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The Death of Folders?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:25 AM
from the croak dept.
from the croak dept.
saintlupus writes "There's an interesting article on Wired about the interface changes in Tiger being a precursor to the demise of the classic folder-browsing Finder." From the article: "Users type search queries more or less as they did pre-Tiger, but 'the quality, scope and presentation of the results are significantly better, so users get good benefits without having to change their behavior.'"
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Microsoft has planned this for quite awhile. (Score:5, Informative)
Misread (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Misread (Score:5, Funny)
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What's taking so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me when Folders become saved queries, and then we'll talk about the semi-demise of Finder. Actually, Finder wouldn't leave us at all. In a properly designed database file system, folders/directories should be replaced with standard queries. An example of this is the Labelling system in GMail. You can add a meta-data label to any email, which will then cause that email to appear in a virtual folder of the same name as the label. But if you pay attention to the search bar, you find that the folder is nothing more than a stored search on a key piece of meta-data.
This concept has massive implications for File System Usability. Under the folders-as-search concept, the same files can be organized under multiple folder groupings. This labelling data not only assists users in doing future searches for their information (i.e. A real reason to fill out meta-data other than "It might be useful."), but it also provides the user with a way of organizing ALL data for a given project under one folder without forcing the user to make a copy. It may not seem all that revolutionary, but I think you'll find that a lot of GMail users have already grasped the real power of the concept.
That being said, WHAT'S TAKING SO DAMN LONG?! This stuff was figured out 10+ years ago, and pieces of it were even included in BeOS. NTFS has had many of the necessary features since its inception (just turned off for some bloody reason), and ReiserFS is bringing the same design to Linux. So what is everyone waiting for? The next guy to scoop you on it?
*sigh* Dear Mr. Jobs: Will you please demonstrate to everyone how you do this properly with a file system? Thanks. Kudos to your NeXT development team who's made this possible.
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that Apple's shown everyone the way with database filesystems, I wonder if we could get them to replace the "Recent" menu with "Piles" of recent folders. Wait, they're already looking at that. [mac.com] God, I love this new Apple. (i.e. NeXT renamed.) And that's coming from a guy who's hated Apple his entire life!
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:4, Informative)
Smart folders go off of arbitary metadata. I use spotlight comments in much the same way I use gmail labels. Some file belongs to a particular group? Add a keyword (label) to it to indicate that.
I am going folderless as we speak. Look back in my comment history for a long post about how spotlight and smart folders have changed my computer use for the better.
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you arn't just designing some cool thing here, this will effect how people organize *everything* on their computer. The reason the file/folder method worked so well is because it's a good abstraction from the real world model. If you switch to something more complex that can't be described easily in the real world, many people will reject it without trying it.
Not to mention making meta data searchable on a hard disk is not an easy task without making the metadata you want to search a permanent part of the FS design. I think the idea here is to have any abount of metadata (within reason), of varying sizes, and searchable fast. That's not easy.
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
File links have always been a sort of "hack" to get around that fact that files can only be in one folder at any given time. With a database file system, you can keep the one folder per file metaphor, or you can grow into the folders as metadata concept. Your choice.
The greatest danger in Desktop metaphors has always been that the metaphor will be taken to its fully restrictive extreme, and that the powers added by the computer will be ignored. That's exactly what's happened in this case, and it's not a good thing.
Maybe I should blog something more complete about this...
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:4, Insightful)
for home users, it'll take a LOT longer to explain "directories" than just a file/folder comparison and a file cabinet. Easy simple stuff you take for granted will often confuse the begeezis out of regular people.
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's absolutely true.
I think maybe a database filesystem - with the right interface - could be easier for these people. Yet it might also be more confusing for someone (like me) who's been using directories to organize everything for 20+ years.
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
Under a stored query system (i.e. Labels), you could place the bill under *both* University and Finance. That's why labelling makes more sense than folders.
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Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Informative)
I trimmed my dock down to almost nothing thanks to this.
