Tree view

A tree, illustrative and tree view ( engl: Tree view or treeview ), is a control of a graphical user interface, which is a hierarchical list and allows selection thereof. The tree consists of a plurality of nested nodes ( a plus or minus sign or a triangle usually) can be expanded or collapsed to either by clicking on the icon that appears in front of it.

Representation

Shown is the tree usually with the root in the upper left corner. The connecting lines between the nodes can thereby be drawn or omitted. These are not shown, the hierarchical structure can be seen only by the indented display of the node. Another distinguishing feature is the appearance of the leaves, which are integrated in the tree or can be displayed on a detail page, for example in the form of a list.

An alternative form of a tree is the combination with a text box. Depending on the contents of this text box only the nodes and leaves are shown in the tree that contain the entered search word in any form. Such trees are used among other things in Eclipse.

Use

Trees are frequently used to display hierarchically nested structures. The hierarchical directory structure of a computer as is often represented as a tree. Well-known examples are the folder structure in Windows Explorer or File Manager Xtree under DOS.

The list of settings of software is often depicted as a tree, to make it clearer.

Most IDEs can the structure of a software project represent a tree ( the whole project down to sections in separate files ).

• Graphical User Interface