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Huh? If you remove the files from the copy of Google drive on your disk, they get removed on the web. It's one "drive." That's KIND OF THE WHOLE POINT. It's n

Huh? If you remove the files from the copy of Google drive on your disk, they get removed on the web. It's one "drive." That's KIND OF THE WHOLE POINT. It's not poor user design. That they go to the trash is good user design, to prevent users from doings things like this guy did...

dchest 13y ago
When you're moving a document off some drive, you expect a moved copy to work.
- blcknight 13y ago
  Except for the part when they tell you. http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    If you work on client programs, you know or should know that users don't read. It's important to prevent them from easily doing dumb stuff (where a single "do dumb stuff anyway" button does not really count as sufficient deterrence -- because it's not dumb from the user's perspective, it's only "dumb" if you know the internals).
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Heh, "tell you". The part that matters is in the secondary part of the alert and is only a single sentence. It's buried among all the other, less important stuff. And even then, "This item is just a link." is not very clear at all. Without already knowing how this stuff works, I can't say that I'd necessarily understand the meaning here. What this alert needs to say is something like this: WARNING: you have moved this file out of Google Drive WHICH HAS DELETED IT. The file that you moved does not contain your content. It is merely a link back to the original content WHICH IS NOW IN THE TRASH. EMPTYING YOUR TRASH WILL PERMANENTLY DELETE THE DATA AND THE FILE WHICH YOU MOVED DOES NOT CONTAIN A COPY OF IT. They're destroying the user's data in a scenario where they would not expect it. A teeny little warning buried in an alert filled with other stuff simply does not cut it. The fact that you need lots of DIRE CAPITALIZED TEXT to get the point across shows, I think, that this whole system is a bad idea.
eli 13y ago
Well, if not clear to the users, then it isn't good UI -- even if it's obvious to you.
- blcknight 13y ago
  And most other people, I imagine. Dropbox would work the same way. Although it might be permanent, but I've never tried something so ridiculous.
  - dchest 13y ago
    I think you missed the part when the original document is not a document, but a link/reference. There's no analogue in Dropbox.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Dropbox lets you recover a file if you've deleted it recently.
    - Oletros 13y ago
      Even if the trashcan is emptied?
      - sp332 13y ago
        Even better: items that have been "deleted" don't count toward your storage limit, even if they are recoverable.
        Oletros 13y ago
        How can I restore a permanent deleted file? I can't find the option to do that
        sp332 13y ago
        I don't think you can... I don't see an "empty trash" button anywhere though. You can't permanent-delete a file just by removing it from a folder on your computer. You have to log in to the website, right-click it, select "delete", click the trash icon at the top of the screen, right-click the file again and select "permanent delete". That's not even close to what happened to OP.
nailer 13y ago
Yeah, I don't get this part. The user moved the files from google drive to his local disk. Aren't the files therefore still on his local disk? EDIT: re read article . Moving files into local disk deletes them on google drive and makes the moved versions useless links. Now agree with the author: that's goddamned terrible. EDIT 2: actually the files are always links, but if the links are moved outside google drive the correspondi go data is moved into Google drive trash. See jamesaguilar below. Still goddamned terrible.
- eli 13y ago
  "... the .gdoc files are just empty links with no data. I see a list of everything I wrote in Google Docs, but can never see the actual content again." Google does not sync the data to you, just a tiny file with the same name as your data that bounces you to the website.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  No, the files in your drive "look like" they are files, but they are actually just links. So him moving them to the local disk did not actually copy the files to local disk. The real failure here is that you shouldn't be able to move the drive links out of the drive folder, since semantically that does not actually move the files. (Filed a bug, but I'm not on the Drive team so I can't really take responsibility for this getting fixed. It does seem like a problem to me, but I don't know their infrastructure nor the limitations of shell extensions, so I can't really comment on whether a fix is feasible either.)
  - was_hellbanned 13y ago
    > The real failure here is that you shouldn't be able to move the drive links out of the drive folder, since semantically that does not actually move the files. Or stop trying to force a connection between Google Drive's file view and Google Docs. Move the links out of GDrive all you want, it should have no effect whatsoever on the hosted GDocs. They're just links, after all. Since when does moving or deleting a link delete actual data? Someone at Google tried to force a connection that doesn't even make sense, and this is the result. Whoever decided that moving a link out of a folder should delete the hosted document should be fired.
crazygringo 13y ago
No, the point is that if you see a bunch of ".gdoc" files on your computer, and you move them to another directory on your computer, you would reasonably expect that those files contain the document data, not that they're merely "pointers" to online data. That's "kind of the whole point", as you yell. I agree that the user wasn't being super-careful, but it's entirely reasonable to think that, if Google docs appear on your local hard drive, that they are files that can be manipulated just like any others, and that copying/moving them to another folder would preserve their data.
- blcknight 13y ago
  The links thing is stupid, but it does tell you. http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png
  - ash 13y ago
    Users can't read anything, and if they could, they wouldn't want to: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062....
  - mh- 13y ago
    That screenshot really ought to be in the original link. Kinda changes how bad I feel about this.
  - victorhooi 13y ago
    Yeah, I think it's disingenous that the OP didn't mention that warning message, or the screenshot. I still feel bad for him - but the warning clearly says: "An item you recently removed from your Google Drive folder has been moved to your trash on drive.google.com. This item is just a link. If you empty your trash on drive.google.com, this item will be permanently deleted."
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

dchest 13y ago

When you're moving a document off some drive, you expect a moved copy to work.