No, I never liked QS. I don't know why either.
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What's more... (Score:5, Interesting)
And how about old/less useful files that are unnecessarily included in searches, forcing you to read over more file names to find what you want?
One handy feature about folders I've (automatically or intentionally) organized things in is it makes it easy to go back and figure out what I no longer need, and delete it, thus freeing up disk space and reducing clutter. Spotlight is designed to GENERATE clutter.
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Re:What's more... (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as enough metadata is tagged to a file, you'll be able to track it down. I.E., the program it was created with, the user who created it, and the date. If you've lost a spreadsheet you were working on last week, open a "spreadsheets from last week" folder, and there it is.
If you need a document from last year, open a "documents from last year, not having x,y,z tags, created by me, etc, etc" folder. Enough metadata is added that you shouldn't be able to lose documents.
In contrast, in windows, if you don't save to the right folder, and you don't remember the name, it's far harder to find your file. I don't believe there is a "created by" field to search on, and you have to rely upon extension rather than program which created it. And it can be anywhere in a tangled directory structure. Spotlight means (I think) that the worse case scenario is you pull up all items created using X program by user Y, during time period Z. And that's better than windows can do.
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Re:What's more... (Score:4, Informative)
Spotlight searches within files , not just names.
You forgot to label a file?, You can remember the title? type it in to spotlight, one of the results will be your file.
3 seconds you just narrowed down your list of 3,000 files to search to just 10.
I don't use label's a lot in gmail, but I did import all my gmail into my Apple mail folders. Why so i can do an offline search of all 30mb of my email in folders.
Spotlight is close to being a local version of google.
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Hmm.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Opera invented labels? (Score:5, Informative)
If they weren't - if instead they were patent-happy and litigous in nature - then Firefox would have been stripped of several of its features, as a great many of them were borrowed from Opera.
And, I didn't say Opera invented labelling, only that they introduced labelling rather than foldering to email way before Gmail did. Had they wanted to, Opera could have easily patented labelling in emails, especially with the way that the USPTO gives out patents to everyone who so much as looks in its direction.
All clear now?
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Folders?!? (Score:3, Funny)
err...yea...
Re:Folders?!? (Score:4, Funny)
Call it a toast to the benefits of the initial Windows 95 file naming scheme. :-)
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Figures. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but I like to categorize things. I like to know where they are, in this logical space. If this loses a document, can you dig it out? Or did it just never exist?
Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
Spotlight is really good, but that hasnt stoped me from being anal about setting up files so i can find things.
What really pisses me off is out iTunes reognized all my music when it was inported into the libary. I spent years putting together music in such a way that i can find it. Now i have the seach for it b/c itunes had to mess things up.
Re:Bull (Score:5, Informative)
I agree this seems like a stupid thing to have turned on by default. I also find the behavior where it copies mp3s that you play to the music folder automatically strange. But I guess some people would get confused that deleting a file from their desktop makes it not playable in itunes anymore. *shrug*
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Re:Bull (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, I let iTunes do its own thing. I *never* go into the iTunes Library folder (where the actual files are stored). I do all of my organization from within iTunes.
The problem comes from people that want to use two different interfaces (the Finder and iTunes) to manage music. iTunes does this really well. If I want to delete a song, I delete it from within iTunes. iTunes asks if I want to delete the original file.
If I want a copy of a song, I just drag it from iTunes onto the Desktop. Instant copy. Any other organization is done with playlists, smart playlists, and the browser.
I do not see people thinking of iTunes as where music files exist as a bad thing. This gets to the point of the original article - the removal of the old file/folder paradigm. If iTunes can do everything you could possibly need to do with your song files, why would you NEED to go into the folder hierarchy and deal with the actual song files?
