
Miller Columns - pmoriarty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns
======
dpwm
I remember using these somewhere, perhaps a music player, and how amazing they
were.

It's interesting to note that Thunar (XFCE file manager) and Dolphin (KDE
manager) have removed Miller columns, in KDE's case because the column view
had "been used by only very few people but was tricky and time consuming to
maintain." [0]

A slight side note, I've been a fan of Mark S. Miller's work for a while now
and I never knew these were named after him. Mark S. Miller's other
contributions, particularly his work on popularizing capability-based
security[1] and the E programming language[2] are well worth looking into if
you're interested in how easy secure, race-condition-free, distributed
computing could be made.

[0] [http://ppenz.blogspot.com/2012/01/dolphin-20-status-
update.h...](http://ppenz.blogspot.com/2012/01/dolphin-20-status-
update.html?showComment=1325669619833#c91135672311802014)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-
based_security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_\(programming_language\))

~~~
ryanjshaw
Came here to say much the same. I spent much of my youth reading reading
ERights.org [0] and related capabilities-based security sites (Hardy, Shapiro,
etc.). Weird how it seems nothing ever came of it (or am I wrong?).

[0] [http://www.erights.org](http://www.erights.org)

~~~
dpwm
Cap'n'proto's RPC layer[0] is interesting and is heavily inspired by E
language's network layer (capTP) and the author says that Miller was involved
in the design [1].

I also seem to remember that one of the authors of Pony language[2] says that
Miller had been involved in discussions with the authors of Pony language.[1]

I seem to remember a comment stating that Cap'n Proto is used by Cloudflare,
but I'm not sure if they use the RPC layer as well as the serialization layer.

I also think that we are in an age where promises are widely used and promise
pipelining[3] could somehow end up a future mainstream language feature.

[0] [https://capnproto.org/rpc.html](https://capnproto.org/rpc.html)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9483735](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9483735)

[2] [https://www.ponylang.io/](https://www.ponylang.io/)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_and_promises#Promise_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_and_promises#Promise_pipelining)

~~~
kentonv
Cloudflare uses both Cap'n Proto serialization and RPC, though at present the
serialization is used by a lot more systems than the RPC is. Serialization is
most notably used in the logging aggregation pipeline, though shows up in a
number of places as well. At present the only place I'm aware of RPC being
used is the control protocol for Argo Tunnel (the tool which lets your web
server connect to Cloudflare, rather than the usual arrangement where
Cloudflare connects to the web server, hence letting it stay behind a firewall
with no public IP). We're investigating more use cases, though, particularly
around IPC (communicating between processes on the same machine) and Workers
(communicating between sandboxes in the same process), both places where zero-
copy is likely to shine. I'm also excited by the possibilities for capability-
based interaction between Workers.

(I'm the tech lead for Cloudflare Workers and also the creator of Cap'n Proto,
though Cloudflare was using Cap'n Proto long before I joined. And yes, Mark
Miller is a friend and I worked with him on the RPC design.)

------
raindropm
I love it so much. The only Finder's feature(well, aside from label) I miss
when using Windows Explorer. I can _fly_ through my folder hierarchy quickly
with just directional keys, with crystal clear picture of where/how deep I am
in the directory.

Windows have an alternative File manager with Miller Columns called
OneCommander, though it is quite sluggish compared to Finder.

~~~
pierrebai
I find the bread crumb in the navigation bar of the Windown File Explorer does
90% of the work the columns did. Its advantage is that it takes a lot less
screen real-estate, can show more levels at once, which in turn allows
navigating further up faster. Its only downside is that to go up and then down
takes two clicks instead of one. OTOH, with columns, you an onyl do this if
you go up only one level or two, given that the number of visible columns is
much more limited than the bread crumbs.

Overall, I think the bread crumbs is a win, especially given the balance
between real estate vs frequency of use.

~~~
abrowne
I agree. I thought I'd miss column view when I switched from Mac to Linux, but
I'm ok with the breadcrumbs.

------
dfox
I think that for this layout to be truly useful the underlying tree has to
have particular structure (not too deep an very wide), things like music
library or Smalltalk Browser matches this well (mostly because the depth is
inherently fixed), while arbitrary tree structures (think Unix filesystem)
does not. Another case where this kind of view is very useful is when the user
only has vague idea where in the immense hiarachy the thing that she searches
for actually is (think online component catalog, with Farnell's eshop having
quite similar but by default hidden navigation tool)

------
pavel_lishin
I could have sworn Norton Commander used a similar layout, but it looks like
it just had columns, as well as a left-right split for viewing two directories
at once.

(One of my earlier memories is my grandmother teaching me how to launch a game
on their computer; I can still remember her saying "н ц".)

