Preferences / Folder Tree / Options: No content population may be what you are looking for, but I am not completely sure what "Mini Tree" does.
It's best to describe the details of what you want rather than the name of something from another program that we may not be familiar with.
Fair enough...
Attached is a composite picture showing what I'm talking about.
The left pane is the "normal" XYplorer view with the Mini Tree option Off and Tree Path Tracing On (the Tree Path isn't material to the question, but it help highlight what I'm talking about).
The center pane is with XYplorer having Mini Tree ON and Tree Path Tracing On.
The right pane show Opus with the options chosen which I thought would be closest to the XYplorer Mini Tree On. What I'm seeing is basically similar to XYplorer with Mini Tree Off. Either Opus doesn't do this kind of thing, I have options set wrong or it might require an add-on.
The Mini Tree helps you see the forest through the trees when the directory structure gets long or deep. So far it's the only thing I've run across favoring XYplorer whereas the bulk of the program organization favors Opus. I'm guessing you might learn tricks along the way which might mitigate not having this feature, but being able to quickly toggle this kind of thing seems useful.
Did you try the option I mentioned?
How are you changing folders?
Is the tree worth having on at all if it just shows parent folders of where you are? The path field can do that in less space.
I selected the "No Content Population" option.
I'm clearly not understanding something about how the program works. I'm selecting folders by either clicking on a folder in the left panel Folder Tree or by navigating in one of the folder panes or navigating up and down a hierarchy using the folder structure separated by the > character in the input box.
I was playing around with selecting folders via these means, and once the Folder Tree did EXACTLY what I was hoping to achieve. Now, I'm trying it again and the Folder Tree shows the whole hierarchy as the previous picture displayed. I have absolutely no idea what I did differently to make it work or to make it stop working. Frustrating!
I did add a column showing the full path and also tried Parent Folder (full), but I still relate to the visual "mini tree" better.
For whatever reason, it is now working the way I was expecting. Have no idea what was wrong before but no doubt some kind of user error on my part. Anyways, love the product and just ordered a license to the pro version.
It might be because the extra information is shown if it has already been read by tree. e.g. If you manually expand a tree branch (or if the "expand selected" option expanded the branch, or if it was auto-expanded before "no content population" was selected), then that branch will always be fully expanded if it is expanded at all.
(The intent of the "no content population" is to avoid reading the folders on very slow drives, so it still shows them if it already has them. That it also lets you have a tree with minimal extra folders is more of a side-effect.)
You might want to create a button which runs this command:
@toggle:disable
Set TREE=Toggle
Set TREE=Toggle
That will turn the tree off and then immediately back on, causing it to forget any cached information and re-build itself with just the direct path to your current location. Essentially, it is a "clear extra folders from tree" button, as long as "no content population" is on.
I think, there's still something wrong with tree and the expand functionality, maybe, lnh, that's what irritated you a bit.
For network drives e.g.: Open a a location within your lan (UNC) and toggle the tree to open, the unc-folder will be expanded in the tree, even though the settings are set to "populate contents for local devices only". Now switch from source to dest an back and that network location folder in the tree will be collapsed. Toggling the tree expands it again, which I think is odd.
On the other hand: I have also selected "Expand selected branch" and the currently selected local folder I have opened in source or dest does not expand, which I find odd as well. (Look here: Tree "expand selected branch" not applied on focus change Tree-View item out of view) which is aehm.. I mean I have no explanation! o)
If you expand a branch manually by clicking the + it will always expand fully; the "populate" options only apply to branches that are expanded automatically through navigation.
Yes I guess I agree, but I never clicked + during these observations and tests.
Sorry I thought that's what "toggle the tree to open" meant 
I see, I guess I could have been more clear also. o)
So to clarify: I meant pressing F8 to show/hide the tree when using the word "toggling".
"expand selected branch" applies when a branch is newly selected (including when the tree is first opened), but not if you collapse the branch yourself and then toggle twice between source and destination sides. I think that explains everything you are seeing.
But I do not collapse the branch myself.
I just have "expand selected branch" enabled and branches will not expand when switching between source/dest, only when navigating up/down in the filedisplay. Additionally: Manually expanding the current folder in the tree will result in collapsed state after switching source/dest. I don't know for sure, but this does not feel right to me.
Is Collapse non-selected branches turned on?
Then it's not surprising that the branch is collapsed when it is no longer selected. 
Did you look at "the other thread" I linked several times? I'll link that image right here again:
To me that "Collections" folder looks selected, but maybe there is a misunderstanding going on?!
Was it selected by toggling the source/dest sides?
Yes it was, from source to dest and back to source, while the dest-folder wouldn't expand as well.
