[Nonsuch]

Check out this link.

I never really "got" the idea of piles, and I must say this implementation, if it's indeed what Apple is thinking of for Panther (and if they are thinking of it at all), is kind of cool. Still not entirely convinced it's necessary, but it's neat and I can imagine some situations where it might be useful.

[xi_hyperon]

If implemented, I'm sure some will like it while others will not. Regardless, it adds another element of flexibility in the user interface, which in and of itself is not a bad thing (if done right). I kind of like the idea personally, though I'd have to actually use it before making a final judgment.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
Check out this link.

I never really "got" the idea of piles, and I must say this implementation, if it's indeed what Apple is thinking of for Panther (and if they are thinking of it at all), is kind of cool. Still not entirely convinced it's necessary, but it's neat and I can imagine some situations where it might be useful.

Those seem pretty worthless to me. Why would Apple want to imitate a poor practice? Piling up papers on a desk is almost always due to laziness, not some well thought out organizational system.

Why not just enhance the preview pane so when in column view you could see the contents as you clicked on a vertically oriented pile of documents? (Which BTW already works).

Also, the Tog article makes an antiquated assertion - that folders give no indication of the content. Both Windows (Since 98) and Macs (Since at least X) have a preview mode where you can click on a document and see a thumbnail of it's contents (When possible).

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Those seem pretty worthless to me. Why would Apple want to imitate a poor practice? Piling up papers on a desk is almost always due to laziness, not some well thought out organizational system.

The main thing I thought about was that I use my desktop as a downloads folder, and if I d/l a lot of stuff it tends to stay on my desktop for quite a while as I figure out what to do with it all. In that instance, it'd be handy--I could keep 20 downloaded items in a neat stack, accessing them easily as I need to. I don't like having lots of things on my desktop but sometimes it's necessary; this'd be a way of preserving some order. Apart from that though, I agree it probably isn't that practical.

[Krypton]

I quite like the idea, but it won't work in OS X at the moment - because all files use the same shape and colour icon, looking at that mock up, all the icons look the same in the pile because their logo etc is in the centre of the icon.

To make this work, Apple needs some new guidelines for icons such as:

• Having different icon shapes and colours associated with different apps e.g. iTunes might have purple CD case type icons.
• Icons and folders should be thicker the larger they are, or appear tatty at the edges if old (as Tog suggests).
• More info should be visual - such as age/size as mentioned above - *maybe* Apple should create a preview system that previews contents of files in their icon (as it does with picture files) instead of, or as well as the preview pane in column view.

I think if Piles were implemented, it would have to be as part of many new concepts that Apple has tried in the past but never used.

[mdc]

i think that it would be useful.

my college work. i have folders for each class, and in each folder and numerous documents for each chapter.

i could just have a pile per class.

i like the idea, and if it looked as cool as it does on that website that would rock

[JKT]

The notion that Apple would use anything called "piles" is hilarious anyway... or is it just in the UK that yer "nobby stiles" are not at all a pleasant thing?

About the only place I could see that implementation being remotely useful is only the desktop - anywhere else and it would just make things more complex and slower.

[cpac]

I too was having a hard time picturing it before, but like what I see in that demo.


Couple thoughts:

Piles might be faster than folders in many cases - I for one, would probably have a "Law School" folder with class items organized into piles within that folder, rather than sub folder - that way I have one-click (and drag) access to all the current law school documents without having to open up more windows, or a use a "back" button.

They'd also be nice for things that tend to clutter folders - the above mention of downloads would be one example, but another might be several versions of the same document. I could have "moot court brief v.1-v.10" all in one pile rather than having them all in a sub folder needlessly complicating the "moot court" folder.

----------

Finally though - isn't a lot of this speculation coming from the Naked Mole Rat's article? And didn't he say that piles would be implemented as more of a *window*, rather than *file* management technique (or was my memory confused by all the mind altering substances that always surround the Mole Rat?)

[sandsl]

I'd like to seen some sort of resizing effect eg. something like genie instead of a simple resize - I'm sure apple will make it look cool

Wouldn't there be some perspective problems, having both 'piles' and single documents on a desktop?

[Guy Incognito 2]

When NMR first reported the introduction of piles, I was under the impression that instead of piled icons, Apple decided to apply it to piled windows and bring in a new form of window management.

