Feature: Change sidebar pinned section to browser bookmark bar system

[Danielku15]

What's the Problem?

In our corporate environment we have quite a complex folder structure and managing all jump points can be really complicated. On top comes the issue that we have the same folder names within different trees (e.g. for multiple product versions we're developing).

Also many people work in different focus areas like development and project management in parallel. Depending on your current task and project you are working on, different kinds of favorites might be of relevance.

1. The Favorites listed in the sidebar do not provide a good out-of-the-box solution to this complex file hierarchies in corporate environments.

2. There is no possiblity to organize the favorites in hierarchies (nested folders) and also renaming items according to your preference is not possible leaving you with multiple favorites looking the same.

Solution/Idea

Web Browsers do a great job with favorites (aka. bookmarks):

• Chrome has a bookmark bar and a bookmark manager allowing you a more complex organization of your favorites in folder hierarchies with names on folders and items according to your preference.
• Firefox has a bookmark button, a bookmark bar (if enabled) and a bookmark manager allowing you a more complex organization of your favorites in folder hierarchies with names on folders and items according to your preference.
• Microsoft Edge has a similar approach like Firefox.

Browsers allow you to organize bookmarks in the bookmark manager and items added to a special folder "Bookmarks Bar" will be shown within the bar. Other bookmarks can be accessed through the menu item.

This is also the solution I would love to see within Files:

• A bookmark manager allowing you to organize all your favorites with a custom folder structure and renaming of items.
• A Special folder in the bookmark manager for manging the favorites in the sidebar
• A Special folder in the bookmark manager for managing the favorites which are shown within a newly added bookmark bar.

The bookmark bar could be only a second step, in a first step of improvement we could also foresee:

• A bookmark manager for better hierarchical organization of your favorites with the option to rename them (and maybe specify icons if we want to get really fancy)
• Extend the favorites sidebar to handle "bookmark folders". Here I see two possibilities:
  a) Use the expander approach. A click on the bookmark folder will expand the items within the sidebar. This also can be nested. Maybe some idention for visual indication is needed.
  b) Open a context menu on click listing all items in a structure there for navigation.

Alternatives

The alternative approach (which I also used as workaround in the classical file explorer) is to create locally on your disk somewhere folders where you put in your bookmarks. then from the favorites you jump into this bookmark folder and then use the right plane with the file/folder list to jump further.

While it works it has various drawbacks on usability:

• the bookmark folder navigation spoils your navigation history. When jumping back and forth between two folders you always need two navigation steps.
• does not provide a quick "at a glance" jumping. A bookmark bar or favorites have the benefit of very quickly jumping with one click to a desired location once you are used to the "on-screen location" of the item.

Priorities

Capability	Priority
This proposal will allow end users to manage the favorites through a new more advanced favorites manager	Must
This proposal will allow end users to modify favorite items to show a custom label	Must
This proposal will allow end users to nest favorites into hierarchies using folders which are shown as expanders or context menu in the sidebar	Must
This proposal will allow end users to display bookmarks in a bookmark bar beside the sidebar like web browser allow it	Should
This proposal will allow end users to modify favorite items to show a custom icon	Could

Files Version

Version: 2.0.13.0 OS Version: 10.0.19041.1237

Windows Version

Windows 10 Enterprise 2004 19041.1237

Additional comment

I tried to cover my overall vision of the favorites in one single issue but I see chances to break this feature down to smaller steps like:

1. Only allow renaming of favorites through context menu
2. Add folder support to favorites (maybe also simply through context menu on the favorites and existing favorite folders)
3. Add advanced favorite manager UI
4. Add bookmark button to access additional favorites not shown in sidebar (like Edge and Firefox)
5. Add bookmark bar

[yaira2]

@Danielku1 Currently, all changes to sidebar items are actual changes to the folder, this includes changing the name and icon. Treating favorites as a bookmark can work, but it would introduce another layer of complexity as renaming an item from the sidebar would no longer reflect on the actual path and while some would prefer this behavior, many users do not.
We have a bundles feature that allows you to group folders from different directories together in a virtual folder and quickly launch them from there. Perhaps this can be an alternative to what you're trying to accomplish without adding the extra complexity of treating favorites as a bookmark with a virtual name. If this works for you, perhaps we can consider allowing users to pin bundles to the sidebar to make it easier to jump to them.

[rikin-patel435]

Me also waiting for the bookmark feature in windows explorer.
You can refer to the same feature in the following application.
I am using it for the last 3-4 years and it's a lot helpful for complex folder structure.

http://en.ejie.me/

[ptmrio]

This would be the one benefit to make me switch permanently. Switching between project folders is a pain in the a**, compared to the browser bookmarks experience. New Project, new Bookmark in a dedicated bookmarks bar? Problem solved! Would be very very happy!

[yaira2]

The next version of Files is coming with a new widget for tags. This is a great way to organize important documents and while it's not exactly what's being requested, it checks most of the boxes and I think it'll do the trick.

[ptmrio]

Still I don't know why all the file explorer communities promote the inferior favorites sidebar instead of a full customizable bookmarks bar. Do you ever use a browser, create bookmarks, bookmark folders and rename bookmarks? This is way superior to this. Imagine bookmarks in your browser worked liked favorites in file explorers you

• could only see the title of the page
• you couldn't edit the entry
• you couldn't group them into folders

Yeah sometimes bookmarks expire. Yes they have there problems. But they work and boost productivity and safety by a huge amount.

So please consider this killer feature in a proper implementation 🙏

[Josh65-2201]

• For point one they function the same. You see the icon and name if you hover over it you see where it goes.
• For point two you can edit the entry by just pinning the folder you want there a removing the ones you don't. Renaming favourites item only is being tracked with Feature: Add support for setting an alias name for favorites #3422
• For point three you can use tags as a favourite folder. If you just want only groups of folders you can turn the favourites section off and just use tags.