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agreed (Score:4, Interesting)
On another note, my biggest complaint about iTunes defaults is the "Use error correction while reading CDs" checkbox. I ruined much of my library on importing because I left this unchecked when I first started importing my collection. A lot of songs sound like crap; random distortion really loud, and there's no way to know which songs got screwed until they are playing. Why have an almost hidden preference that will ruin your library if not checked? Perhaps other people have better luck importing with this turned off than I do, but now whenever I use a computer's itunes for the first time I make damn sure that box is checked before importing CDs....
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Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
And here lies the root of problem. People think this is true, and it's arrant nonsense. Computers are absolutely worthless at organizing data. All they can do it process instructions for organization.
The organization itself derives from, and can only derive from a human mind. Thinking "the computer organizes the data" is the main reason why virtually all databases are giant Mongolian cluster fucks.
When you run a program that "organizes the data for you" what you are really doing is imposing someone else's idea of how your data should be organized on your data.
When people ask me how they should organize their data I like to answer honestly:
"How the hell should I know?"
Until know about their data, what it is, what it "means" and how it is expected to used I can reorganize it a billion different ways without in any way organizing it in any useful fashion.
Organization is a state of mind and for a database to be useful you must transfer the state of your mind to the "business model" of database managment system.
Just like you do when you arrange your folders in a heirarchy.
KFG
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Only faster if you don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
This on it's face looks pretty good. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think so... (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite yet (Score:5, Insightful)
And Google has made bookmarks obsolete, right? So Searchlight will make folders obsolete.
Better search is always very cool. But proper organization and categorization is better yet. The problem is not that the latter is a bad system but that people don't do it very well. I think a system that helps people organize their stuff will be even better than a better search. The "labels" which are used instead of folders in gmail seem like a step in that direction.
My File Search (Score:5, Funny)
It'd be very efficient, I could then just think of finding a file, and there it would be. Or better yet, I could imagine a beowul...NO CARRIER
Folders good for backups (Score:5, Insightful)
And backups.. in a workflow.. every project has its own file and subfolders, makes it easy for backup and finding files.
Anywho... folder hierarchy works great and is here to stay for most people. (except for those people who just save everything to the desktop.)
Folders may die, but what about directories? (Score:5, Insightful)
Spotlight is great for users, but there will be a need for something like the Finder indefinitely.
Removable media (Score:5, Interesting)
Having said that, how can this apply to removable media? I would like to see a feature on the next MacOS that automatically indexes removable storage.
Let's say I burn a CD of some data. The finder should keep track of which files I burned to that CD, long after I erased the actual files from my hard drive. That way, I can perform spotlight searchs on my data, even if it really isn't present on my local drive.
Find the file that you want and the machine prompts you to insert the proper CD.
Not broken (Score:5, Interesting)
And what about file systems? I know that modern file systems like NTFS are much better at optimizing file storage for large drives with millions of discrete files, but are all of the modern ones ready to handle a drive with millions of files all at root?
Re:Not broken (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm wondering is what is broken with the whole directory/folder design?
What's broken about it is that a single hierarchical classification scheme may not always be appropriate for a given body of data. Suppose I have a whole bunch of documents. They're all about different products - ProductA, ProductB, etc. Meanwhile, some of them are proposals, some are degisn docs, some are marketing literature, etc. I want to be able to sift through these documents in various ways. What's the best hierarchy to use? Product type first, then document type (proposal/design/etc)? Or the other way around? What happens when I want "all proposals on ProductA or ProductC for North American markets"? Where in the hierarchy do I look? Meanwhile, if each file were in a database, with search keywords, I could find anything I wanted just as easily as anything else - there's no predetermined hierarchy that makes it easier to find some things than others.
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Re:Not broken (Score:5, Informative)
A study was published just last year about how the desktop paradigm breaks down when a lot of files are trying to be stored. There's nothing wrong with the folder system from a technical standpoint. The problem comes when you have hundreds or thousands of files that need to be sorted and then found. Your capacity to remember such things is finite. If you know even vaguely what you're looking for ("Hmmm, it was about 2 weeks ago, I think it mentioned nintendo, and James may have written it..."), it's probably easier to find by searching than by trying to figure out if you filed it under James, Nintendo, or the documents that you got 2 weeks ago.
