Feature: Add action to toggle between having a second pane and not

[santelelle]

What feature or improvement do you think would benefit Files?

I think it would be really nice to have the action Toggle horizontal/vertical panel similar to what KDE dolphin does with F3.

Right now there I need to use two different action to get this behaviour

• Add vertical pane
• Close active pane

I find myself consistently needing either two panels for moving folders around or just one panel to have more files visualized.

It's somehow linked to #14426

Requirements

• Add the action Toggle horizontal panel

Files Version

3.8.0.0

Windows Version

Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.4460

Comments

No response

[yaira2]

Is this request primarily about wanting to use the same keyboard shortcut instead of having to use two different ones?

[santelelle]

Yes.

Actually, it would be even nicer to have Close NON active pane as part of the toggle.

[yaira2]

My concern with a 'toggle' action is that it might give the impression that it will show or hide a second pane (e.g., toggling will bring back the previous pane), but this is not the case. Instead, the 'add pane' action actually creates a new pane, and closing it removes the pane. Additionally, while we might occasionally use the term 'dual pane', we could do a better job clarifying that the feature in Files is not a dual pane mode. Rather, it's a multi-pane feature that technically supports more than two panes. The limitation is primarily due to the size constraints on most monitors. However, there have been requests to unlock this functionality.

[santelelle]

In KDE dolphin (which I take as a reference because I am familiar with), when you add a vertical panel you are duplicating the current path. I agree that storing (for later restoring) the old path before closing the panel is probably not what you want to do.

I also agree on the fact that this feature is not well defined when having more than 2 panels.

[yaira2]

Just to clarify, I fully understand the use case. However, we'll need some time to consider our options and evaluate the user experience to determine the best way to implement this, if we decide to proceed.

[yaira2]

One possibility is an action named "Open/close vertical pane." Although this approach won't resolve the issue if we support more than two panes in the future, it at least clarifies that it's not toggling a panes visibility.