[Lazarus] In search of a component for holding a table of strings

[Jürgen Hestermann]

Am 2017-01-10 um 12:03 schrieb Graeme Geldenhuys via Lazarus:
 > My point was that NO application should display so much data to a
 > end-user, as it is simply too much.

I disagree.
I have written an (XTree-like) file manager that can log all directories and files into memory.
Then there is a function to display all of them in a flat list.
This could be up to millions if you log a large server share.
But you can then display a sorted flat list where you find i.e. the newest (or largest) files
on top and the oldest (or smallest) files at the end.
Of course, you will seldom step through all of them from top to bottom.
But you may jump to top (or bottom) and scroll a bit up or down.
Or you can jump to a certain entry (by name search or something else)
and then scroll around this entry.
I can even permanently tag some of these so found entries at top or bottom or in between
and then reduce the list to just these tagged files with one keystroke.
I can also apply some more sophisticated functions like attribute change, delete, rename, etc.
where I would not like to be resticted on the number of files in any way.
IMO these are very common use cases and should be made available to the user.

I hate all these limited (mostly web) applications that split such large lists into pages
where I have to choose a new page first just to move down a bit.
A rediculous restriction.

 > A end-user always knows what they
 > are looking for, more or less, (otherwise they wouldn't be in that
 > screen).

I disagree again!
In most cases I (and I think most users) only have a vague imagination of what I am looking for.
I first need an overview to make further decisions (for example about a filter).


 > So present them with some filtering options first. Basic UI
 > design principles... but this is another topic to discuss elsewhere.

Filtering: Yes. But it's not always the first step!
Very often I first need an overview to decide which filters I want to use.
To stay with my file manager example:
I can set a filter to show all files with the current date (today).
But then I will miss all files that have a date in the future
(from which very many exists on many machines).
When I have an overall list sorted by date I will see them immeditaly on top.
Also, when files are misspelled (or not spelled the way you expect them) then
they may strike you when shown in an overall list but not when you already
filtered by the text you expected.