2d ago

What do you prefer: icon view or detailed list view?

Most file managers I've encountered default to icon view. One of the first things I do is set the default to detailed list view. Might be a preference for seeing names and dates over many identical folder icons, or just an old habit from using Windows. But I'd be curious to hear about the benefits of icon view and why it's usually the default in Linux GUI file managers.

What does everyone else use and any reasons to prefer one over the other?

28 comments

Detail unless it's pictures or something where the icon is a preview of the file's content.

Icons for pictures, detail view for everything else. Easier to sort in the detail view.
- Same. For pictures max size icons.

I prefer details since it's easier for me to scan visually, with my eyes only having to go straight down, to find either a name, date, or size. Sorting I also find more intuitive. However, I prefer icon view for my pictures and videos folders

Detailed list view for everything except videos and images, and sometimes even for those

I mostly prefer Detail view, but I enable Icon view in Videos, Photos, and Music folders so I can see previews.
I’m guessing most file managers have similar behavior, but on XFCE Thunar, I’m able to set detail as the default but have it remembery choice per folder.

Detailed view everywhere except folders with mainly visual media, where I prefer icons.

Detailed view all the way

ls -hal
- ls -shit which is (iirc, guessing from memory): block size, human readable sizes, inodes, sort by time.
- I've personally become a fan of -rtAh, to see the most recently modified files last (i.e. above my prompt).

Detail view forever.

Terminal.
All jokes aside, its personal preference. If you're working in a dense file tree, you probably need the info that details view gives you. Icon view really only matter for media.

List. I hate icon view. Hate it

I think it heavily depends on the files one has to browes the most. I deal with text files all the time, so i dont need an icon to jump in my face telling me, that its a text file.
The media-, design people I know love the previews that icons give them, because its much easier to spot the image file, they are looking for while scanning through a directory

Depends what I am doing, but I often like "orthodox" two-pane file managers better, with details.
So my preference list is roughly:
Command Line
Krusader
Thunar

For some reason, I can’t ever find a view that feels like “list view” from Windows OS. That would be my preference. Detail view is useful in specific conditions—such as troubleshooting or in search results. As is icon view (mostly for images).

Dolphin filemanager from KDE. Nowadays I default to "compact" view without "preview" enabled. This is similar to "Icon" view, but the icons are small. Lot of files scrolls horizontal instead vertical.
filenames in compact mode can be longer in one line, which is kind of similar to the look as "details" view, but are all displayed in a multiple rows instead one row
preview disabled, because this is extremely fast, as I have ton of files that do not even have a preview image
That's my default. Occasionally I enable preview image and switch to bigger "icon" view when I look into images or videos. Or sometimes I enable "details" view when needed. In normal usage I don't need the details anyway.

My graphical goto tool is double commander, so lists. In the terminal, it's either ls -hal, fzf or mc, depending on use case.

I work in a design industry that requires a lot of source files so I end up having to constantly switch. Lists when I’m looking for the relevant folder, or looking for a particular file based on name, or icons if I’m looking for something based on image. There’s no consistent way to switch between them with a keyboard shortcut among different OSs, either.

I have it on grid view :3.. just cause it can fit a lot more files into the same screen space
In list view I have to scroll to see all the files in my home folder, and in grid view it only takes like half of the available space, if I have the app maximized

The last time I found icon view useful was in Mac OS 9. There were three main characteristics that made it useful that no current systems have AFAIK:
The icon grid was tight (32 pixels) and you could either snap items to that grid or place them freely.
Window sizes and places were directly associated with folders. (There was no "browser-style" single-window mode.)
File names used dynamic spacing. Longer names would occupy multiple grid spaces as needed.
These factors meant that every folder had a consistent and potentially unique size, placment, and layout.
OS X took the Finder and either ruined or neglected everything good about it. Windows explorer has always been garbage. Never found a Linux file manager with a compelling icon view either (though to be fair, I've never looked all that hard). The lack of system-level metadata for layout kind of mandates an abstraction between a directory and its display.
- consistent and potentially unique
  What do you mean by that? Aren't those opposites? That is, if something is unique then it's being inconsistent.
  
  I mean that an individual folder will always look the same (consistent), and also look distinctly different from any other folder (unique) if that's how you arranged it. So you could identify a folder instantly.
  Everything in list view looks the same at a glance, and most file managers don't retain a folder window's size and placement. Modern macOS kiiiind of does but you have to fight it if you don't want a single-window browsing UI.

I use Krusader on Linux which I don't think has icon view.
When I have to use something else (eg Windows Explorer at work), obviously I prefer detailed list view. I like seeing things like the last modified date.

ranger, a terminal file browser, which is obviously a list
if i need a gui file browser, i use pcmanfm with normal grid view

When I am not on the terminal, I use list/detail view all the time. In the details most of the time only last modification date is relevant to me. I always make the list icons one step smaller as the default and sort directories before files in Nautilus.
I don't need thumbnails. When I need to see pictures, I open them with the now new image viewer in Gnome and use the arrow keys to go through, if I am unsure what I am searching for. I most cases I go by file name.

Detail

28 comments