Bin Laden
How about the folder? One of my longstanding pet hates is to have them behave anything like their physical counterparts. For example, as they existed in Officetalk, Star, Lisa, and Mac — like real folders — there is only one icon for a document or application and it can be in only one folder. This drives me crazy, because the probability of not finding what you are looking for by browsing has just been maximized! It is trivial to have as many icon instances for a given doc or app in as many folders as one wishes. They should be near any place where they might be useful. (Dragging a singleton out on the desktop is not a solution to this problem!) But even if that were fixed we have to ask: why a folder? Instead of passive containers, why not have active retrievers that are constantly trying to capture icon instances that are relevant to them? Let’s call them bins. Imagine having a “memos” bin that, whenever and wherever you make up a memo, captures a copy of the doc icon. You might have a “memos to boss” bin that automatically captures only those icons of docs sent to your boss. Folders kill browsing. Bins extends its useful range.
Alan Kay, User Interface: A Personal View
This was written for Apple’s “The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design” (on page 200) circa 1989. It is only with the Smart Folders of Mac OS X 10.4 in 2005 that this vision was finally realized. Windows users get to wait until November, 2006.
Progress is slow, but progress nonetheless.
>It is only with the Smart Folders of Mac OS X 10.4 in 2005 that this vision was finally realized
Or, if you count BeOS, _way_ back in 1996.
Smart folders are just BeOS’ live queries. Don’t get me wrong, I love OS X, but Smart Folders ain’t that newfangled, and (from what I hear, I’m not running Tiger yet) don’t yet hold a candle to BeOS queries.
Interesting–one *could* read that as an argument against the spatial Finder as well…
Matt: From my reading (I’ve never used the BeOS), Live Queries didn’t include content, so they were rather limited as a search tool. Correct me if I’m wrong!
Buzz: I hadn’t thought of it as an argument against the spatial Finder, but it certainly is. Carrying physical object metaphors past the point needed to impart understanding often results in unnecessary limitations.