Where's the "Up" button?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ceed
  • Start date Start date
David [Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:13:01 -0700] wrote:




Marco said:
ceed [Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:14:48 -0700] wrote:
Hi,
It's always the little thing that gets you. I like Vista after having
turned off more crap than I had to in XP. What's left is a good
looking solid OS doing things fast. One thing though: Where's the "Up"
button in Windows Explorer? How do I go up one directory in one step?
I am hoping I am missing something obvious or I will have to go
hunting for an external file manager. I do not mind having to do that,
but I was hoping I didn't have to.
At the left of the address bar there are two buttons with "Back" and
"Forward" arrows on them. Consider the "Back" button (or backspace key)
the Vista equivalent of the "Up" button in most cases.
If you have pasted a path into the address bar, then simply click on the
previous directory of the path to go up one level.
Example, let's look at the following pasted path:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Help Viewer\1.0\Resources\en
The Back button (or backspace key) will not go back one level here, i.e.
to "Resources" folder, so you would have to click on the word
"Resources" of the path in the address bar. Up one more level - click on
"1.0", up one more - click on "Adobe Help Viewer", and so on.
Also, you can click on the tiny arrows of the path in the address bar to
navigate around the directories of the same level, which will permit
modifying this path at that intermediate point to navigate to another
directory in a jiffy, i.e. this is much quicker than pressing the Back
button repeatedly, if the path contains a great many levels.
You could also simply click on the folder in the tree that is displayed
in the navigation pane.
See also these:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/ddd07224-70eb-407...
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/8eb3b0f8-533a-4e6...
Marco
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Not to be rude or argumentative, but "back" and "up" are not the same
except in the event that the user has just been in a parent directory.
Click to expand...

That is why I used the terms "equivalent" and "in most cases": Consider
the "Back" button (or backspace key) the Vista equivalent of the "Up"
button in most cases.
"back" is the previous directory, and "up" is the parent of the current
directory.
Click to expand...

Isn't the previous directory always the parent of the current directory?

Look at the following path:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\chrome

If "chrome" is the current directory, "profile" is the parent directory.
If "profile" is the current directory, "defaults" is the parent
directory, and so on.

The Back button would permit climbing down the tree to the root.

This notion is also more accurate than the "up" idea, because one moves
*down* from the directory tree branches to the root.
The real "up" (into the branches) would therefore be forward, which is
also available in Vista - obviously only *if* the whole path has been
expanded previously in the current operation.
While they COULD be the same, they are by no means usually
the same.
Click to expand...

Unless the path has been pasted into the address bar, the Back button
can be considered the same as the old Up button.

Marco- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

To me what's important is that "Up" alsways is up when you have a
button for it. Always! I have a shortcut in my "Documents" folder
called "Clients" which takes me to a folder on an encrypted partition
"S:\Clients". When I push "Back" in that directory I come to C:\Users
\Me\Clients. If I had an "Up" button I would have gotten to the root
of S:\. Without an up button there's no easy for to the root of S:\ in
the current explorer since there are no Up button. You would have to
click on the text in the path in this case. I do not really mind doing
that, but I would prefer the good 'ol up button :)

//ceed-de-dum
 
theclyde shared these words of wisdom:


I see no reason why the removed it. Folks were used to it and would not
have hurt to keep it (even if it's *needed* anymore because there are
better instruments now.


Why not just click *once* on the proper directory in the path?


That's right. But I can't see a relation to case discussed in here.
Or: Could you tell me how you managed to use the Up-Arrow without a
mouse? <bg,d&r>

Rainald
Click to expand...

I used the keyboard shortcut for the up arrow... the backspace key.
Using the key, I do not need to remove my hand from the keyboard, find
the mouse, move the cursor to the button, click the button, move the
cursor away from blocking the display, move my hand back to the
keyboard.

Using the keyboard can be much, much faster than the mouse.
Especially for doing a lot of quick navigation. Backspace, Backspace,
Down cursor, space bar, enter. I could hit those 5 keys in sequence
to go up two directories, select the second subdirectory and go to it
in a third of the time it takes me to move the mouse to Vista's
improved address bar.
 
I used the keyboard shortcut for the up arrow... the backspace key.
Using the key, I do not need to remove my hand from the keyboard, find
the mouse, move the cursor to the button, click the button, move the
cursor away from blocking the display, move my hand back to the
keyboard.

Using the keyboard can be much, much faster than the mouse.
Especially for doing a lot of quick navigation. Backspace, Backspace,
Down cursor, space bar, enter. I could hit those 5 keys in sequence
to go up two directories, select the second subdirectory and go to it
in a third of the time it takes me to move the mouse to Vista's
improved address bar.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

I know some people use the keyboard for nearly everything, and it is
the fastest way. Personally I'm not too good at it. I have always been
a "mouse guy", so I need buttons and clickable objects. I haven't
played enough keyboard intensive games I guess! :)

//ceed
 
Isn't the previous directory always the parent of the current directory?
Click to expand...
No, the previous directory is NOT defined as the parent of the current
directory. It is the LAST directory that you were in, prior to
accessing your current directory. ONLY in the case where you moved from
the parent to a child directory, will the "previous" and "parent"
directory be the same directory. I can see from your question, that
you are confused about what "previous" means, in the context of
navigating within Explorer.

Dave
 
ceed said:
Hi,

It's always the little thing that gets you. I like Vista after having
turned off more crap than I had to in XP. What's left is a good
looking solid OS doing things fast. One thing though: Where's the "Up"
button in Windows Explorer? How do I go up one directory in one step?
I am hoping I am missing something obvious or I will have to go
hunting for an external file manager. I do not mind having to do that,
but I was hoping I didn't have to.

Linux has always had better file managers than Windows in my opinion.
I did however like Windows Explorer on XP to the extent I didn't
replace it. Without an "Up" button in Vista I'm back to be looking for
alternatives (for file manager that is, not OS...:)

//see and be ceed (stuffy nose)
Click to expand...

An excellent replacement for file manager is Directory Opus.

http://www.gpsoft.com.au/

I have been using it for a couple of years.

Randy
 
David said:
No, the previous directory is NOT defined as the parent of the current
directory. It is the LAST directory that you were in, prior to
accessing your current directory. ONLY in the case where you moved from
the parent to a child directory, will the "previous" and "parent"
directory be the same directory. I can see from your question, that
you are confused about what "previous" means, in the context of
navigating within Explorer.
Click to expand...

But then the example I gave in my previous post is correct:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\chrome

If "chrome" is the current directory, "profile" is the parent directory.
If "profile" is the current directory, "defaults" is the parent
directory, and so on.

And I agree with you that "previous" and "parent" are not necessarily
interchangeable terms.

Marco
 
Hi,

You might try clicking on the parent folder in the address bar, or the arrow
in the address bar to the left of the current folder. This latter will give
you a list of "brother" folders to select from.

I won't disagree that this change in behaviors can be disconcerting. There
are some utilities around that can re-add things like the "up" button to
Vista's version of Explorer.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

in message news:[email protected]...
 
Back
Top