows in Windows, because they let me see the *contents* of both the source and destination.

Multiple window mode in explorer doesn't show you all the folers above the one you're in though, or the contents of them or any you happened to leave open. The way the inventory works (like a lot of SL's UI) really isn't very good. Reading the OP again, it's not descibing an Explorer style interface. I would like one though, it's very useful - I usually use multiple windows for managing files, but find that there's enough times I want the folders pane that I've got a button for opening it in my toolbar.

Indeed they are a waste of space, but having separate folder and file panes would not be. Of course, as Strife points out, it should be optional, but I would use dual-pane all the time.

I can work on memory so I don't need contents of each; I'm more for the ease and speed of separate folder/file panes.