Finding and arranging

Getting back to a file that already exists somewhere. Searching for it when the folder it lives in has been forgotten, picking it off a list of what was worked on last, and reshaping the view itself — the layout of the file list, the panes around it, the color of a folder and the order of the storages — so that the next time takes less looking.

Search for files and folders

Summary Drive's side of the shared search field: a term, a scope that says where to look, and filters for the kind of file and the date it was changed. The scope is the part that belongs to Drive — the current folder, that folder and everything under it, all of Drive, one connected storage, or the mail attachments.

Why it matters The file somebody is looking for is rarely one they can name a folder for; it is one they saved three years ago in the middle of doing something else. Browsing a tree for it costs more than the file is worth, and a search that always covers everything is barely better, because the document called Invoice is in among four hundred of them. Scope is what makes the answer short enough to read: a user who knows it is somewhere under this project, or that it arrived as a mail attachment, can say so.

Description

The scope is the current folder, the current folder with its subfolders, all Drive folders, one storage account, or the mail attachments
Narrow by file type — photos, PDFs, text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, audio, video, archives, folders
Narrow by a date range, and by the name of a file or folder
File types are matched by the file extension, because storages do not report MIME types reliably
Search is switched off while the folder view shows no storage at all, with a notice saying why

Availability Since 7.10.6 or earlier. Requires infostore. Which storages the scope list offers follows the arrangement of the folder view, held in io.ox/files//tree/sections, so a section the user hid is not somewhere search looks either. The search field itself, its typed filters and its chips are described under Search and notifications.

Recent files

Summary A standing list of the hundred files most recently changed in the primary storage, reached from a Recent files entry under the Drive section of the folder view or from a button in the collapsed view. It gathers from wherever the user has been rather than listing one folder.

Why it matters The file somebody wants next is usually the one they had open an hour ago, and where they put it is the thing they are least likely to remember about it. Without a recents list the route back is to retrace the navigation — which account, which folder, which subfolder — or to search for a name that was never chosen with searching in mind. Neither is much to ask once; both are a daily tax on picking up where the last session stopped.

Description

A Recent files node under the Drive section of the folder view, and a button in the collapsed view
Lists the hundred most recently changed files of the primary storage, newest first
Follows the Show hidden files and folders setting
A curated list rather than a folder listing, so the Sort by control is not offered there

Availability Since 7.10.6 or earlier. Requires infostore. Whether files whose name begins with a dot are listed comes from io.ox/files//showHidden.

Switch between list, icon and tile layout

Summary Three ways of drawing the same folder: a List with one row per file, Icons in a grid, and Tiles at a larger size. The choice is made from the View menu and remembered for that folder, so every folder reopens in the layout it was last left in.

Why it matters A folder of scanned invoices and a folder of holiday photographs are the same thing to a file system and nothing alike to the person looking at them. Names tell the first apart; only the picture tells the second apart, and reading IMG_4417.jpg forty times to find one photo is the whole of the problem. Keeping the layout per folder is what stops this being a setting that has to be changed twice on every move between the two.

Description

List shows the name, size, date and share state in columns
Icons and Tiles show thumbnails, where the storage provides them
The chosen layout is stored per folder

Availability Since 7.10.6 or earlier. Requires infostore. The per-folder choice is held in io.ox/files//viewOptions.

Show or hide checkboxes, the folder view and the file details

Summary Switches in the View menu that decide what the Drive window shows around the file list: selection checkboxes, the folder view down the left, and the detail pane beside the list. The same menu reveals hidden files, and a Select menu narrows the list to one kind of file and selects in bulk.

Why it matters Three panes compete for a laptop screen, and which of them earns its space depends entirely on what is being done. Somebody picking twenty files out of a hundred wants checkboxes and no detail pane; somebody reading through a folder wants the opposite. Checkboxes are more than a preference on a tablet: selecting several files by holding a modifier key is not available on a touchscreen at all, so without them a touch user cannot act on more than one file at a time.

Description

Checkboxes allow several files to be selected without holding a modifier key
Folder view shows or hides the folder view down the left
File details shows or hides the detail pane beside the list
Checkboxes start off; the detail pane starts on, except on touch devices, where it starts off
Show hidden files and folders reveals files and folders whose name begins with a dot
A Select menu narrows the list to one kind of file — PDFs, text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, music, videos — and selects all, all files, or nothing

Availability Since 7.10.6 or earlier. Requires infostore. The switches are remembered in io.ox/files//showCheckboxes, io.ox/files//showDetails and io.ox/files//folderview/visible, and hidden files in io.ox/files//showHidden, which is also offered under Settings > Drive.

Give a folder a color

Summary Gives a Drive folder one of 24 named colors, which it then carries in the folder view and in the file list. Folder color sits in the folder's context menu on both surfaces, and the same menu takes the color away again.

Why it matters A folder view that has been in use for a few years is a column of near-identical rows, and the three or four folders somebody actually opens every day are somewhere in the middle of it, found by reading. Color is recognized before text and before position, so a colored folder is spotted rather than looked for. Keeping the color in the user's own settings matters as much as having one: it is a personal landmark, and it would be an imposition if a shared folder arrived on a colleague's screen already colored to somebody else's scheme.

Description

Folder color in the folder's context menu, in the folder view and in the file list
24 named colors, and a No color entry that takes the color away again
The color is stored in the user's own settings, so it does not travel to the people a folder is shared with
Not offered for folders that already carry a glyph of their own — a storage account, the attachment view, Common files, a trash

Availability Since 8.54. Requires infostore. The colors are held per folder in io.ox/files//folderColors.

Arrange the storages in the folder view

Summary The folder view groups folders into a section per storage — Drive itself, each connected account, the mail attachment view. Those sections can be moved up and down, and the ones a user never opens can be hidden; Settings > Drive > Folders and accounts lists every section, including the hidden ones, and is the way back.

Why it matters A user with a work storage, a personal cloud account and the attachment view has three trees stacked in one column, and only one of them is where the work is. Which one that is cannot be guessed by the application, so scrolling past the other two is a cost paid on every navigation. Hiding is the stronger half: an account connected once for a single file otherwise stays in the view forever, crowding out the storages that are used daily and widening every folder picker and every search scope along with it.

Description

Move a storage up or down, or hide it, from the folder view's context menu
Settings > Drive > Folders and accounts lists every section, hidden ones included, which is how a hidden one comes back
A hidden section also drops out of the collapsed view's quick access bar and out of the search scopes
Hiding every section is allowed; Drive then shows an explicit empty state and offers to add a storage
When the folder view is collapsed, a column of icon buttons keeps the places a user keeps returning to one click away
Folders carry an icon that says what they are — a person for a storage account, a paperclip for the attachment view, a cloud for spaces, a trash can for a trash
A deployment can predefine the initial arrangement, and can remove the Drive section altogether

Availability Since 8.54. Requires infostore. The arrangement is held in io.ox/files//tree/sections, a deployment removes the Drive section with io.ox/files//tree/hideDriveSection, and the folder icons are covered by the feature toggle folderIcons, on by default. Connecting the storages that these sections stand for is described under Storages and capacity.