javascript

Mac OS X's Finder features a nifty NeXT throwback - the column view. This lets you browse through a hierarchy of files in a relatively compact space, and still see your path through directory structure.

Ok already, just show me the downloads!

There are a couple of jQuery plugins in the archive that claim to do this, but none really fit my core needs:

So I needed a method to take a long, nested list and turning it into a compact, multiple acolumn list, in order to display it as sort of a site map for the home page for a site I'm working on.

Being a huge fan of jQuery, it was naturally my go-to library of choice.

Scanning the plugins site, I found a possible solution from a feller called Ingo Schommer called columnizeList.

We spend lots of dough each year converting material from our dead-tree editions into web-friendlier versions for our web sites. We crank out a bunch of PDFs, and send them through the ether to somewhere where the labor is cheap and the workday long, like Vietnam, Indonesia or Canada or something. Then some poor soul slices 'n dices them into jpegs and links and such, and sends 'em on back, and posts them on our site.