~~~
Boulth
What game was it?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Tetris, I believe; I'm not sure which version. This would have been late 80s
or early 90s.

------
OskarS
I never use this view in Finder. I get the idea, to show multiple levels of
the hierarchy at once, but I always liked the "collapsable list" view more.
The horizontal space is better used as a table for further file attributes
(filesize, last modified, etc.).

~~~
TeMPOraL
I could imagine you could have the best of both worlds:

    
    
      +-+-----+-------------------------+
      | |     |                         |
      | |     |                         |
      | |     |                         |
      |A|  B  |           C             |
      | |     |                         |
      | |     |                         |
      | |     |                         |
      +-+-----+-------------------------+
    

Where B is the previous level of the tree, C is the detailed table view of the
current level, and A is a compressed representation of all the previous levels
(you could e.g. click on it to replace B with B's parent, and C would get
replaced with details of B).

Did anyone try something like this out?

~~~
abecedarius
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_tree)
has some of the same strengths as this idea. Perhaps it hasn't been pursued
because it was under patent the whole time when desktop UIs were still
evolving.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Another reason to hate software patents.

------
gilrain
The movement of most music players, led by iTunes, away from Miller columns as
the default navigation paradigm has sucked for me. For me, nothing works as
well as three Miller columns: Genre, Artist, Album.

~~~
tzs
It's still there. Click "Songs" under Library in the sidebar. That causes a
"Column Browser" menu to appear in the "View" menu. Select "Show Column
Browser" from that. It's a toggle.

That menu also lets you choose which columns to enable. The choices are
Genres, Artists, Albums, Composers, and Groupings.

~~~
Raphmedia
Thanks a lot. I had been relying on the search feature but it hangs often on a
26k songs library.

------
ideonexus
Could anyone recommend an open-source software for cataloging generic objects
that allows setting up these columns of categorization dynamically? I've been
looking for such a software, preferably web-based, that could be used to
catalog and categorize anything with some configuration.

Edit: Not just for file-browsing, but for adding any kind of list.

~~~
themodelplumber
You reminded me of the file manager Ranger, which is indeed for file browsing,
though files and folders are also one possible model/paradigm for cataloging
and categorizing just about anything. (In fact in many ways, computers and
especially unices reward you for cataloging information using this paradigm)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_(file_manager)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_\(file_manager\))

~~~
marliechiller
came here looking for ranger and wasn't disappointed. i love it!

------
zymhan
I find it amazing that there are no Linux GUI file browsers listed that
support the column view still.

~~~
anotherevan
Agreed. I just commented that I remembered seeing Miller columns once, years
and years ago on someone's Mac's Finder and really liked the idea. Now I'm
really annoyed to read that Dolphin had it but dropped it.

------
sorokod
Looks like the layout used by Ranger (
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_(file_manager)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_\(file_manager\))
)

------
ageofwant
Ranger does this very well.
[https://github.com/ranger/ranger](https://github.com/ranger/ranger). Perhaps
midnight commander (mc) has a similar mode.

~~~
ghostly_s
Yep, love ranger. And if you use the right terminal emulator, there's a flag
that will enable honest-to-god _image previews_ in your console!

------
dkersten
I personally never liked these. I’m not sure why, but I find them awkward and
clunky for some reason.

------
ronjouch
Thanks. Didn't know this UX came from Smalltalk, I always assumed it was
kinda-exclusive to macOS' Finder/iTunes and heavily patented by Apple.

~~~
mprovost
The live demo of Smalltalk-78 that was posted here a while ago shows it off
quite nicely.

[https://lively-web.org/users/bert/Smalltalk-78.html](https://lively-
web.org/users/bert/Smalltalk-78.html)

~~~
etatoby
I fumbled and clicked around for a while, but I still don't have the slightest
idea of what I'm looking at and how to use it. Except for the obvious "an
ancient operating system emulated in Javascript."

~~~
ghostly_s
Click-and-hold the right mouse button on the desktop, and select 'Open a
Browser' from the lovely ornate dropdown menu. You'll see a miller column
browser at the top of the window.

------
smrtinsert
I love these. I've always thought a textual filter at the top of each column
would solve the scrolling issue.

------
anotherevan
I remember I saw this once, years and years ago on someone's Mac's Finder and
really liked the idea. Now I'm really annoyed to read that Dolphin had it but
dropped it.

------
stevedekorte
Every smart phone uses this interface but presents it one column at a time.
It's a powerful and beautiful design.

------
vansteen
You either hate it or love it. (personally, my default view in OSX Finder)

