Non-split tree view and selection checkboxes

Two enhancements that I think would make the file browser, especially the tree view, more useful:

1. Windows Explorer has an option, which I've always thought should be enabled by default, named "Use check boxes to select items". (In newer Windows versions you can also enable it for the current view using the "Item check boxes" option in View > Show/hide.) Having that same capability available as an option in WinSCP's file browsers would be extremely handy, when needing to select lots of files for transferring.
   
   
2. I don't believe there's any equivalent in Windows, but the GNOME Nautilus file browser on Linux has a preference, "Expandable Folders in List View". Enabling it effectively creates a single-pane tree view that mixes directories and files together, allowing you to explore everything beneath the current path in a single tree.
   
   Personally I find it far more useful than the split view, which has two problems (IMHO): directories are redundantly visible in both panes, and you can only see the _file contents_ of a single directory at a time.
   
   With a Nautilus-style tree view, the pathbar at the top of the view would still be useful, as would both entering subdirectories and navigating upwards to a directory's parent. (The pathbar would display/control the "root" of the tree, and directory navigation would change that root.) In the current 2-pane tree view it's sort of redundant, as the directory tree shows the same information as the pathbar.
   

As an example, here's a directory tree displayed in the WinSCP 2-pane tree view:


Here's that same tree in Nautilus' expandable tree view:


A single-pane tree view is especially useful when you need to select multiple files scattered across different directories, as you can expand them all and select the files all at once.

That situation is also where selection checkboxes become especially convenient. (So it's a bit annoying that Nautilus doesn't have those.)

Thanks for your suggestions.

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For the checkboxes you can vote here:
Issue 2012 – Allow selecting multiple files on touch screens (checkboxes)

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The other request is quite a change. I'll see if more people ask for it :)

martin wrote:

For the checkboxes you can vote here:
Issue 2012 – Allow selecting multiple files on touch screens (checkboxes)

Done! Seems I'm the very first; even the person who originally inspired the creation of that bug didn't bother.

It's funny – I've never had a touch-input computer other than my phone, so I never even thought about touchscreen selection. I use selection checkboxes all the time in Windows Explorer. They're incredibly convenient, even with a mouse. But yeah, I can see how they'd be essential for touchscreen use.

martin wrote:

The other request is quite a change. I'll see if more people ask for it :)

Fair enough, though I'm not optimistic. I find it's one of those things you don't really appreciate the usefulness of until you already have it. Even using Nautilus regularly, it took a while before I had the "Aha!" moment of realizing I could open a directory tree, simultaneously expand and select individual files from like seven different subdirectories, and copy/drag them all together.

Now I do it all the time, to the point I sometimes forget that it's not possible in most other file browser interfaces. Until I try to figure out how, and have the reverse-"Aha!" moment of remembering that there's just...no... way! (Then I post requests like this one, I guess?)