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The DreamLand Express - Charles Oppermann's Software Blog

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Resize all columns in detail view

One of my favorite keyboard shortcuts in Windows is CTRL+NUMPAD+Plus.

Often, when viewing a folder with the details view on, the columns might be sized badly.  The filename column might be too narrow, cutting off the names.  Or another column might be too wide.

You can get Windows to automatically resize the columns to fit the widest item for the column, so no data is lost and only the space needed is taken.  To do this, press the CTRL key while pressing the “+” (plus sign) key on the number pad.  Volia!  The columns are resized.

You must have focus inside the details view beforehand for this work.  This tip works wherever the Windows ListView control is used.  So you'll find it works in many other software packages as well.  Sadly, many applications have custom list and grid controls that don't recognize this shortcut.  For example Microsoft Outlook.

Published Jan 06 2004, 02:46 PM by ChuckOp
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Comments

 

Krisztian Gyuris said:

what a cool shortcut :) I love it....
January 7, 2004 6:27 AM
 

Chad Humphries said:

That is great. It's amazing how many little shortcuts are still hanging around that we've missed.
January 7, 2004 9:10 AM
 

Charles Oppermann said:

Seems like this tip is making the rounds. Here is some additional information I posted elsewhere:

The undiscoverability of shortcuts is a difficult issue. It's hard to document them because there are often many exceptions. Sometimes the application hosting ListView intercepts the keystrokes, sometimes it prevents column resizing, etc. Also, there are many controls that look just like ListView, but are not and don't implement the shortcut.

It would be nice if the shell had a "Resize all columns to fit" menu option, but that would contribute to UI bloat.

FYI, I wouldn't want the shell to always size to fit. Because with long file names, often times that would push other details like date off the window.

I'd rather the shell had a feature like Outlook's "Automatic Column Resizing." This resizes the columns to ensure all are visible within the window space.
January 7, 2004 4:59 PM

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