If you'd like to read the study, try and get your hands on the ACM Transactions on Human-Computer Interfaces, June 2004, Volume 11, Number 2. It's quite interesting; a lot less dry than most papers.
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Google Desktop Search + GDSuite (Score:3, Informative)
The only thing I can hope to see is for Google Desktop Search to add a "label" functionality to GDS so that I can label things that are "games" and "code" etc, to help narrow down searches or even use virtual directories where it brings up a windows like link to all executables labled for games on the hard drive without having to individually organize.
This way you could make folders that consist of multiple labels and or focus them down to less labels etc at a click of a button.
Hierarchical Folders Are Still Useful (Score:3, Insightful)
A completely flat filesystem sounds all very well in principle, but how do you find names for all of those files? I have loads of files on my computers with the same names but in different namespaces. Or are we going to throw away filenames as well?
Death to folders/directories death to discovery. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or on MacOS take a look at all the pfiles and see what they can control and what they can't.
Or say you want to find a way to make the dock transperent and you search for Dock Transperance. While the real term that the search will find is Dock Clearness. Or that file you saved way back when you don't know the date you did it or what it is about but once you see it you know that is the one you need.
Sure I like spotlight but there are some cases where it just fails me mostly because I am absent minded.
No Folders? No thanks? (Score:5, Interesting)
That plus there is still a large group of folks in the business world for whom computers are still fairly recent (the managers and partners who have been working since the 70's and 80's). Granted their numbers are starting to thin, but there are still a great many folks, in relatively high positions, who like the folder system because it replicates a filing cabinet- they get it. Trying to educate the entire generation on a "whole new way" of doing something "easier and faster" will frighten them off.
this is natural selection at its best (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think the directory as we know it is dead, it is a nice way to hierarchically (word?) organize our data (but wait, Documents and Settings???). Seriously, directories are intuitive enough and most people get comfortable with them quickly.
But, there are some problems with directories:
However, this article I think shows the way technology will take us and I like the abstraction and "flattening" of the storage universe. I've already become less neurotic about how to organize and store photos, etc., especially now with photo organizers and desktop search software like Google desktop. For me it makes more sense to "ask" my computer where something is and have it return the top twenty most likely responses (with the ability to drill deeper if necessary).
Directories served a good purpose, but weren't they mostly artifacts anyway? Aren't they kind of an opaqueness of underlying technology? Directories as far as I remember were a way of implementing pointers and references to blocks of data on a drive, albeit a nicely abstracted implementation at the time (except for DOS, ick... (why no ".xxx" extensions allowed for DOS directories, huh?)).
Spotlight not the be-all end-all of search (Score:5, Informative)
Reasons? Well, first of all Spotlight won't search the whole of your drive. Can't remember if it was in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin? Tough. Spotlight won't help you, it doesn't look in those hierarchies.
Made a mistake typing your search term into Spotlight and on an older machine? Don't even think of hitting that backspace key, or the Finder may go into a spinning beachball hell whilst it tries to live search everything for you.
Want to find just files and nothing else (ie. no meta-data or content-related stuff, just filenames)? Well, you can use the undocumented start-your-search-with-a-double-quote feature, but that doesn't work well because it doesn't understand wildcards (so "*.java won't work, for example, whereas ".java will but would include *.java.backup).Also it seems to lose its idea of filename-only as soon as you hit backspace and try to re-edit it. In other words, typing ".java will find me *.java*, but typing that, then hitting backspace, then typing hte final 'a' character again will start finding me things with java in the content instead of just the name.
