Let’s highlight a few Vista features that improve life in small but meaningful ways.
My personal favorite is a feature for moving through folders known as “breadcrumbs.” Almost immediately, it feels so natural that it’s hard to recall that it’s new.
You’re familiar with moving through your folders by clicking on folder names, then choosing a subfolder, then another. Eventually you wind up at a destination that looks like this:
Windows Vista visually displays the path to the file so that each location along the way can be clicked for an instant return to that level. In this display, each level can be clicked:
A single click causes the display to go back and forth between the traditional display and the breadcrumb display.
The name of each level has an arrow that displays all the subfolders, so you can move to a subfolder at any level with a single click:
You’ve probably already gotten seen this method of navigation – an increasing number of web sites put breadcrumb trails at the top of each page to make it easier for you to find your way around the site:
There are other things built into the breadcrumb display to make it easier to move around.
There’s always a button at the far left that displays the highest levels – Computer, Network, your folders, Control Panel, etc.
If there’s not enough room to list the entire trail, there’s an arrow that displays the other levels in a drop-down menu.
You can always type a folder name manually; the address bar will automatically offer to complete folder names as you type.
Breadcrumbs make it so easy to navigate through your folders that you’ll give up using the vertical folder list on the left side of the window.
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