[Dragon T]

hey this is cool:
http://homepage.mac.com/rdas7/piles.html

[DigitalEl]

Didn't know what to expect with that subject line.

Kind of clever. I'm not sure whether I'd use it, but I didn't see a use for Expose until it was on my Desktop either. Guess I'm kind of slow that way.

Now prepare for someone to tell you this better belongs in the OS X forum.

Note: I'm not that person.

[Ozzpot]

Oh God, I really hope these rumours are true. That would be sooooooo cool! I can see it being a very efficient method of file navigation plus it looks flashy. Everything that makes OS X so desirable.

[wibs]

heh, I remember seeing that page early in 2003 when the Panther rumors were flying .

[tiredraven]

I don't know when that page was posted, but piles were a feature that was in a few very early developer builds of 10.3. That feature was removed fairly quickly during development. I doubt that we will see it reappear in 10.4.

[mac15]

I don't really see the point of something like this. It'd be pretty cool just for the animation. Its a pity its under a patent, I'd like to see Unsanity do something with a feature like this.

[Dragon T]

Originally posted by DigitalEl:
Didn't know what to expect with that subject line.

Same here,when I first saw it.

Now prepare for someone to tell you this better belongs in the OS X forum.
Note: I'm not that person.

The way I see it. This is an excellent example of GUI Customisation

I have found something else that is seriously cool and is the best example of 'Graphic' that I've seen... but it isn't in any way connected to a user interface... so I'm not gonna tell you about it here. =)

( unless you count screensavers? )

[MindFad]

I never thought I'd get to use that again.

[templetalker]

Originally posted by MindFad:
1. There's no need to quote the immediately preceding message.
2. DO NOT quote large inline images!
--tooki

That desktop rocks?!Can I get that?

[Dragon T]

Originally posted by templetalker:
That desktop rocks?!Can I get that?

Yes... it came in a classic

[dhobbit]

Oh great now I can lose documents on my computer as well as on my desk...

Let me start by saying I'm not trying to start a flame war.

But doesn't this suffer from the same complaints the people make about the Dock? You have to scrub it to know what's into? With a folder I just have to read the filenames, which column view keeps nicely sorted for me. I could be wrong but this just looks like more trouble then it's worth. And I only say that cause my desk is buried a foot thick with piles, but my computer is well organized.

Nice animation though!

Derek

[jwblase]

For the most part, piles are folders, just using a different visual reference (a stack of papers rather than a manila folder).

I kind of see piles as useful for small collections of things: A text document with a picture file that is separate, but goes with it. The idea for folders would be for larger groups of related files.

I also don't see piles as having folders inside them. No nested folders/piles here.

It's a neat idea, and just might get people rethinking the "desktop" paradigm. Who knows what people will do with it until it gets implemented.

After all, like the above post, I didn't even think of the ideas of Expose until I started to use them.

JB

[videian28]

I can see a huge use for piles, being the disorganized person that I am.

create a subject pile, toss in email messages, contacts, notes, stickies, documents, pics, etc....

nice little place to collect similar subjects, ideas...

one click and it is all there

[RooneyX]

Originally posted by Dragon T:
hey this is cool:
http://homepage.mac.com/rdas7/piles.html

Oooh, I like it. Hope it's true. My apartment looks like that - paper and books scattered everywhere and piled up high. It's the only way to organize myself. The brain doesn't organize things in straight lines and heirarchical folders. It's all hyper-linked chaos in the grey matter and very orderly that way.

[Dex13]

Where's the timeline?

lol I wanted this to happen but it never did, seems apple thought it wasn't a necessary part of the OS.

[biscuit]

Um... wasn't the general consensus that 'piles' actually turned out to be Expos�? Didn't that fit better with the original patent or something?

I think it's probably pretty useless. Just use a folder and aliases...

biscuit

[MOTHERWELL]

That seems like a cool feature, but I think computers have a much better way to organize files than to pile them ontop of each other.

[cambro]

Originally posted by dhobbit:
Oh great now I can lose documents on my computer as well as on my desk...

With a folder I just have to read the filenames, which column view keeps nicely sorted for me. I could be wrong but this just looks like more trouble then it's worth

Exactly. I fail to see why this would be so great.

Perhaps just the ability to click on a folder with a key combo to show a custom sorted list of the contained files would be fine?

[mitchell_pgh]

Piles must be one of the worst ideas I've ever seen.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by biscuit:
Um... wasn't the general consensus that 'piles' actually turned out to be Expos�? Didn't that fit better with the original patent or something?

I think it's probably pretty useless. Just use a folder and aliases...

biscuit

That's right. The biggest misconception was that piles was going to be a stack of documents like shown in that Flash movie but piles was actually a stack of windows being reorganised in a mosaic on the screen.

Whatever you see in that Flash demo hasn't existed in a long time, didn't exist in early dev cycles of 10.3 like some would lead you to believe, and probably won't ever exist since it's a redundant sorting system that already exists as Folders.