blcknight 13y ago
Except for the part when they tell you. http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  If you work on client programs, you know or should know that users don't read. It's important to prevent them from easily doing dumb stuff (where a single "do dumb stuff anyway" button does not really count as sufficient deterrence -- because it's not dumb from the user's perspective, it's only "dumb" if you know the internals).
- mikeash 13y ago
  Heh, "tell you". The part that matters is in the secondary part of the alert and is only a single sentence. It's buried among all the other, less important stuff. And even then, "This item is just a link." is not very clear at all. Without already knowing how this stuff works, I can't say that I'd necessarily understand the meaning here. What this alert needs to say is something like this: WARNING: you have moved this file out of Google Drive WHICH HAS DELETED IT. The file that you moved does not contain your content. It is merely a link back to the original content WHICH IS NOW IN THE TRASH. EMPTYING YOUR TRASH WILL PERMANENTLY DELETE THE DATA AND THE FILE WHICH YOU MOVED DOES NOT CONTAIN A COPY OF IT. They're destroying the user's data in a scenario where they would not expect it. A teeny little warning buried in an alert filled with other stuff simply does not cut it. The fact that you need lots of DIRE CAPITALIZED TEXT to get the point across shows, I think, that this whole system is a bad idea.

eli 13y ago

Well, if not clear to the users, then it isn't good UI -- even if it's obvious to you.

blcknight 13y ago
And most other people, I imagine. Dropbox would work the same way. Although it might be permanent, but I've never tried something so ridiculous.
- dchest 13y ago
  I think you missed the part when the original document is not a document, but a link/reference. There's no analogue in Dropbox.
- sp332 13y ago
  Dropbox lets you recover a file if you've deleted it recently.
  - Oletros 13y ago
    Even if the trashcan is emptied?
    - sp332 13y ago
      Even better: items that have been "deleted" don't count toward your storage limit, even if they are recoverable.
      - Oletros 13y ago
        How can I restore a permanent deleted file? I can't find the option to do that
        sp332 13y ago
        I don't think you can... I don't see an "empty trash" button anywhere though. You can't permanent-delete a file just by removing it from a folder on your computer. You have to log in to the website, right-click it, select "delete", click the trash icon at the top of the screen, right-click the file again and select "permanent delete". That's not even close to what happened to OP.

nailer 13y ago

Yeah, I don't get this part. The user moved the files from google drive to his local disk. Aren't the files therefore still on his local disk? EDIT: re read article . Moving files into local disk deletes them on google drive and makes the moved versions useless links. Now agree with the author: that's goddamned terrible. EDIT 2: actually the files are always links, but if the links are moved outside google drive the correspondi go data is moved into Google drive trash. See jamesaguilar below. Still goddamned terrible.

eli 13y ago
"... the .gdoc files are just empty links with no data. I see a list of everything I wrote in Google Docs, but can never see the actual content again." Google does not sync the data to you, just a tiny file with the same name as your data that bounces you to the website.
jamesaguilar 13y ago
No, the files in your drive "look like" they are files, but they are actually just links. So him moving them to the local disk did not actually copy the files to local disk. The real failure here is that you shouldn't be able to move the drive links out of the drive folder, since semantically that does not actually move the files. (Filed a bug, but I'm not on the Drive team so I can't really take responsibility for this getting fixed. It does seem like a problem to me, but I don't know their infrastructure nor the limitations of shell extensions, so I can't really comment on whether a fix is feasible either.)
- was_hellbanned 13y ago
  > The real failure here is that you shouldn't be able to move the drive links out of the drive folder, since semantically that does not actually move the files. Or stop trying to force a connection between Google Drive's file view and Google Docs. Move the links out of GDrive all you want, it should have no effect whatsoever on the hosted GDocs. They're just links, after all. Since when does moving or deleting a link delete actual data? Someone at Google tried to force a connection that doesn't even make sense, and this is the result. Whoever decided that moving a link out of a folder should delete the hosted document should be fired.

crazygringo 13y ago

No, the point is that if you see a bunch of ".gdoc" files on your computer, and you move them to another directory on your computer, you would reasonably expect that those files contain the document data, not that they're merely "pointers" to online data. That's "kind of the whole point", as you yell. I agree that the user wasn't being super-careful, but it's entirely reasonable to think that, if Google docs appear on your local hard drive, that they are files that can be manipulated just like any others, and that copying/moving them to another folder would preserve their data.

blcknight 13y ago
The links thing is stupid, but it does tell you. http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png
- ash 13y ago
  Users can't read anything, and if they could, they wouldn't want to: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062....
- mh- 13y ago
  That screenshot really ought to be in the original link. Kinda changes how bad I feel about this.
- victorhooi 13y ago
  Yeah, I think it's disingenous that the OP didn't mention that warning message, or the screenshot. I still feel bad for him - but the warning clearly says: "An item you recently removed from your Google Drive folder has been moved to your trash on drive.google.com. This item is just a link. If you empty your trash on drive.google.com, this item will be permanently deleted."
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]