I don't know what these 'piled documents' demos and talk is all about when NMR explained clearly that it had to do with windows.

Frankly, the linked pile demo in this thread proves how dumb piling icons would be. asbsmiths is right. It's a dumb concept when applied to icons. And some of you are tagging along for the 'wow that's neat' ride (like tabbed-browsing and other fads).

But when applied to windows...piling browser windows or your TextEdit windows could bring a new form of window management superior to the dumb 'tab' concept popularized by Hyatt.

Imagine a pile of 'minimize-in-place'-sized windows...hovering over it would seperate the pile like in the pile demo in this thread and then hovering the cursor over one of them would magnify it (ala Dock magnification) but large enough to see what the heck the window content is all about. Then a click would bring that window to full size ... all the other windows would return to the pile.

If done properly, this would be an amazing window management enhancement that would greatly reduce the clutter and confusion caused by multiple windows.

I know someone is itching to criticize my example rather than the concept. And someone will undoubtedly say that tabs offer much faster access. But this is a system-wide system that would allow grouping of windows of any apps...something tabs couldn't do.

It wouldn't necessarly replace tabs (although it should) because I know some of you are practically married to tabs and only a knife surgery would be capable of seperating the person from the tabs.

[JKT]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Imagine a pile of 'minimize-in-place'-sized windows...hovering over it would seperate the pile like in the pile demo in this thread and then hovering the cursor over one of them would magnify it (ala Dock magnification) but large enough to see what the heck the window content is all about. Then a click would bring that window to full size ... all the other windows would return to the pile.

If done properly, this would be an amazing window management enhancement that would greatly reduce the clutter and confusion caused by multiple windows.

I know someone is itching to criticize my example rather than the concept. And someone will undoubtedly say that tabs offer much faster access. But this is a system-wide system that would allow grouping of windows of any apps...something tabs couldn't do.

Actually, that could be quite nice for the Dock - instead of having all your windows minimised all over the shop in the right hand side of the Dock, group them by app and then have something akin to the flash animation at that link to enable selection of the desired window... could even be piled under the individual app icons thus maintaining the Dock's width at all times.

[cpac]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
I don't know what these 'piled documents' demos and talk is all about when NMR explained clearly that it had to do with windows.

Frankly, the linked pile demo in this thread proves how dumb piling icons would be. asbsmiths is right. It's a dumb concept when applied to icons.

l'm no tabbed browsing fan myself, but this thread isn't about that.

You're making two arguments: (1) NMR was talking about windows not icons, and (2) piles of icons are a bad idea.

w/r/t (1) - so what? NMR is far from perfectly clear, even at his best. And even if he says window piles, that doesn't mean icon piles wont be implemented as well. Even if they wont be implemented, it doesn't mean a discussion of their use/nature is inherently bad or something.

w/r/t (2) - I think you discount some of the advantages spoken of above - faster access without multiple windows, elimination of clutter for repetitive documents, etc.

Another use not yet mentioned would be piles as replacement for classic pop up folders - you can have a pile that takes up little space put anywhere (not just the edges) of your screen - a quick click gives you access to it's contents in a way (with that floating preview) that's perhaps more descriptive than the pop-up windows ever were).

Simply put, the pile metaphor is powerful and would provide some users advantages even if only implemented for icons. I, for one, still have a hard time imagining when it would be useful for windows -- a much harder time than imagining uses for piled icons.

[pagluy]

This would help me a lot with keeping track of job files for temporary things, like the many different revisions I go through for a logo or something. I like this a lot.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by JKT:
Actually, that could be quite nice for the Dock - instead of having all your windows minimised all over the shop in the right hand side of the Dock, group them by app and then have something akin to the flash animation at that link to enable selection of the desired window... could even be piled under the individual app icons thus maintaining the Dock's width at all times.

Yes...tons of neat things could be done with the Dock. I hope Apple makes the Dock more useful adding what you've just mentionned.

I absolutely hate seeing the Dock grow and shrink and morph when I minimize windows into it. It really would be neat to see iconic windows pop out of the app icon in the Dock as the mouse is hovered over it.