If Apple wanted, hovering over a Folder could open it using some cute animation and document icons could pour out and organise themselves in a mosaic in a similar fashion to what was seen in the Flash file.

Right now there some major geek lust for bad UI concepts. No need to have redundancy folks. It's already bad that tabbed-browsing and IMing got accepted by the mass considering we're now more and more able to multitask and screen estate is on the rise and now that Expos� exists.

[mitchell_pgh]

Thank goodness. Piles wouldn't do much but eliminate my "temp" folder on my desktop.

[Millennium]

Unusable. Does not account for the following possibilities:

• How do you get things out of the Pile?
• How do you rename, copy, etc. things in the Pile?
• How do you select multiple objects in the Pile?
• How do you see what's in the Pile by looking at it? For all the talk of ability to do this, I'm not seeing it working in practice.

What's the fascination with Piles, anyway? They're a great idea on paper, but as things like these show, they're useless in practice because they can't be implemented in a usable manner.

[getoffmacnn]

I think Piles stink.

[Tenacious Dyl]

*drops a pile on piles*

[jasong]

I can't wait to hear the first complaint from the person who dumps 2000 items in their pile . . .

Steve Jobs just said Apple is proud of both the things it has shipped, and has not shipped. Apple should be proud they have not shipped this . . .

-- Jason

[spatterson]

What works for me may not work for you, remember that. I could see myself using piles for my desktop. For me it would be best used there.

[mitchell_pgh]

Piles would work well in the trash!

[neoTony]

Who says that piles was supposed to be a purely graphical representation of arbitrary files? I'm going to make a leap here and say that piles were actually intended to be groupings of similar document types... like iTunes smart playlists.

It will need to come after they introduce the new metadata features into the filesystem.

EDIT: I just realised I make no sense whatsoever... oh well.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by neoTony:
Who says that piles was supposed to be a purely graphical representation of arbitrary files? I'm going to make a leap here and say that piles were actually intended to be groupings of similar document types... like iTunes smart playlists.

It will need to come after they introduce the new metadata features into the filesystem.

EDIT: I just realised I make no sense whatsoever... oh well.

I'm rather sure it was a bad idea that someone polished enough to make it look somewhat possible.

Piles damages the folder/file construct of computing.

[jwblase]

Reading through many of these posts, I realized that Apple has already implemented many of the ideas of piles... They're called bundles or packages.

Every OS X .app is really just a folder with a collection of documents inside it (and an executable). The info in the bundle and the .app extension simply tell the finder what to do with it.

The only difference between a folder and a .app bundle is how the Finder shows it to us.

JB

[dru]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Unusable... What's the fascination with Piles, anyway? They're a great idea on paper, but as things like these show, they're useless in practice because they can't be implemented in a usable manner.

Not true.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by dru:
Not true.

Then show me a usable implementation. This is the one thing that not a single person has ever been able to do, and frankly I don't believe it can be done. Not without breaking the cardinal rule of Mac-like interfaces by requiring the use of a second mouse button, at any rate, and you'll sooner see Apple drop the Mac entirely than do that.

[Jonesy]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Piles damages the folder/file construct of computing.

Some would say that a new way of displaying the files on a computer could do it better. The recent article in MacUser with "The inventor of the Mac" briefly discusses how the GUI could be improved. The underlying file structure could remain as folders and files as now, and could be accessible as such, but the interface could give us a different way of organising them.

The only problem with piles as most people think of them is that they are like a folder files must be put in manually. The only way they would be an improvement on the current system is if the system uses metadata to place them in sensible groups (such as documents and pictures which belong together as part of a project).

How the computer could do this without being told I don't know. If they have thought of a way which can do this which works reliably then piles would be a good addition. If not then it is just a fancy folder with aliases in it.

[Dragon T]

I can see a way that this could work.
The cursor click action could open the pile, the cursor unclick (mouse-up) could select the particular file. And instead of the files just rising up in a line, they could spread out like a mini Expos�.
=)

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by Jonesy:
Some would say that a new way of displaying the files on a computer could do it better. The recent article in MacUser with "The inventor of the Mac" briefly discusses how the GUI could be improved. The underlying file structure could remain as folders and files as now, and could be accessible as such, but the interface could give us a different way of organising them.

The only problem with piles as most people think of them is that they are like a folder files must be put in manually. The only way they would be an improvement on the current system is if the system uses metadata to place them in sensible groups (such as documents and pictures which belong together as part of a project).

How the computer could do this without being told I don't know. If they have thought of a way which can do this which works reliably then piles would be a good addition. If not then it is just a fancy folder with aliases in it.

That would be great if we weren't trying to bring people over from the Windows side of the fence. I would also argue that it's not worth implementing simply to implement. I've seen very few compelling reasons to have such a feature (minus the eye candy).

