Let's compare some other software that allows for complex nesting and lots of items.
Below is a screencap of WhizFolders:
WF01.png
The button that the pink arrow points to is the "collapse all button", when I click on it, I get the following:
WF02.png
Nice, everything fully collapsed. Let's expand just one of the top-level items...
WF03.png
The sub-items are collapsed. And so it goes, no matter how far I drill down the nested items. "Collapse All" means collapse all.
I would like "Collapse Entire Hierarchy" in RW to work the same way. Perhaps the issue is that in RW, you have three options for similar topic grouping in the navigation view. I am using "By Simple Grouping and Category."
If I chose simple grouping, I don't have to worry about the intermediary category groupings. I can collapse entire hierarchy and then collapse all groups, but it is still two different operations.
If I select By Category...well, now I've learned something new. If I set my preference to "By Category," the category-tools menu now offers "collapse all categories." So...why isn't that option available when my preference is "By Simple Grouping and Category"? In any event, with the by-category preference, you still have to perform two operations to collapse everything: (1) collapse entire hierarchy and (2) collapse all categories.
So, to summarize, the following would be nice:
1. A collapse-all option that truly collapses everything in the navigation view, including all categories and all groups. I don't know how difficult this would be implement.
2. The ability to set a navigation-view preference to default to a fully-collapsed state. If number 1 is feasible, than this should be as well.
3. The ability to set a navigation-view preference to default to your last collapsed/expanded state (which I understand may not be practical, but I would like to keep on the long wish list).
4. Add "collapse all categories" to the category-tools menu when your navigation-view preference is "By Similar Group and Category."
Sorry for the two lengthy posts, but whenever this topic comes up, users and developers seem to talk past each other. I wanted to be as clear and specific as possible.