You are able to customize the way your folders and other container objects (discussion forums, calendars etc.) are displayed at the BSCW user interface. The options are offered in the menu in the top menu bar and differ slightly for different kinds of container objects (number of columns available, or special functions like the display of note contents in discussion forums).
For folders and discussion forums you can first of all choose between the details view, which is provided by default, and the content view.
•Select to activate the content view. Select to return to the details view.
The details view offers more object details per entry, the content view gives more information pertaining to the content of an object, dropping some other object details at the same time.
In the details view, an entry starts by default with the
information icon, a check box and an icon representing the object’s type. Next
come the name of the object, the action menu button 
and the size of the object.
Further object attributes in the details view are, e.g., rating, creator, owner,
date of last modification or icons referring to additional information like the
members’ icon 
that will
take you to the members of the group with whom you share the object represented.
You can configure the details view with the options in the top menu as follows.
•Choose
to enable or disable the display of subfolders. If the foldout option is active,
two additional buttons 
in the multi-selection toolbar
allow showing or hiding the contents of the subfolders selected (if no
subfolders are selected, the contents of all subfolders are shown or
hidden). If showing the contents of subfolders would exceed the maximal number
of visible entries in folder listings set in your personal preferences, the
subfolders contents are only hinted at and not shown completely.
•Choose
to reduce descriptions to one short line; the complete description (including
attributes and tags) is shown as a tooltip when you move your mouse over the
shortened description. The icons 
and 
indicate that a
description is longer than can be shown in the compact view.
•Choose to show or hide the descriptions of folder entries altogether.
•Choose to select which attributes of an entry are to be displayed in the columns of the folder view. The columns offered depend on the type of the current container: there are fewer columns in a member list than in the task list.
•Choose
to sort the entries of a folder. The sorting
criteria available are a subset of the entry attributes. The current sorting
criterion is indicated by a small upward or downward pointing triangle (
) in front
of the criterion in the drop-down menu. By clicking on this icon, you can invert
the sorting order.
The current sorting criterion is also indicated by a small
black triangle (
) near the respective column
heading – if the column is shown at all. Underlined column headings represent a
valid sorting criterion. Clicking on such a column heading directly sorts the
entries of a folder. Clicking again inverts the sorting order.
•Choose to display only objects of a certain type or documents of a certain Date type. You may also filter for certain values of category, priority or status (of tasks, projects etc.). Filtering for ‘Responsible’ shows all objects (tasks, documents under review, flow folders) for which you are currently responsible in the sense that you have to carry out an action with such objects (value ‘yes’), for which you are not or not yet responsible (value ‘no’ or ‘not now’) or which can have no attribute ‘Responsible’ (value ‘undefined’). Using ‘Responsibility’ you may filter, e.g. in your personal task list, for the kind of role (contractor, requestor, responsible) in which you are responsible for certain objects. Responsibility filtering for a value of ‘none’ shows all objects for which you are currently not responsible (but could be made responsible for in principle).
The currently applied filter is indicated at the right-hand end of the multi-selection toolbar. Select ‘No Filter’ to have all objects and documents displayed in the folder listing.
You may change several viewing options at a time by selecting . The action form has two sections: in the ‘General’ section you may activate or deactivate applicable options (like Foldout, Compact or Descriptions), while in the ‘Columns’ section you may set the columns to display in the folder listing.
You activate the contents view by
•selecting in the top menu.
o Check box for selecting the object
o Object icon: With documents, the object icon is a miniaturized preview, with contacts and users it is a picture, if available, and otherwise it is the object type icon.
o Info box.
o Abstract
o Description
o Author and date of the last modification
An object entry in the content view starts with the check box followed by a larger object icon. With documents, the object icon of documents is a miniaturized preview, with contacts and users it is a photograph, if available, and otherwise it is the object type icon. The object icon is followed by an info box consisting of a header line with name, action menu, and if applicable, members icon, rating etc. and a domain with further details like size, document type, creator, creation date. Next, an abstract of the object content (with folders, e.g., the names of the objects contained) and the description are given as well as the author and date of the last modification.
You can configure the content view with the options in the top menu in a similar way as you configure the details view. The options , and , however, are not offered and the number of sort criteria is restricted.
With some container objects, you have additional options in the menu, e.g. you may enable the display of note contents in discussion forums, or you may select among many viewing options for the display of calendars.
You have the choice of having the viewing options set and stored individually for each folder and container object or of having the viewing options of one folder or container applied to all other folders and containers of the same or similar type as well. This option is set in your personal preferences:
•Click in the top menu bar and go to the ‘Presentation’ section of the action form.
•Check the option Remember each folder’s view options if each folder is to be individually treated with regard to viewing options; otherwise, the viewing options set for one folder or container also count for each and every other folder of the same or similar type.
If the Remember option is active, you are still able to transfer viewing options to other folders or containers.
•Choose to set the viewing options of the current folder or container also for all other folders or containers of the same or similar type. By applying the viewing option of a folder to all similar containers, you transfer the viewing options to all other folders, website folders, template folders, flow folders, community folders as well as to personal objects like the clipboard and the briefcase, and vice versa. Using this action, viewing options are transferred from one calendar to all other calendars and from one discussion forum to all other discussion forums. Also, member lists and the address book are treated as similar.
When you have changed the viewing options of the current folder, you may still revert to the viewing options transferred to the current folder via by
•choosing .
If the Remember option is inactive, viewing options are set for all folders and containers of the same and similar type alike. You may exclude certain folders or containers from taking over the viewing options from peer containers by
•checking for a particular folder or container. You may then set the viewing options for this folder or container different from the viewing options from other containers of the same or similar type. The viewing options for individual folders or containers are protected from being overridden by the settings of other folder or containers.
When the Individual option of a folder or container is deactivated, the viewing options are reset to the viewing options of the non-individualized folders or containers of the same type.
If you want to apply the viewing options of an individualized folder to other folders and containers of similar type,
•choose . Other individual folders will remain untouched by this action.