Re: Of applications and documents

[David Adam Bordoley]

Tima Vaisburd writes:
> How is that different from Explorer and stuff in Microsoft Windows
> (I'm not proposing Windows) ? 

Actually in terms of implementation it might not be that different really. 
An idea i've been floating around in mind is something like: 

Window manager -> Shell -> view 

1. Window manager manages windows
2. The shell is the base application that provides the basic menus, keeps 
track of user metadata (size and location of the window) and monitors the 
viewed file for changes (renaming, if it has been moved etc.)
3. The view is a plugin that shows the content of the current location in 
its window. It provides file specific menu items etc. 

These three things can/probably should be 3 different processes. 

> > artstechnica has an excellent explanation. see:
> > http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.html
>
> I'd rather agree with Steve Jobs ;) - reduce the clutter.
> I have no problems with transformations inside windows.

ACtually this is really bad. As the article mentions using file paths to 
show hierarchy instead of windows (or to a lesser extent a tree view) moves 
the mess from being something visual to being something mental. Now most of 
us are fairly familiar with file paths and this is why we prefer the later. 
However if the goal is to make the lives of everyday users easier well than 
not using a "spacial finder" is really failing our users (speaking of 
linux/free software in general) by forcing them to work harder and learn 
abstract concepts as oppose to just manipulating things on the screen. 

In the case of deep hierarchies, I've always felt that the appropriate way 
to approach that is to prove a file->"Close Parent Folders" menu item, and 
an associated file->"open parent folder". 

dave