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Re: Hiding file name extensions, and other "insane" UX trendsMandelbrain. With all due respect, all you seem to want is a return to the way "Classic" MacOS did things. Although that's waaay better than the brain-dead way we do things now, I am very much of the opinion that we can do better. A lot better. Let's look at what metadata we might want for a file - name(s) - type[1] - application used to edit - edit date / time - version - permissions - arbitrary tags With a unix-style filesystem, we have _some_ of this. We're missing only a structured encoding of file type[2], application used, version, and a certain number of arbitrary tags. Indeed, the only arbitrary tagging we can carry out is by hard linking to another path, as tagging can only be carried out using the (frankly awful) filesystem "location" as encoded in the path[3]. Now, "version" is interesting. Mandating built-in versioning leads to the idea of a file system consisting of immutable[4] files, where "save" becomes "commit", and it is even possible to have a rollback path from "current version" to "previous version", or, even, between arbitrary versions - think of this as undo / redo, but across application invocations, and even in the case of *multiple applications and / or users editing the file*. The end result is that a "directory" becomes a view on the filesystem filtered by a number of tags. A "file" is a collection of arbitrary metadata, where one piece of that metadata is the stuff the user in mostly interested in. The downside, of curse, it that it breaks everything, software-wise, and a naive implementation would be massively more verbose. [1] Stated file type can only ever be indicative. You can't trust it. [2] No, ```(5) magic``` doesn't cut it. [3] Another piece of exceptionally dangerous metadata there, path fuzzing is one of the best ways of breaking web apps, and unicode path exploits have already been used on desktop systems. [4] Or, at least, largely immutable. Thre are edge cases calling for mutable files, mainly "memoisation" of computationally expensive steps. |
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Msg # | Subject | Author | Recs | Date Posted |
128368 | Re: Hiding file name extensions, and other "insane" UX trends | mandelbrain | 1 | 3/4/2015 9:28:40 AM |
128375 | Re: Hiding file name extensions, and other "insane" UX trends | mikep | 2 | 3/6/2015 4:10:19 AM |