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"When I say that their "My Documents" folder is a level above their Dropbox folder, I get a blank stare." You might get a blank stare, because Windows itself h
by barik 14y ago
"When I say that their "My Documents" folder is a level above their Dropbox folder, I get a blank stare."
You might get a blank stare, because Windows itself has been trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to move away from this hierarchical model, blurring this metaphor. Consider the Libraries feature, which can essentially collect many folders (My Documents, Dropbox\Documents) and can represent them as a single virtual library.
Similarly, "Favorites" further serve to flatten this hierarchical model (Desktop, Downloads). And finally, consider things that look like folders but aren't physical folders at all (Recent Places).
I actually didn't understand your "level above" analogy either. On Windows 7, the My Documents is:
C:\Users\barik\Documents (appears as My Documents but the folder is actually called Documents, hah!)
and
C:\Users\barik\Dropbox
which is at the same level?
- nightpool 14y agoThe dropbox folder can be chosen at installation time, so apparently he chose to put it inside the Documents folder.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- UnFleshedOne 14y agoI think some earlier versions of dropbox client had the folder be in Documents by default and then they changed it.
- kbolino 14y agoOn Windows XP, the Dropbox folder appears underneath "My Documents" by default. This is probably because prior to Vista, Microsoft treated %UserProfile% like a system folder, and so the only link most users would know is "My Documents". Even more confusing, pressing the "Up" button in "My Documents" would take you to the Desktop unless you navigated to the folder by specifying its actual path. Perhaps also worth noting, in a clean Win7 install, the folder is initially labelled "Documents". It's not until you install a program that tries to access it by the "My Documents" link (there's actually a hidden link with that name) that the folder appears to rename itself to "My Documents".
- antidoh 14y ago"Consider the Libraries feature" My gawd, I can't even figure out what's where in the Libraries context.
- jdunck 14y agoThe Libraries feature is essentially a sandbox for symlinks. It's just that the UI misrepresents the proper mental model.