With Quartz Extreme and faster computers, there's no excuse for this kind of stuff not to happen. I'd hate to see 266MHz G3 users pull back OS X's potential because they think their computer would choke on this kind of stuff.

[Sarc]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
The main thing I thought about was that I use my desktop as a downloads folder, and if I d/l a lot of stuff it tends to stay on my desktop for quite a while as I figure out what to do with it all. In that instance, it'd be handy--I could keep 20 downloaded items in a neat stack, accessing them easily as I need to. I don't like having lots of things on my desktop but sometimes it's necessary; this'd be a way of preserving some order.

but how is a stack more useful than a DL folder on your DT ...
I think Apple's implementation will be better than that ... this thing is useless ...

[adamk]

i think this feature would be a cool idea if it were combined with the "updated searches" idea (ie folders that update their contents based on search criteria).

for example, i would like to have a pile on my desktop that showed files in my download folder and that were created in the last 7 days.

or one could have a pile that searched for word and text documents in a folder "My New Book" so that only chapters would be present and not the figures (those could be in a separate pile, or alternatively have those both in one pile.)

i would like to see this as a new feature and not replace any form of traversing a hierarchy.

i would like to use this solely on the desktop. a pile in a finder window in icon view might get cluttered, but i don't think should be dismissed outright.

apple, more view options! (i didn't understand tabbed browsing before, but with safari, i get it. i love it. if you don't, you're not required to use it. options, love it.)

[JKT]

Of course, one big problem with the demo linked to, is that you can't have piles near the top of your screen By default they would have to be at the bottom I would think.

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by Sarc:
but how is a stack more useful than a DL folder on your DT ...
I think Apple's implementation will be better than that ... this thing is useless ...

I like to keep downloads on the desktop because it's easy to decide what to do with them: throw them away, view/listen and throw away, install and throw away, copy to other folders, what have you.

Right now I have a folder called "Junk Drawer" where I keep stuff I download that I'm not sure where/if I want to keep, like pictures, sound clips, text from web pages, blah blah. The main reason I have this folder is because I hate having a cluttered desktop, so basically I just transfer the clutter to another folder. Being able to create piles would let me keep a bunch of "unsorted" stuff handy without covering my DT with icons, thus making it easier to figure out what I want to do with it, which I am too lazy to do in any concerted way.

I'm not saying it's the greatest idea around, just that it's more clever than I first thought and that I could probably find a couple uses for it.

[schep]

might be nice if for example you have an html file which requires some pictures then it would be cool if the html and images were in a "pile" and if you double click it it opens the HTML and if you click and hold you can select an other file (jpg ect) under it

still kind of wierd though

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by JKT:
Of course, one big problem with the demo linked to, is that you can't have piles near the top of your screen By default they would have to be at the bottom I would think.

Or the pile could just "scroll" down instead of up.

[LightWaver-67]

* YAWN *



No offense to the topic-starter... but the idea of piles bores me... at least the way that Flash-piece portrayed it.

So if you have 37 files in a pile and there are other icons around the pile... or the pile is at the top or bottom of the screen... how the heck do you 'scroll' through such a large pile and have it be EASIER than seeing the files sorted in a folder...?

Also... are piles invisible in column views or list views...? If you navigate to a 'pile' of files on the desktop from an "Open/Save" dialog box... does it show-up, and if so... How? Can I add a pile to a file through a save...? can I open a file in a pile through the Open dialog...? Is the file in a pile just a "proxy" and not the real file...?

I just don't see the overall benefit of such an implementation other than "Hey! Look what WE made... isn't it cool...?".

Don't get me wrong... I'm ALL ABOUT the eye-candy... I LOVE the little-things OSX throws-in to the GUI... Genie effect, shadows, dock magnification, transparency, etc... I think there's a 'cool'-factor to the pile... but at the end-of-the-day... is it REALLY gonna help me organize...? Other than taking a boatload of desktop files and tossing them into a 'pile' to neaten things up.

[cpac]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
but at the end-of-the-day... is it REALLY gonna help me organize...? Other than taking a boatload of desktop files and tossing them into a 'pile' to neaten things up.

I just think it's the ease of access/visual organization that would make icon piles worth-it.

They could be invisible in the finder in column view or list view or open/save dialog boxes, because they wouldn't be useful in those contexts - or at least not useful in a way that a folder wouldn't be useful. For most of the things mentioned (saved searches, e.g.), a folder would be a better idea.

