Goal:  simple browser app, for navigating files on a web server, in a tree view.
Background:  Building a web site as a learning experience, w/ Apache, mod_python, Python code.  (No mod_wsgi yet.)
What tools should I learn to write the browser tree?  I see JavaScript, Ajax, neither of which I know.  Learn them?  Grab a JS example from the web and rework?  Can such a thing be built in raw HTML?  Python I'm advanced beginner but I realize that's server side.
If you were going to build such a toy from scratch, what would you use?  What would be the totally easy, cheesy way, the intermediate way, the fully professional way?
No Django yet please -- This is an exercise in learning web programming nuts and bolts.
If you want to make interactive browser, you have to learn JS and ajax. 
If you want to build only browser based on links, python would be enough.
How to construct a web file browser?