[ae86_16v]

I am here thinking that Piles is a pretty good idea. But I also realized that how is that different than a folder?

I mean think about it, I guess it is kinda cool that you could see that certain Pile on your desktop is your School Documents, but how is that different than a Folder named School?

I think I need some explaination.

[Adam Betts]

Piles + Porn =

[Brass]

If I could right click on a folder to access it's contents, then I'd see no use for piles whatsoever. They'd just be a pain in the a$$ then.

[::maroma::]

Originally posted by Brass:
If I could right click on a folder to access it's contents, then I'd see no use for piles whatsoever. They'd just be a pain in the a$$ then.

You can with FruitMenu.

[Brass]

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
You can with FruitMenu.

In that case, piles would be no more than haemorrhoids to me. Irritating and unnecessary.

Or is would there be some other advantage to them that I'm missing?

[Ghoser777]

Originally posted by Brass:
In that case, piles would be no more than haemorrhoids to me. Irritating and unnecessary.

Or is would there be some other advantage to them that I'm missing?

How is an optional feature (aka, you create piles if you want them) like haemorrhoids? If you had to use piles, I might see your point.

Also, the idea is the piles:
1) Give you immidiate feedback
2) Don't require users to right click and are easier to use than a standard folder. Anything that can be accessible via a right click should also be accessible through some other user interaction. In this case, you could navigate into the folder, but then piles would require you not to do that.
3) FruitMenu (contextual menu's in general) don't allow you to do things (cleanly) like de-pile (or de-folder), move, etc. My understanding is that it only allows you to open (which is nice, don't get me wrong).

There maybe more, but that's what I'm thinking right now.

Matt Fahrenbacher

[Orion27]

Seriously. I've been looking at the screenshots of piles and it reminds of my own desk and why I originally bought a computer in 1984; to
be more organized. I'm probably missing something but piles come before folders. I see no point in going retro. Someone please enlighten me!

[mdc]

how about this.

let us say that piles lets you include a folder in your pile. your iMovie has it's own folder which has a lot of files in it. so you create a pile with your rendered iMovie and the iMovie folder. 1 icon but it is your rendered movie and the iMovie document. right now my imovie documents and rendered files are seperate

[BuonRotto]

I don't totally grasp the idea of piles because I haven't read the full dissertation on the idea. ButpPiles would be more akin to "smart" folders than regular folders. As I understand it, their power is in their potential ability to organize otherwise disparate data in several places according to pre-defined or flexibly defined criteria, and to be reorganized and browsed in a very quick way. So it depends on "metadata:" properties, lables, indexing, file types, etc. to work more dynamically than regular folders as they now known.

[ae86_16v]

Originally posted by Brass:
If I could right click on a folder to access it's contents, then I'd see no use for piles whatsoever. They'd just be a pain in the a$$ then.

I mean how is that different than clicking on a Folder to see what's inside?

I really don't understand the need for piles.

[Brass]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
How is an optional feature (aka, you create piles if you want them) like haemorrhoids? If you had to use piles, I might see your point.

Also, the idea is the piles:
1) Give you immidiate feedback
2) Don't require users to right click and are easier to use than a standard folder. Anything that can be accessible via a right click should also be accessible through some other user interaction. In this case, you could navigate into the folder, but then piles would require you not to do that.
3) FruitMenu (contextual menu's in general) don't allow you to do things (cleanly) like de-pile (or de-folder), move, etc. My understanding is that it only allows you to open (which is nice, don't get me wrong).

There maybe more, but that's what I'm thinking right now.

Matt Fahrenbacher

I don't see why piles are necessary for any of this. Surely folders could be given more functionality to do all of this, instead of add another interface element altogether?

But then perhaps that would be just quibbling over terms. If a folder were given all that extra functionality, then perhaps a folder IS a pile, and visa-versa.

At the file-system level, how would a pile be implemented? Would it be a directory which contained all the files in it, or a file which referenced all the files in it? Either way would work, I guess, but a directory would be more manageble for OS-level tasks, I imagine.

[ae86_16v]

Brass---> Exactly, this is what I am saying. It only adds to the confusion by adding another type of object on your desktop.

[CollinG3G4]

I think piles will be neat for about 15 seconds.

Just like the bouncing dock icons.

[Ghoser777]

Just keep one thing in mind - the only screen shots we've seen of piles seem very questionable at best. It's hard to really judge them until we actually see them implemented.

Anyway, it's a feature - I don't see anyway that this causes a problem. If you don't like piles, don't use them.

Matt Fahrenbacher

[ae86_16v]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Just keep one thing in mind - the only screen shots we've seen of piles seem very questionable at best. It's hard to really judge them until we actually see them implemented.

Anyway, it's a feature - I don't see anyway that this causes a problem. If you don't like piles, don't use them.

Matt Fahrenbacher

Well, I am not debating about the looks of piles, but I am talking about the idea of them.

What is the point, what are the significant advantages over a folder.

Very true, you could use them if you like them or not, but I am just trying to get a sense of them.

[BuonRotto]

FYI: the (old) documentation

highlights:

?In HIG user studies, it became clear not only that people organize their documents in a more casual fashion than a hierarchy of files, folders, and file cabinets, but that in many cases they prefer more casual schemes for organizing collections, namely, piles. Piles have many desirable properties not found in hierarchical filing schemes, such as the ability to reveal at a glance approximately how many items they contained and (by viewing distinctive edges) which items they were, and the ability to access any document in the pile in constant time.

?Thus as early as 1991 we had a working prototype which could automatically maintain piles of actual documents, supporting both direct manipulation and automatic sorting [Rose et al., 1993]. The most compelling capability of this working prototype was its ability to perform the assistant's "subpiling" task: automatically subdividing a pile into new piles without any prior knowledge of what topics were discussed or how many piles were needed.

and the patent and its respective highlights:

? [referring to folders] While these hierarchical filing systems allow the user to specify a structure within which to file (and hence store) information in order to avoid the clutter of a flat filing system, the hierarchical structure forces the computer user to be as organized as possible in filing information. If the user, as is often the case, has difficulty in filing documents because of the difficulty in deciding the proper categories of the document (e.g. the document does not clearly apply to any current category of filing where the category is implemented by having a folder or subdirectory for the category) then the user is typically most comfortable allowing the document to appear in the upper most directory of the hierarchy.

Link to one picture (at the bottom) that sums up its UI pretty well.

Another pic from the patent with more detail but it takes forever to load.

[Brass]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Just keep one thing in mind - the only screen shots we've seen of piles seem very questionable at best. It's hard to really judge them until we actually see them implemented.

Have you seen one persons guess of the implementation using a FLASH demo? It looks very neat. But I still can't imagine how they'd be terribly useful. Just give folders a little more functionality and that's all I need.