Project tree view

Hi Harshad,

Thanks for posting here.  Unfortunately we can't reply to comments in the Windows Store (we have suggested that feature to Microsoft) so at the moment, our forum is the only place to go for two way communication.

We do have some ideas for things we'd like to do in this area and will mark down the suggestion to examine Sublime.

Is this feature coming? I really wish I could use Code Writer, but I can't begin to really try it out until there is a File Tree.

Hi Harrison,

We haven't started on it as of yet.  If you and others could provide more specific details on what you'd like to see and how it would be used, that would be most helpful.  Such as are you looking for ways to store a number of named folder hierarchies that you could toggle between, etc.?  What features in this view would you specifically be looking for?

You must be using Visual Studio in order to develop the app, and that is what I am trying to replace. Their file tree is what I am looking for.

Or even the Sublime Text editor's project tree as I had it mentioned already in the first post.

Visual Studio's is pretty robust and highly functional, but Sublime's is just a tree, doesnt do a lot. But even that is good enough

It looks like Sublime's lets you create/save projects that each can contain multiple root folders.  Then within the project folders, you can do some basic file/folder manipulation.  Is that basically all you need?  If you are looking for more, please be as specific as you can.  Thanks!

At the basic level that is all I need, not sure about Harshad. In the future I'd personally love GIT support like what is built into Visual Studio 2013. While that ties into the File Tree, that's more of a separate request.

Git support would be pretty cool to have.  What sort of languages do you work in?

I'm working in HTML5/Smarty Template Engine/Javascript/PHP5.

If you guys could add GIT support, I'd pay for the app with no problem at all. I could almost completely replace Visual Studio than. The only other thing is publishing to a server (via FTP or SFTP or Rsync or UNC path). Again, somewhat deals with the file tree as that is a list of all the files in a project.

There are a number of questions we'd like to pose to you to get your (and everyone else's) thoughts on.  Please post your feedback in reply.

Pane Display

How should the project pane appear? 

We could make it appear as a flyout with light dismiss, similar to the various other Settings flyouts.  You'd display it either via the app bar or a hotkey.  Then it would hide away when you tap outside of it.

Sublime is different in that while a project is open, it's always shown as a sidebar.  I'm not sure if that is as desirable in a more touch friendly app like Code Writer where the app can be resized very thin.  Do you think the flyout design is better for Code Writer?

Root Folder Count

Sublime lets you display multiple root folders for a project.  This is nice in scenarios where there are potentially various related project folders but that are in separate folder hierarchies.  The downside of this setup is that if we add some form of SCM (source control management) like Git later on, that really only works when you have a single root file folder.

Thus we are thinking that when you create a new project, you would select a single root folder.  And future enhancements for SCM would then be possible.  We would allow you to switch between projects easily too, so that would help with the rare scenario where you do need to access several root folders for a project (you could make a project for each one).

Tree vs. Flat Display

Sublime shows a tree of folders/files but that doesn't seem to be an optimal way to manage navigation where screen space is limited.  We are thinking about having more of an explorer-like display where you have a breadcrumb bar at the top and a flat list of folders and files at the bottom.  There also would be a button to move up a folder level, or you could click on breadcrumb items to jump to an ancestor folder.

Item Display

What overall info would you like to see in the item display.  Files for instance could have filename, type description, size, date modified, icon.  If we include all that info, each item will be about 50px tall and will span the width of the flyout.  Note that 40px is the minimum size recommended for tappable UI elements, so this is touch friendly.

Pane Display - Needs to at least have an option to always be shown. Otherwise you might as well not even add it.

Root Folder Count - I only need one root folder, especially so it can be used with SCM.

Tree vs Flat Display - Needs to be a tree or otherwise it is worthless. I am moving between different files constantly, and a flat display makes it much more painful to use. It also limits me from being able to see files in 2 separate directories at once, which is something I do very often.

Item Display - Exactly what Visual Studio shows, which is icon and filename (including extension). The icon needs to be to be specific for the type of file (PHP, Javascript, etc.). What you could is to have 2 parts to the pane. The top part which is the tree, and the bottom part which is the properties for the currently selected file.

PLEASE don't add this! or at least make it optional!

I hate project trees! only reason I'm still use my old but gold notepad2 is because it doesn't support that.