A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

This goal isn't really that far off. Modern OSes already have a composite, relational metadata index built by the system Search indexer; if an Explorer/Finder-alike simply hid all the hierarchical detail, and presented the already-relational information relationally, as a set of libraries (with rendering plugins so, for example, iTunes could display your song library prettily within the file manager itself) you'd already be 90% of the way there.

Re: A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

#5

Post by olalonde » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 10:16 AM UTC

I would go even further and call for the death of "files". Of course, files/filesystems will always exist under the hood but I think it is conceivable that in the future, filesystem operations become increasingly unneeded. There will be an iTunes/web app. for documents, books, software, etc.

Re: A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

#6

Post by rlpb » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 10:53 AM UTC

I think we already have an abstraction: it's "My Documents" (or the equivalent). "Normal" user applications just need to simplify their interfaces so that users actually end up keeping their files in there. File managers should have a simple interface so that users can work with files in there (and the interface should be simple enough that they actually do). File managers still need the current ("advanced") interface for power users who need to mess with the system.

The Preferences argument made by the author is the same in my opinion. ~/Library/Preferences should be hidden by default. The user should be able to clear preferences from within Photoshop itself, or some sort of general preferences manager.

None of this needs a new abstraction layer, just some incremental UX work within individual applications.

Re: A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

#7

Post by access_denied » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 11:40 AM UTC

A few days ago Apple made it clear that this iOS feature will come to Mac. The other question is: which Linux-distro will give us the best alternative approach? Haiku?

Re: A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

#8

Post by meric » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 12:05 PM UTC

rlpb wrote: post #6

I think we already have an abstraction: it's "My Documents" (or the equivalent). "Normal" user applications just need to simplify their interfaces so that users actually end up keeping their files in there. File managers should have a simple interface so that users can work with files in there (and the interface should be simple enough that they actually do). File managers still need the current ("advanced") interfac…

My "Documents" folder is so full I've started a new folder at ~//Work/ to store my stuff. I go into my Documents folder and I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of old files. I'd like an iTunes-like interface to control my documents.

Re: A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

#9

Post by dfox » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 12:37 PM UTC

scrrr wrote: post #2

Windows 7 has an abstraction layer for Documents ("Library"). Otherwise a good Desktop search can provide an additional layer.

All windows versions since 95 actually have pretty complex abstraction layers (IIDL -> user-space path, user-space path -> kernel path) between real kernel-level filesystem and what user sees in Explorer (To faciliate things like "My Documents" and also to provide illusion of drive letters and current directory). I assume that OS X's finder also has some abstraction layer (to do things like Library->Bibliotheque).

Also it is relatively simple for application on either system (including generic unices) to find suitable place for their data. Making some OS-agnostic abstraction has fundamental problem in fact that different systems offer different types of standard locations (Unix has $HOME and dot-files, while in windows you have My Documents and three distinct Application Data directories and lot of specialized directories like Pictures, Saved Games etc.).

Re: A Call For A Filesystem Abstraction Layer

#10

Post by magamiako » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 12:38 PM UTC

Windows 7 implements the "libraries" functionality into their OS which offers some abstraction here. You can add different directories to the libraries, and a few default ones are included at OS-install time.

As someone mentioned earlier, a good search indexer also is good for this function.

My largest concern about this article is that the user mentions XP rather than something like Windows 7. Of course XP doesn't do it properly, it's 9 years old.