Piles' advantage is in icon view, where they make visually organizing a large number of files easy. They also potentially make access to those files faster, since rather than being in sub-folders, they're accessible from the main window.

Small example:

I have a "Moot Court" folder from my moot court class this year. Inside there are a few items:
� A "4th Amendment Materials" folder, with many cases in it along with an outline or two and a draft brief section.
� There's a similar 8th Amendment Materials" folder.
� There's a "Consolidated Draft" folder with the many 10 or 15) versions of our entire brief that we went through in writing it as well as small sections that were edited and emailed back and forth.
� There's also an "Oral Argument" folder with various drafts of speeches on both sides, calculations of scoring, etc.
� Along with these four folders, there's a whole lot of random files, team assignments, memos, the case problem, etc.

While I certainly know where to find everything, it takes a little while to get it. I have to drill down another folder at least, and then scan through large numbers of files to find the one I want. But if the above described folders were "piles" instead, it'd be much faster - both to add new items to the piles (i.e. sort new downloaded cases, e.g.) I'd have an "Consolidated Draft" pile where with a single click/hold I can quickly scrub through all the draft elements and find the version I need. It'd be *one* target I'd have to look for rather than one target (folder) + scanning large number of targets (all the drafts) to find the one I need. Same goes for the other folders

And just consider how much simpler it is visually, rather then opening one window, then opening another that has 15 or so icons in it (for consolidated drafts, e.g.) I'd have a single window with four neat piles of documents - I don't have to open a second window or click the back button to switch from opening a consolidated draft to opening an oral argument speech - i just move the mouse over a little bit.

I think such an implementation would be great - and if you prefer the current options, nothing would force you to use piles either...

[TheIceMan]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
I just don't see the overall benefit of such an implementation other than "Hey! Look what WE made... isn't it cool...?".

Aren't we all just speculating about something none of us know anything about? We're either supporting or criticizing "piles" which is not certain to be implemented. And even if/when it is implemented, I'm fairly certain that Apple would do everything in its creative soul to implement it so that it would: 1) Look wonderful and 2) Be practical and useful.

[Morenix]

More animations for OS X... so good..

[moki]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
Check out this link.

I never really "got" the idea of piles, and I must say this implementation, if it's indeed what Apple is thinking of for Panther (and if they are thinking of it at all), is kind of cool. Still not entirely convinced it's necessary, but it's neat and I can imagine some situations where it might be useful.

I looked at that implementation; I don't see how it is any different than putting those files in a folder, except that it requires more work to find the file in the "pile" you're looking for than if you had simply put them in a folder.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
The main thing I thought about was that I use my desktop as a downloads folder, and if I d/l a lot of stuff it tends to stay on my desktop for quite a while as I figure out what to do with it all. In that instance, it'd be handy--I could keep 20 downloaded items in a neat stack, accessing them easily as I need to. I don't like having lots of things on my desktop but sometimes it's necessary; this'd be a way of preserving some order. Apart from that though, I agree it probably isn't that practical.

that's a pretty good idea.. of course, you could just make a "downloads" folder. However, I wouldn't feel like doing that either.

[LeeG]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
I like to keep downloads on the desktop because it's easy to decide what to do with them: throw them away, view/listen and throw away, install and throw away, copy to other folders, what have you.

Couldn't agree more, and cpac - I also agree it would be nice to have piles of docs within one window - easier than folders, since I don't have to open each pile in a new window, or replace the current window contents with that folder's contents. I could simply scroll up and down on each pile next to the others, making comparisons easy, and organization easy by dragging from one pile to the other (of course option-dragging would work to copy as well).

Its it earth-shattering? Nope. But neither is dock magnification if you ask me - I NEVER have it on - I hate a moving target, but some people love it. Its more eye candy that some might like to use - and some might not.

But I tell you that mock-up looked really cool to me, imagine what Apple could do for real - I envision draggin across piles of docs on my desktop, being able to spread them out and look at the docs there, and then poof- back to a neat little pile again. The idea of dragging around an icon to me is more tangible than simply opening a folder and seeing another line of text....

just my $0.02

Lee

[Guy Incognito 2]

Piled windows...not piled icons. Mark my words.

