4 ms·

I too have been thinking about alternatives to hierarchial filesystems. Originally I thought that I wanted a tag based system, but currently I believe that tagg

I too have been thinking about alternatives to hierarchial filesystems. Originally I thought that I wanted a tag based system, but currently I believe that tagging adds too much overhead and that it might not scale well either for the user since the more tags you have the harder they will be to remember and then there is the issue of relationships between tags. On macOS they have a view that shows you all your files in the order that they were last modified. That has value I believe. Combine that with optional categorization for filtering, so tags but with the tags not being at the very center, and store files by their hash but keep filename for display. Also keeping track of origin of files - user authored vs made by others. Documents with hyperlinks are used for organizing files of current concern. Snapshots of all files are kept so you can delete, replace or update "indexes" over time but still being able to retrieve them later. Append-only except for the pointers that show what indexes are active. Hope any of that made sense. It's a bit late and besides I didn't want to write "a whole book" in this comment.

wruza 9y ago
I can't understand why msbob-like interfaces failed. The idea is simple and natural: you don't have hierarchical folders with names, you have visually recognizable places. Even very non-technical users can understand this idiom when you just put papers somewhere to get back to it later. People are very good at locations, very bad at names. One of the best remembering techniques is based on locations. That's actually how I organize my physical desktop: there is a stake of blanks ("new text file..." menu item), operative drawings in the center, non-operative at the far right, and lot of drawers in my table, each with its own geometry, cabinet, shelves, working/entertainment rooms or areas. If I start to collect something new, like DVD discs or project documents, I simply "create" new shelf for archiving or empty old space by moving it to less useful location. Given that it is electronic representation, you may even put document into additional location, like dragging it via alt key, so semi-transparent version of it is created. You can take documents to your hands, go to places, drop some here and some there, instead of that cut-paste and "clipboard" idiom. Why would one really move folders via cutting them to the clipboard? Did you ever see what it looks like? Even if hierachical folder/file systems could be good, today these are shit. You can edit file, but you can't edit folder. Attach photo or text preview on file/folder via paperclip? Make it bigger, so that it stands out in other icons? Create in-folder heading like github's README.md? Colorize them quickly? Nope. Even when possible it is a real pain. All files and folders look the same (or random) and if it is not jpeg, you're on your own to search it by low-perceptible metadata like ctime or name/type.

wruza 9y ago

I can't understand why msbob-like interfaces failed. The idea is simple and natural: you don't have hierarchical folders with names, you have visually recognizable places. Even very non-technical users can understand this idiom when you just put papers somewhere to get back to it later. People are very good at locations, very bad at names. One of the best remembering techniques is based on locations. That's actually how I organize my physical desktop: there is a stake of blanks ("new text file..." menu item), operative drawings in the center, non-operative at the far right, and lot of drawers in my table, each with its own geometry, cabinet, shelves, working/entertainment rooms or areas. If I start to collect something new, like DVD discs or project documents, I simply "create" new shelf for archiving or empty old space by moving it to less useful location. Given that it is electronic representation, you may even put document into additional location, like dragging it via alt key, so semi-transparent version of it is created. You can take documents to your hands, go to places, drop some here and some there, instead of that cut-paste and "clipboard" idiom. Why would one really move folders via cutting them to the clipboard? Did you ever see what it looks like? Even if hierachical folder/file systems could be good, today these are shit. You can edit file, but you can't edit folder. Attach photo or text preview on file/folder via paperclip? Make it bigger, so that it stands out in other icons? Create in-folder heading like github's README.md? Colorize them quickly? Nope. Even when possible it is a real pain. All files and folders look the same (or random) and if it is not jpeg, you're on your own to search it by low-perceptible metadata like ctime or name/type.