[msuper69]

If piles are supposed to graphically represent how people keep stacks of papers on their desk, I'd like to see "boxes" which would represent all the boxes of papers where I eventually move my piles.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
That would be great if we weren't trying to bring people over from the Windows side of the fence. I would also argue that it's not worth implementing simply to implement. I've seen very few compelling reasons to have such a feature (minus the eye candy).

Yes, it has taken nearly 30 years to get people used to directories - I mean, Folders - and to change that now would be insane and would further alienate users from the Mac OS.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Not without breaking the cardinal rule of Mac-like interfaces by requiring the use of a second mouse button

Probably would require the use of both buttons together, which would really suck (the left button to "activate" the pile, and the right to manipulate).

[mitchell_pgh]

I just keep asking myself "why would you WANT to have piles?"

Great, not only can't you see all the icons, but you can't see the names!
It's like an icon, but less functional!
It's like a folder but less functional!

[LeeG]

This is such an old topic. That page was posted over a year ago (i think). Piles were rumored for Panther...One OS too late....

L

[Randman]

The only way I could see it truly working is if it was connected to the dock. For example, I have some folders on my desks that including Applications, Utilities, Documents, Aliases and sometimes I'll throw a folder in there if I'm working on something.
Now if you clicked on the folder and it spring-loaded via piles to show me what is in that folder (and to allow me access to said file without opening the folder). Then if I wanted to open the folder, I could double click and it would open although maybe it would be better to use a key combination (such as option or Apple click) and leave single click as they are.
This could be a handy way of expanding functionality in the dock.
But other than that, I don't see much use for "piles".

[neoTony]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I'm rather sure it was a bad idea that someone polished enough to make it look somewhat possible.

Piles damages the folder/file construct of computing.

The files/folders construct of computing damages itself - by the time MS implements WinFS, and Apple with the next revision of it's filesystem, I think we'll see people start to recognise that we only do this because we must.

There are situations now where we "need" to organise files into folders (such as web sites), but if everything becomes database-driven, it really will become a moot point.

For example:

You create a "smart" folder (or a pile, if you will) in some future revision of the finder that shows you all files relating to a specific project you're working on, and BANG, instantly, there they are. V-Twin has been around since before copland (remember, apple was talking about smart WinFS-style filesystems in the development of the V-Twin engine - it was going to be it's main purpose in Copland as far as I remember).

The way we interact with our files will have to evolve if we ever intend to interact with computing devices in ways other than traditional keyboard/mouse input scenarios. WinFS/Storage/Apple's next FS aren't the perfect answer to this problem, but they're a step along the way - I imagine piles was probably developed as a technical solution to V-Twin filesystem implementation issues (if it wasn't, it could certainly be applied).

Regardless, good things are coming

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Dragon T:
I can see a way that this could work.
The cursor click action could open the pile, the cursor unclick (mouse-up) could select the particular file. And instead of the files just rising up in a line, they could spread out like a mini Expos�.
=)

That still doesn't cover everything.

In order for an implementation of Piles to be usable, it absolutely must account for the following:

• You must be able to tell what's in a pile by looking only at its icon. This is supposed to be part of the definition of a Pile.
• You must be able to put anything into the Pile. Again, part of the definition.
• You must be able to take anything out of the Pile. Not part of the definition, but implicit in the idea; for something to be organizable it must be re-organizable.
• You must be able to select individual objects in a Pile. This is basic usability; how can you use anything in a Pile if you can't tell the computer which file to use?
• You must be able to select multiple objects in a Pile. This is for consistency with the Finder, which allows multiple files to be selected elsewhere.
• You must be able to perform the following basic actions on each object in the Pile, again for consistency with the Finder: Open, Copy, Duplicate, Move to Trash, Get Info, Rename, Invoke contextual menus, Make Alias. All of these need to be doable using existing Finder mechanisms, such as the File menu, in addition to any Piles-unique mechanisms which may be created.
• No aspect of using the Pile may involve a second mouse button, except for invoking contextual menus. This is a Mac, which has never come with more than one mouse button and probably never will, so one-button users must be taken into account.

That's just the basics of a working Piles implementation. Anything which fails to fulfill even one of these definitions either isn't usable on a Mac or isn't a Pile in the first place. I honestly challenge any Piles-advocate to show me anything which fulfills this entire list.
[EDIT: I keep forgetting that BBCode doesn't allow for nested lists...]

[Randman]

Originally posted by Millennium:
T I honestly challenge any Piles-advocate to show me anything which fulfills this entire list.

I'm far from an advocate of Piles, but the post I did a couple up could explain a way piles could be implemented to meet all of your criteria.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Randman:
I'm far from an advocate of Piles, but the post I did a couple up could explain a way piles could be implemented to meet all of your criteria.

What you've described is Dock-only. Part of the definition of Piles is that they need to be able to go anywhere a folder can go, so this violates the definition of what a Pile is.

However, all is not lost. You have pretty much described the current behavior of folders in the Dock, except that it only takes a single click to display everything in a Dock folder.