It also has poor resource usage - some seem to be lucky, but search the forms and you'll see many people complaining about processes called mdimport or similar hogging large amounts of CPU. Then there's the indexing it does every time you connect a firewire drive - if I reboot my Powerbook in target mode and hook it up to the Power Mac, a large amount of indexing is initiated which slows down my performance on that drive. I can set it to not index, but then it slows down search on that drive. What's needed is for the indexing stuff to be really low priority or user-ppausable perhaps.
Sorry, Spotlight is ok but in the Finder it's a pain more than a help for me. I wouldn't have minded it in addition to Panther's more straightforward 'find a file' bit, but as a total replacement for that it's rather lacking. I'm not even contemplating using it as a complete replacement for a normal directory structure.
Cheers,
Ian
They haven't used Spotlight, have they? (Score:5, Interesting)
When it is good, Spotlight is very, very good. And when it is bad, it is horrid. So far, in my experience, Spotlight has been very, very good about 50% of the time I've really used it (i.e. to find something I wanted to find, as opposed to playing around with it). And horrid the other 50%.
Spotlight has several big problems.
a) It doesn't find things reliably. This isn't like using Google on the Web, where you're happy with the results you find, and mostly don't know about what relevant hits Google missed. You have a very good idea what's on your hard drive, and it is incredibly annoying when Spotlight does NOT find a file you know is there.
There is ongoing discussion of why Spotlight doesn't find things reliably, and, of course, many people who say "It works for me," but the number of users reporting that Spotlight is not finding files they know are there is very significant.
There are various reasons for this. One is that Spotlight has a fairly long built-in exclusion list of directories it doesn't think you really want to search, but, unfortunately, it does not explicitly show you what they are. This is not, however, the only issue.
b) It doesn't find things quickly. Wags are starting to call it "stoplight." Frankly, I'm scared to type anything directly into the search field. I've gotten to the point where I type the search target into a text editor and paste it into the edit field.
The problem is that Spotlight oh-so-cleverly gives real-time live updating of the partial query as you type it in. So if you type in "Slashdot", for example, by the time you have typed in two characters it is trying to display every file on your computer that begins with "sl". For reasons that aren't clear to me, this frequently locks up the Finder's UI with a spinning pizza wheel. The entire Finder becomes unusable--you can't even activate another window and search for the file manually--for big fractions of a minute.
c) A signficant number of users are reporting frequent occasions when Spotlight causes their whole system to slow down. And, in at least one case, I've pinned down a situation in which Spotlight, for some reason, actually causes another program to fail with file I/O errors unless it is prevented from accessing the directories that program is using.
So, Spotlight is sometimes wonderful... but other times is unreliable, slow itself, slows down the rest of the system, and makes other programs unstable.
But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
Death of folders is greatly exaggerated... (Score:4, Interesting)
We need something to help that is clear from the number of digital objects we have lying round on our computers these days. Some method of collecting these objects into conceptual sets or classifications (apart from file extensions which is not always the most useful) could be really useful - I have read some interesting stuff by people who are Metadata crazy (seem to have lost the links though - the tiger review of metadata writer was really interesting [arstechnica.com]...) Maybe the answers are somewhere there.
But for most people, some method of grouping data, adding categorical schemes, visually and texturally organising and generally making files/objects more plastic in the way that we store them would be a great step forward.
But in any case, nested folders *do* still have uses. And I think we need --in addition to-- rather than --instead of--.
---- Posted anonymous as bloody slashdot is banning IP
Sometimes I know what's best for me (Score:4, Insightful)
There are times when searches are ideal for grouping disjoint sets of information. There are many, many more times when a best guess is completely insufficient. Searches to augment folders? Sure. Searches to replace them? No way.
positional memory (Score:5, Interesting)
So for example: 5 or 6 days ago I downloaded a plugin for some blog package or other, written in php or perl I think
That kind of thing will always have a place in my Finder. I like metadata search too, but I'm just not with-it enough to give up my brain's best way of remembering things
Re:positional memory (Score:4, Insightful)
But you had no practical way of using that to find the package.
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Re:won't happen (Score:3)