This thread is a pile of ****.

[Nebagakid]

maybe they will not be like folders at all... for instance... Shift-Command-S to bring up a dialog, and it will say, what do you want in your new stack, you name it, and give it some parameters, say, files that were created in the past week and are quicktime files, maybe those that are associated with "law school work" because you enterted that into the topic field for that file.....

then, a new stack is created in the folder you wish, this will all be possible with META DATA

[iamnid]

darn... I came to this thread hoping to get a glimpse at something completely different.

[OpenStep]

Looks sort of like the icon/graphic when multiple files are selected in NEXTSTEP

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Piled windows...not piled icons. Mark my words.

This thread is a pile of ****.

What happened to the first Guy?

[clarkgoble]

Piles have a possible place for an entire GUI. I agree that for icons it doesn't end up being that useful because the Finder already has a list view. What do you gain there? Nothing.

However for a general GUI it'll let you have the equivalent of popup windows but in a more intelligent fashion. As several have pointed out you could have "piles" associated with each application. It'd be much more useful for minimized windows as well.

[970]

And I thought the dock was useless.

Wow!

Is there any chance we can get Jobs indicted for crimes against Mac users if he gives this the green light? We need to send a message that this will not be tolerated.

[Gee4orce]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Yes...tons of neat things could be done with the Dock. I hope Apple makes the Dock more useful adding what you've just mentionned.

I absolutely hate seeing the Dock grow and shrink and morph when I minimize windows into it. It really would be neat to see iconic windows pop out of the app icon in the Dock as the mouse is hovered over it.

With Quartz Extreme and faster computers, there's no excuse for this kind of stuff not to happen. I'd hate to see 266MHz G3 users pull back OS X's potential because they think their computer would choke on this kind of stuff.

This is what I've said since day #1. All windows should be displayed in a drawer that's 90 degrees to the main dock, anchored under the application icon. This way you get quick and easy access to all the windows that are currently open - probably the only thing that the Windows task bar does that the Dock doesn't

[clarkgoble]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
All windows should be displayed in a drawer that's 90 degrees to the main dock, anchored under the application icon. This way you get quick and easy access to all the windows that are currently open - probably the only thing that the Windows task bar does that the Dock doesn't

Technically it does that right now. Right click on any application icon and you'll see a list of its windows. I use it all the time. The minimized icons are pretty nigh on to be useless.

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

This stack idea would work if it was used to illustrate dynamic search result based finder - so that all the files were basically 'aliases' to search terms, constantly updating themselves in the background.

Christ I doubt anybody understood what I wrote above, but let me try to explain - imagine we have a client: a person named Bob, I worked on various projects for Bob, designing stuff, shooting photos etc... At the moment I could have a job folder named Bob and stick all his crap in there, but then it means I can't have his photos in my overall photo folder, designs in my flash concepts folder etc... And it also doesn't cover my e-mail, voice messages etc... with Bob.

But with a Bob pile everything which is associated with Bob gets added automatically to the pile no matter where it's saved, so I can continue my orderly saving of photos to my image folder on a win2k RAID, and leave his e-mails in Mail etc...

Of course this relies on a fundamental change in documents as they are seen by the finder, but hopefully this is happening anyway.

Pretty sure I have been clear as mud, but there you go. Very functional, very empowering (dreadful word), very Apple.

[msuper69]

Ugh. As someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, the name reminds me of a less-than-desireable medical condition.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't removed this from .mac. They generally don't go for this kind of speculation.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Imagine a pile of 'minimize-in-place'-sized windows...hovering over it would seperate the pile like in the pile demo in this thread and then hovering the cursor over one of them would magnify it (ala Dock magnification) but large enough to see what the heck the window content is all about. Then a click would bring that window to full size ... all the other windows would return to the pile.

We have this already, its called the dock.

[Judge_Fire]

The piles demo shown here doesn't resemble an earlier pile demo I saw years ago, and doesn't imply the same type of functionality.

The demo I recall was something like this:

- dragging file icons on top of eachother condensed them into a pile

- dragging sideways on top of a pile quickly scrolled through the file icons and names, bringing them to the top of the pile.

So yes, they resemble a folder, but also the magnification function of the Dock, in a way.

