Linked by Kostis Kapelonis on Thu 2nd Nov 2006 10:21 UTC
While the capabilities of operating systems have improved over the last years, the improvements have largely focused on under the hood changes. New functionality is reaching the user via additional applications which allow her to write a DVD, connect to her mp3 player, download streaming video locally and other tasks which were not present before. But the graphical interface of the computer itself is keeping the same concepts introduced with its appearance. One could argue that the graphical environment of computers is exactly the same for the last 10 years and only cosmetic changes take place in newer versions of operating systems. Moving away from the desktop metaphor is harder than it seems. Even alternative operating systems have embraced the concept instead of exploring new ideas. This article describes a solution which attempts to free the user from the files/folder concept.
Permalink for comment 178231
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2006-02-07
I don't see that hierarchical organization and keyword-searching are contradictory. Folders are a form of hierarchical and univocal tagging. They are convenient for many cases. Open tags are an alternative mode of organization which may be very helpful (especially if the number of keywords is constrained as the number of directories is).And I wish that some day OSX would allow adding tags in the save window (along with the folders)
In fact, the problem in the current implementation of indexing (at least in OSX) is that spotlight does not interpret Folders as tags/metadata.Say I want to find the receipt of a book entitled "Computers Galore" stored in a "Books" subdirectory under a "Purchases" folder. At least in OSX it's impossible to find the receipt by searching "purchases books computers". The example is just a simple illustration, but it shows the limitation of the current directory+indexing implementation. The Folder in which the file is in should be part of the file metadata.