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The "Folder" metaphor is something I've been considering a lot lately. It seems so ingrained in modern computing. Apple has started to move away from it tags a

The "Folder" metaphor is something I've been considering a lot lately. It seems so ingrained in modern computing. Apple has started to move away from it tags and "All my Files." I struggle to think of a better way to solve organizing and collecting items than into nested groups.

azinman2 12y ago
We launch next month. Just wait :)
- teacup50 12y ago
  Yet-another-software-as-a-service-dont-own-your-own-data-startup. Great.
  - azinman2 12y ago
    Not sure where you got that assumption from. We don't own your data anymore than Dropbox does.
    - teacup50 12y ago
      So what you're saying is, you own it entirely. Dropbox has: - Access to everyone's data. - Control over everyone's data. - Control over the clients used to access that data. What is actually private? Nothing. What do users "own"? None of their tools. SaaS makes the world a worse place, one rent-seeking product at a time.
- azinman2 12y ago
  Why the down votes?
  - SwellJoe 12y ago
    Your comment had zero content and no value for anyone other than you. I'm happy you're excited about your launch, but, unless you're linking a technical, or at least informative, blog post or similar that describes ways you're solving the problem the person you replied talked about, Hacker News isn't the right place to brag.
    - azinman2 12y ago
      Fair enough. The user mentioned that no one seems to be rethinking the file system so I just wanted to say that we were, but obviously we don't have the materials ready to link to pre-launch.
  - redacted 12y ago
    > Why the downvotes? Who are 'we'? What do you do? Why should I care? Your post contains no useful information, and thus contributes nothing to the discussion. Ergo, downvotes. The only way to work out what you're talking about is to go through your comments (which I did) and synthesise based on founder bios and a job posting. Even then there is little to no concrete information about empiric.al that I could find in the few minutes I spared for this. Here's a post that might have worked better, and maybe even could have got you some marketing/interest. I didn't downvote you the first time, but I would be far less likely to downvote this: --- I agree completely. File management is still an unsolved problem and existing solutions are not optimal by any stretch of the imagination. It's really only getting worse as more and more user data moves to various independent and unconnected online services. Even if you manage your local files in a satisfactory manner you can't use the same system everywhere. I'm actually actually working on a product that should help alleviate that problem. It does $ACTUAL_DETAILS and works by $IMPLEMENTATION. Our site is barebones for now (empiric.al if you want to read more about founders or sign up for information), but we're really excited about what we've built so far and aim to launch next month. Hit me up on $EMAIL if you'd like to discuss it!
orbifold 12y ago
Well the fundamental flaw is that the view presented to the user is rooted in the representation the filesystem implementor chose, the user should effortlessly be able to switch between different views and add additional ones, Apples' "All My Files" together with the ability to filter and save those filters is brilliant and very much in the right direction, although it should support some form of join operation. One idea would be, that in addition it should be possible to execute computations on the current view of the filesystem and the possible computational primitives are selected by the "type" of the files (essentially find a way to lift a typed version of the unix shell with pipes to the GUI level). Another idea would be to emphasise versioning and time based information more. For example with the current storage capability it makes little sense for the default save operation when working on a document to be "destructively replace the old one". Obviously as a programming one is aware of that and uses version control systems, but so far I had multiple occasions when working on a collaborative project not involving code, where the versioning was done by appending suffixes to folder names.
tim333 12y ago
I find the Apple OSX finder's half hearted attempts to hide the file system a pain in the arse. What does work quite well for me is the default approach of Gmail where your emails are in basically one folder with a good and fast search facility (and tagging)

azinman2 12y ago

We launch next month. Just wait :)

teacup50 12y ago
Yet-another-software-as-a-service-dont-own-your-own-data-startup. Great.
- azinman2 12y ago
  Not sure where you got that assumption from. We don't own your data anymore than Dropbox does.
  - teacup50 12y ago
    So what you're saying is, you own it entirely. Dropbox has: - Access to everyone's data. - Control over everyone's data. - Control over the clients used to access that data. What is actually private? Nothing. What do users "own"? None of their tools. SaaS makes the world a worse place, one rent-seeking product at a time.
azinman2 12y ago
Why the down votes?
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  Your comment had zero content and no value for anyone other than you. I'm happy you're excited about your launch, but, unless you're linking a technical, or at least informative, blog post or similar that describes ways you're solving the problem the person you replied talked about, Hacker News isn't the right place to brag.
  - azinman2 12y ago
    Fair enough. The user mentioned that no one seems to be rethinking the file system so I just wanted to say that we were, but obviously we don't have the materials ready to link to pre-launch.
- redacted 12y ago
  > Why the downvotes? Who are 'we'? What do you do? Why should I care? Your post contains no useful information, and thus contributes nothing to the discussion. Ergo, downvotes. The only way to work out what you're talking about is to go through your comments (which I did) and synthesise based on founder bios and a job posting. Even then there is little to no concrete information about empiric.al that I could find in the few minutes I spared for this. Here's a post that might have worked better, and maybe even could have got you some marketing/interest. I didn't downvote you the first time, but I would be far less likely to downvote this: --- I agree completely. File management is still an unsolved problem and existing solutions are not optimal by any stretch of the imagination. It's really only getting worse as more and more user data moves to various independent and unconnected online services. Even if you manage your local files in a satisfactory manner you can't use the same system everywhere. I'm actually actually working on a product that should help alleviate that problem. It does $ACTUAL_DETAILS and works by $IMPLEMENTATION. Our site is barebones for now (empiric.al if you want to read more about founders or sign up for information), but we're really excited about what we've built so far and aim to launch next month. Hit me up on $EMAIL if you'd like to discuss it!

orbifold 12y ago

Well the fundamental flaw is that the view presented to the user is rooted in the representation the filesystem implementor chose, the user should effortlessly be able to switch between different views and add additional ones, Apples' "All My Files" together with the ability to filter and save those filters is brilliant and very much in the right direction, although it should support some form of join operation. One idea would be, that in addition it should be possible to execute computations on the current view of the filesystem and the possible computational primitives are selected by the "type" of the files (essentially find a way to lift a typed version of the unix shell with pipes to the GUI level). Another idea would be to emphasise versioning and time based information more. For example with the current storage capability it makes little sense for the default save operation when working on a document to be "destructively replace the old one". Obviously as a programming one is aware of that and uses version control systems, but so far I had multiple occasions when working on a collaborative project not involving code, where the versioning was done by appending suffixes to folder names.

tim333 12y ago

I find the Apple OSX finder's half hearted attempts to hide the file system a pain in the arse. What does work quite well for me is the default approach of Gmail where your emails are in basically one folder with a good and fast search facility (and tagging)