I’ve used to like grids, but I’m now very partial to lists. I used to like how grids enable you to scan thumbnails quickly, (like in games, music, images and files), but now I find them to be quite distracting. In lists, if I know what I am looking for (name, file type, etc), I can quickly go to where I need to be, and only need to scan a few items.

Of course, if the list is incredibly long, it’d be more difficult, but even more so with a grid of thumbnails. The only possible exception here is images. Knowing when a photo was taken can give me a clue, but hell do I remember what I took that got saved as IMG_20230303163333.jpg is and how the content differs from IMG_2023030316303030.jpg

Videos? Grid. Images? Grid. Both with preview window on the right.

Everything else? List with a preview window docked on the right. For everything other than music, I always soet by the last modified date, unless there’s less than 10 files or so per folder, in which case alphabetical is preferred.

Grid for image previews. List for anything text.

Really depends on what I’m trying to visualize. Things that are inherently graphical I’d probably put in a grid to fit more on the screen. Text probably a list.

Mind map

Files: always a list. Photos: preferably a grid

List, unless it’s photos then grid thumbnails.

List

I don’t like scanning left to right

Honestly,
Words
Should
All
Be
Read
Like
A
List
From
Top
To
Bottom,
Instead
of
Left
to
Right
Then
Left
to
Right
Again
Repeating…

If it has hierarchical organization like files/folders, then miller columns. I wish there was a decent Linux file browser with miller columns; it’s one of my favorite things in macos.

If the cover art/thumbnail is helpful for quickly visually scanning, then grid. This is for things like my movies and shows in Kodi.

Everything else should be a list.

Lists with sub-lists

ls -la, strictly.