Windows 7 : Visualization and Organization - How to Make the Windows Shell Work for You - The Organizational Advantage of Libraries

2. Arranging: The Organizational Advantage of Libraries

Sorting and grouping hasn't really changed much since Windows Vista, except that in Windows Vista you could access Details view–style column heads in almost any view style, a feature subsequently removed from Windows 7, presumably because of Microsoft's simplification mantra for this release. What has changed is that, with Libraries, you have an additional viewing option. Yes, you can sort and group, as with any Explorer window, but Libraries also enables you to arrange.

To understand how this functionality is exposed in the UI, check out Figure 4. Here, you can see two windows, side by side. On the left is a subfolder in the Pictures library; on the right is the same subfolder in the current user's My Pictures folder. See the difference?

Figure 4. Library windows (like that on the left) offer a few advantages over standard folders.

Okay, enough guessing games. Libraries have an additional panel at the top of the window, below the toolbar, that provides access to two crucial Library features. The first, Library Locations, lets you determine which physical folders are monitored to create the current Library view. However, the second feature, Arrange by, is what interests us at the moment.

Arrange by provides a number of options, but what you'll see will differ according to which Library you're viewing. All of them use "Arrange by Folder" as the default choice, however, and in this arrangement, a Library will display just like any other folder.

If you choose one of the other arrangements, the Library will change into the Stack view that was first used in Windows Vista. Stacks represent files as visual stacks of paper, much like stacks of paper might be arranged on a real desk. (Yes, Microsoft is taking the PC's desktop metaphor a bit far these days.) To better understand what this means, take a look at Figure 5, which shows the Music library arranged by Artist.

If you arrange the Pictures library by Month, it should resemble Figure 6. Neat, eh?

Figure 5. The Music library, arranged by Artist.

Figure 6. Library arrangements look best when the content is very visual, like pictures.

As with Sort by and Group by, you can also access Arrange by if you right-click an empty area of a Library window. Note, however, that this option is only available in Libraries. You won't see an Arrange by option in the pop-up menu that appears in regular folder windows.