“Once we break the metaphor that each window needs to belong to one particular application and instead rely on the idea that an object is self contained, free to be embedded in drawers and tabs, rows and columns, docks and icons, or even inside other objects. A new user interface environment could be created, enabling our independent objects to be represented in the best layout according to the user’s needs and desires.” Read the editorial at TheMacMind.
Spatial Finders and Abstract Interfaces
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Quote from the text:
” I’ve navigated to some place, and want to move a file somewhere else. I end up putting it on my Desktop while I re-navigate to the place where I want to put the file. It becomes a two step process.”
Can be done much easier.
I always do this:
Select the files I want to copy or move, right click, select copy or cut, browse to the path I want to copy them to, right click and select paste.
Wouldn’t a spatial finder lead to window hell?
I mean, having lots of windows open, and the user has to close them, arrange them and use some time to find the correct window.
At least for programs (not the file browsers), I think it’s more productive when everything is grouped together. Otherwise productivity might be lost with searching for the correct window all the time, or not?
Spatial file managers can easily lead to window hell. Expose cleared this up a lot, but I love using column view.
I think the point was that user interfaces need to become more object oriented, as opposed to application and task oriented. Their are two big problems with doing this. One is that it would require a single file format to be able to handle anything and everything…not a simple task. The other is getting all the big developers to work together. The concept wouldn’t work unless all the main developers agreed on how to do things, and all shared code with eachother. About a decade ago Apple enlisted IBM, Novell, and a few others to work on OpenDoc, which had a ton of potential, but eventually lead to too many complications and was killed off. It’s influence can be seen thoughout OS X’s frameworks and Services (not just the ones in the Service menu). MS is trying to give users the impression of the concept by making all the applications seem like part of the OS in Longhorn, but it’s more task-based-made-to-look-like-object-oriented-UI. Kind of skin deep.
Can be done much easier.
I always do this:
Select the files I want to copy or move, right click, select copy or cut, browse to the path I want to copy them to, right click and select paste.
I’ve always found it frustrating that right click dragging (copy files) ala windows explorer doesn’t work in nautilus. I think that would be even easier for treeview.
I forgot to mention that when I use the right click copy/paste functions, that’s on windows and in Konqueror.
I don’t know if it’s possible in most other finders.
In reply to PantherPPC’s comment that the article was more about OO Desktop Environments, they hit the idea right on the mark. The editorial was meant more to show one example of how currently the environment is very synthetic; while it does carry many OO-like concepts, at heart it is all based on environments where all the rules have already been set up by the developer.
Wouldn’t a spatial finder lead to window hell?
I’ve been using Gnome 2.6 for the past few weeks, and in defense of spacial browsing, I have to say that it’s not that bad. I was surprised. I think it’s one of those things that doesn’t make a lot of sense until you try it. I believe that it’s true that a spacial finder requires you to ‘think’ less because I’ve found that window shapes and positions are great mnemonic devices for becoming familar with a directory structure.
But that being said, I’m not sure that it is superior either….just different.
You can middle-drag, which does the same thing. Annoyingly different, sure, but it gets around a whole host of interaction problems with context menus, timeouts and such if you did it with the right mouse button.
Column view, IMHO, is one of the best features of OSX, as compared to classic. After using it for a month, it felt painful to navigate any time I needed to reboot to OS9.
Windows, BEOS, and Linux (Nautilus) all have single-window browse as well. I have to say, no matter which OS I’m using,or what I’m doing it’s always more efficient to do it in one (maybe 2)windows.
Long live column view and tabbed browsing!
doesnt splitview already adress this problem ?
the best method ive found for copying or moving files is to split the window into two and just drag the file to the new location..
http://www.vamegh.co.uk/splitview.jpg
to see what i mean
infact to take the above example further
http://www.vamegh.co.uk/splitview1.jpg
or to just get silly about it open loads of splitviews and start different tabs of split views.. might get a bit confusing though
lol.
Couple of things Gnome 2.6 brings to the table that helps keep spatial browsing clean.
1. you can “Shift” left-click to open a new folder window but closing the previous one and
2. you have a little drop down directory navigator from where you have come from to get to the current window. This allows for an easy way of traversing back up the directory tree to previous folder levels where you can then explore another directory path. It also opens previous folder windows remembering where their desktop viewing position and attributes from last time.
All they could possibly need now is BeOS’s right-click on a desktop drive/folder icon and have tree navigation drop down menu’s. I found this the best thing about the BeOS’s desktop user experience.
All in all Gnome 2.6 is very good and sometime if I need the navigator way of browsing folders I just right-click the drive/folder I want to open and there it is, navigation buttons/tree and all.
I have yet to use Gnome 2.6, but I hear nothing but good things.
“1. you can “Shift” left-click to open a new folder window but closing the previous one and”
Sounds like spring loaded folders I use all the time. I love those.
“2. you have a little drop down directory navigator from where you have come from to get to the current window. This allows for an easy way of traversing back up the directory tree to previous folder levels where you can then explore another directory path. It also opens previous folder windows remembering where their desktop viewing position and attributes from last time.”
