# How do I mimic Finder/Explorer views with contextual menus, etc?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-mimic-finder-explorer-views-with-contextual-menus-etc/172518>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 22, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-mimic-finder-explorer-views-with-contextual-menus-etc/172518 "2009-07-22T18:59:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dezrtdude](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@dezrtdude](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dezrtdude)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-mimic-finder-explorer-views-with-contextual-menus-etc/172518/1 "2009-07-22T18:59:23Z")

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Hi All,

I’m looking for some quality techniques for mimicking a Finder (or  
“Explorer View”). Eventually I want to have treeviews, contextual  
menus, etc. I’m guessing there is going to be a good deal of  
Javascript, which is fine, I’m just curious as to whether there are  
quality existing helpers, etc for any of these things.

The current relationship model is as follows:

Sites -\> Buildings -\> Meters -\> Values

There is a polymorphic relationship with Charts, so there’s also:

Sites -\> Charts  
Buildings -\> Charts  
Meters -\> Charts

I already have the add/remove logic for most of the items, I simply  
want to improve the GUI.

Thanks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dezrtdude](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@dezrtdude](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dezrtdude)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 12:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-mimic-finder-explorer-views-with-contextual-menus-etc/172518/2 "2009-07-23T12:03:57Z")

</div>

I’d say that jquery plugins are the way to go. There are certainly lots  
of treeview plugins, and though i’ve not used any there seem to be lots  
of right-click plugins as well, eg

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If you’re moving into jquery (which i highly recommend) then you should  
also start using jrails, a plugin which replaces the scriptaculous calls  
made by the rails js helpers with calls to their jquery equivalents.  
This isn’t totally necessary but i find it’s better to just use one set  
of js libraries rather than mix and match.

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