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Miller Columns are a browsing
File manager

A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to work with file systems. The most common operations used are create, open, edit, file viewer, computer printer, streaming media, rename, move, file copying, file deletion, attributes, properties, search/find, and permissions....
/visualization
Visualization

The term visualization may refer to:* Creative Visualization* Educational visualization* Flow visualization* Geovisualization* Illustration...
 technique that can be applied to tree structures
Tree (data structure)

In computer science, a tree is a widely-used data structure that emulates a hierarchical tree structure with a set of linked Vertex_. It is an acyclic connected graph where each node has a set of zero or more children nodes, and at most one parent node....
. The columns allow multiple levels of the hierarchy to be open at once, and provide a visual representation of the current location. It is closely related to techniques used earlier in the Smalltalk
Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an Object-oriented programming, Type system, reflection computer programming programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human?computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist learning, at PARC by Al...
 browser, but was independently invented by Mark S. Miller
Mark S. Miller

Mark S. Miller is an American computer scientist. He is known for his work as one of the participants in the 1979 hypertext project known as Project Xanadu; for inventing Miller Columns; as the co-creator of the of Market-based distributed secure computing; and the open-source coordinator of the E programming language....
 in 1980 at Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
. The technique was then used at Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu

Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu now contrast it with both paper and the World Wide Web, saying "Today's popular software simulates paper....
, Datapoint
Datapoint

Datapoint Corporation, originally known as Computer Terminal Corporation , was a computer company based in San Antonio, Texas, United States....
, and NeXT
NeXT

NeXT, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets....
.

While at Datapoint, Miller generalized the technique to browse directed graphs with labeled nodes
Node (computer science)

A node is an abstract basic unit used to build linked data structures such as tree data structure, linked lists, and computer-based representations of graph ....
 and directed graphs with labeled nodes and arcs.






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Miller Columns are a browsing
File manager

A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to work with file systems. The most common operations used are create, open, edit, file viewer, computer printer, streaming media, rename, move, file copying, file deletion, attributes, properties, search/find, and permissions....
/visualization
Visualization

The term visualization may refer to:* Creative Visualization* Educational visualization* Flow visualization* Geovisualization* Illustration...
 technique that can be applied to tree structures
Tree (data structure)

In computer science, a tree is a widely-used data structure that emulates a hierarchical tree structure with a set of linked Vertex_. It is an acyclic connected graph where each node has a set of zero or more children nodes, and at most one parent node....
. The columns allow multiple levels of the hierarchy to be open at once, and provide a visual representation of the current location. It is closely related to techniques used earlier in the Smalltalk
Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an Object-oriented programming, Type system, reflection computer programming programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human?computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist learning, at PARC by Al...
 browser, but was independently invented by Mark S. Miller
Mark S. Miller

Mark S. Miller is an American computer scientist. He is known for his work as one of the participants in the 1979 hypertext project known as Project Xanadu; for inventing Miller Columns; as the co-creator of the of Market-based distributed secure computing; and the open-source coordinator of the E programming language....
 in 1980 at Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
. The technique was then used at Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu

Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu now contrast it with both paper and the World Wide Web, saying "Today's popular software simulates paper....
, Datapoint
Datapoint

Datapoint Corporation, originally known as Computer Terminal Corporation , was a computer company based in San Antonio, Texas, United States....
, and NeXT
NeXT

NeXT, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets....
.

While at Datapoint, Miller generalized the technique to browse directed graphs with labeled nodes
Node (computer science)

A node is an abstract basic unit used to build linked data structures such as tree data structure, linked lists, and computer-based representations of graph ....
 and directed graphs with labeled nodes and arcs. In all cases, the technique is appropriate only for structures with high degree (large fanout). For low-degree structures, outline editors or graph viewers are more effective.

Popularizing the column browser

Miller Columns are most well known today as the "Columns" view of the Mac OS X
Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
 Finder
Macintosh Finder

The Finder is the default application software program used on the Mac OS and Mac OS X operating systems that is responsible for the overall user-management of files, disks, network volumes and the launching of other applications....
, as well as the "Browser" view in iTunes
ITunes

iTunes is a Proprietary software digital media media player application, used for playing and organizing digital music and video files. The program is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple's popular iPod digital media players as well as the iPhone....
. The Columns in Finder descend directly from the NeXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP

Nextstep was the original Object-oriented operating system, computer multitasking operating system that NeXT developed to run on its range of proprietary computers, such as the NeXTcube....
 File Viewer's use of Miller Columns going back to 1986. The GNUstep
GNUstep

GNUstep is a free software implementation of NeXT's OpenStep Objective-C libraries , widget toolkit, and application development tools not only for Unix-like operating systems, but also for Microsoft Windows....
 project continues to offer a Miller column browser that closely follows the NeXT approach, bringing the advantages of a Column browser to Linux
Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
, BSD, and other operating system
Operating system

An operating system is an interface between hardware and applications; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer....
s with large tree structures. The iPod
IPod

iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc. and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle....
's browsing of categories and audio file tag attributes is reminiscent of column browsing, but only one column is visible at a time. Many software music players implement a "tag browsing" feature that utilizes Miller columns. The "Columns" view is also supported by the Dolphin
Dolphin (software)

Dolphin is a file manager for KDE. It is the default file manager for the current version, KDE 4, and can be optionally installed on KDE 3. Although replaced as the default file manager for KDE 4, Konqueror is still the default web browser, and can be used as an alternative file manager for power user....
 file manager in KDE 4.

See also

  • Shelf
    Shelf (computing)

    The Shelf is an interface feature in NeXTSTEP and OpenStep, and is used as a repository to store links to commonly used files, directories and programs, and as a temporary "holding" place to move/copy files and directories around in the file system hierarchy....
    : NeXT GUI element that can be combined with Columns to make a file manager


External links

  • a file system viewer similar to the Finder
  • a GNU file system viewer similar to NeXT's Workspace Manager
  • a Miller Column FTP browser that started on NeXTSTEP
  • a NeXT-inspired column browser for the Mac OS
    Mac OS

    Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems....
     that predates Mac OS X