Command clicking on the titlebar in OS X gives the same effect, I believe it’s a feature from NeXT. Very helpful when I’m not in column view.
well, not really beacuse it is a simple modification of “web-based” file browsing: a two-window view just like in TotalCommander or Krusader or Gnome Commander. It is simply list-only view in 2 windows – pretty handy – allows all necessary file operations quickly
Nice article except for repeating it all again, tabs and embedded apps?, sure, we’ve been discussing that for years. Any “inspiring” UI concept has to break beyond that into a complex finder (not spatial nor just tabs), if possible with code. Like a modern implementation of the Lifestream metaphor
(www.Scopeware.com), or Raskin’s Zooming UI (http://humane.sourceforge.net) and/or advanced browsing interfaces such as Haystack (http://haystack.lcs.mit.edu).
Spatial Interface is nothing new, but very good. I will really feal home in the future Gnome…
Maybe split view could be good, but the implementation in those screenshots is awful. You’ve got one location descriptor and no indication of which pane it refers to. With a location descriptor per pane, it might be nice in that you wouldn’t have to rearrange windows so that one doesn’t block the other. Still, the simplicity of spatial browsing appeals to me.
My personal feeling is that both spatial and non-spatial browsers have their place. Searching for a file in a deep heirarchy (as with code or system files) is much easier with a non-spatial browser (with a tree view on the left). Managing documents between directories (especially with shallow heirarchies) works very well with a spatial browser. Large libraries of files (as with music files) are best managed with a targeted app (possibly including a datagbase).
I really want to see Nautilus use the same path widget as the new open/save dialog. That would work really nicely, and it would work out perfectly if dragging and dropping to that copied/moved the file to that directory.
I also think that breaking the configuration options down a bit more would be useful. So that you could have the Spatial style windows, and browser style ‘open directories in the same window.’
there is a indicator, look for that small green bubble/ball in the corner
at the same time you will notice that there is a color change to the bottom bar of the active frame.
when a similar article came up someone commented about ion: http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/
its a desktop system where you devide your desktop into many frames, and every frame can be tabbed. so basicly you can have 2 file browsers up in two diffrent frames, then you can have a browser and a notepad and other stuff open in a diffrent frame and just use the tabs to jump from one to the other and so on.
there was allso talk about how a document sentric system could work in that talkback. my personal view is that one can use xml to tag diffrent parts of a file, then the filemanager can act like a browser window (dont kill me yet
) and when it hits a file tagged as a text file it can either open it read only or in edit mode (depending on defaults given in the tags but overrideable by a menu of some sort. or maybe have it like in vi where you default to view but can jump to edit with a keypress 
). but inside the xml file there can be other tags that says hey this is a image, call up the default image viewer library and so on. basicly turn every file in the file system into what amounts to advanced html files 
so you have a spreadsheet embedeed in a text document? no problem. the files icon is based on the topmost tag so it will look like a text document, but as the browser works its way into it it will find tags telling it about the start and finish of a spreadsheet and so will trow that part of to the librarys that have been set as default to handle spreadsheet code. and if you run into a image and want to edit it while in view mode maybe you can rightclick on it, select edit in new tab, the browser opens an new tab, calles the image edit library and you get some freefloating toolbars in the new tab that are specificly there to edit images.
this will turn a os from being a layer that you run your real tools on top of to a framework where the diffrent tools hook themselfs into. the only window(s) you will ever need is the filebrowser.
the big problems are the developers of the librarys, but that can be helped by allowing files that have binary wrapped in xml, the xml indicates start and finish, what the binary is and so on and the binary is then handed of wholesale to the library connected to that xml. the second “problem” are freestanding software like calculators and games, alltho these can be handled by a special tools/entertainment menu cound in every browser window or by going to the specific programs own folder (or the entire item could be contained in something similar to a tarball, doubleclick it and you start the content).
i wonder if this text breaks the limit…
What you describe sounds a lot like a compound file format like what OpenOffice uses . . . XML + binary data files inside of an archive file.
This already exists to an extent for users that spend all their computing time inside of * Office and don’t use any other applications. To these people the * Office program is the OS . . .
hmm, in many was as i look at it after i typed it, it looks like what IE would be if it extended the use of plugins into the realm of file browsing…
its allso very similar of the haystack concept, but at a os level rahter then at a generic all in one app.
think about it running on top of any kind of unix like os where everything is a file? it would like transfering that idea onto the gui itself.
hmm, maybe say you wanted to modify your webpage. you surf it then kick the browser into edit mode. move stuff around. add some stuff and remove some stuff, then you save it and give the username, password and what ftp to save it to…
hobgoblin, what you described it pretty much like an object oriented UI. The software makers wouldn’t make applications anymore, but rather advanced plugins to the OS that do what the application did.
is there anything wrong with that? sure they have to think about theyre advertising a bit more but still, it would make the world of the user more usefull as they didnt have to worry about file types any more as the makers of diffrent “plugins” could registers on the os’s own locater site so that when needed you could download or order the needed “plugin”…
dont listen to me, i have my head in the coulds:)
No. Nothing wrong with that, I love the idea.
What I miss in the article and comments is the mention of TreeView based navigation: I have the source dir open in the right pane (ColumnView), navigate to the dest folder in the right pane (TreeView) and can then easily copy/move the needed files over, no matter if with DnD or context menu.
I have always found it a very awfull thing to have more then one file browser window open!