My question is similar to this one, however the answers provided are not sufficient.
I'm a linux occasional user / learner, not having much background to understand what to do reading between the lines.
I've Ubuntu and Nautilus, in a mode that shows a left pane, without the appropriate content. At the moment a flat list, not a tree, shows personal folders, disk drives and network places (plus some bookmarks I managed to add). I assume I got the spatial view. I'd like to have a tree.
In the selected answer, the fix is to hit F9 to show the left pane. Not working. F9 just hides and shows this left pane I don't want. "View" menu also suggested is not even possible, since I've no menu displayed either.
The other suggestion to hit Alt-F2 to open a command prompt and then launch gconf-editor. Tried that, and got command not found. Also tried sudo gconf-editor in a terminal. Got the same result.
Did a little google work, but I mustn't express my problem correctly, results are similar to the linked question.
What's wrong with my configuration?
Best Answer
This is the most near that you can get of what you want, otherwise look for another file manager:
Look for 'Preferences', in the 'Views' tab, select "View new folders using: list view", then select the 'Display' tab, there will be a Checkbox that tells you 'Navigate folders in a tree', close Nautilus. Now open a folder and select list view, that way you will have a tree like behavior in the main panel.
If you don't like how it's shown then try with another file manager.