If a pile showed glimpses of the files as previews, it would beat impersonal folders - you wouldn't be required to go through opening a folder to see the contents. You could actually compare the contents of several adjacent piles by just looking at them; browsing without clicking!

Folders, on the other hand allow easier comparison of their contents.


My idea:

Piles are just dynamic folder icons:

- a pile can be opened as a folder
- a pile can be dragged through as a 'flipbook'
- dropping files in a pile adds their icon on top of the pile and the actual file in the folder represented by the pile.

Any takers?

In real life, I keep active stuff in piles and stored stuff in folders, btw.

J

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

You guys should have a seperate Downloads folder and just add it to your Finder toolbar. I've done that since day 1 of using the Public Beta.

PS. Tabbed browsing rules!

[absmiths]

Originally posted by cpac:
I too was having a hard time picturing it before, but like what I see in that demo.


Couple thoughts:

Piles might be faster than folders in many cases - I for one, would probably have a "Law School" folder with class items organized into piles within that folder, rather than sub folder - that way I have one-click (and drag) access to all the current law school documents without having to open up more windows, or a use a "back" button.

They'd also be nice for things that tend to clutter folders - the above mention of downloads would be one example, but another might be several versions of the same document. I could have "moot court brief v.1-v.10" all in one pile rather than having them all in a sub folder needlessly complicating the "moot court" folder.

But you are loosing information by simply piling things up like that. If you use column view in the Finder, you can create subdirectories called "V1-V10", and "V11-V20", etc, then your folders clearly indicate the contents and one single click will reveal them all. With piles the way you described there would be no label to indicate the nature of the pile, only position, and I can see where that would get confusing.

Computers handle so much information nowadays that to simplify the organizational scheme would in the long run limit it's usefulness. If a filesystem is managed judiciously, then finding information that you've created should not be difficult.

----------

Finally though - isn't a lot of this speculation coming from the Naked Mole Rat's article? And didn't he say that piles would be implemented as more of a *window*, rather than *file* management technique (or was my memory confused by all the mind altering substances that always surround the Mole Rat?)

Yes, it is pure speculation. A lot of old Apple patents seem to come up this way. Even applied to window management it seems like it would require so much user intervention to be useful that it would become cumbersome.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Judge_Fire:
My idea:

Piles are just dynamic folder icons:

- a pile can be opened as a folder
- a pile can be dragged through as a 'flipbook'
- dropping files in a pile adds their icon on top of the pile and the actual file in the folder represented by the pile.

Any takers?

In real life, I keep active stuff in piles and stored stuff in folders, btw.

J

That would probably be fine, but files that would typically get piled together are files that are probably logically related and likely to be used at the same time. In that case I would much prefer a single view were I can see all files at once instead of one where I constantly have to browse through to select the next file.

BTW, I also keep active (real life) work in piles, and it is a constant annoyance! I tend to have a "pile" of one document which is critical to what I am doing, and "stacks" around the perimeter which hold not-yet-pertinent or no-longer-pertinent (or even never-were-pertinent) documents. I eventually get annoyed and just trash it all.

But, like I said earlier, an organizational system which leads to frustration is not one that I am likely to apply to my computer which by comparison is extremely organized.

[Xestrel]

Piles seem to be modelled after the icon for multiple selections under NeXT/OpenStep. You could essentially make multiple selections of things by dragging them into the "toolbar" (I don't remember what that was called under NeXTStep - but it's essentially what the toolbar under OSX finder windows is now.) and then drag or copy them to a destination. This was a particularly useful thing if you are trying to copy a bunch of things from lots of different folders at one time, say onto another server or into a mail attachment. I seem to recall that when you put them in the toolbar, they didn't actually move from their original location until you moved them off the toolbar - up until that point, it was a way of earmarking a group of files. Of course, this new method seems as if it will add the ability to see what files are sitting in the pile - which is nice, as I don't think that was possible under the NeXT implementation (a NeXT "pile" looked like a hand of cards.)

-Xest

[Sebastien]

Frankly, the linked pile demo in this thread proves how dumb piling icons would be. asbsmiths is right. It's a dumb concept when applied to icons. And some of you are tagging along for the 'wow that's neat' ride (like tabbed-browsing and other fads).

Well, I'd say that one little comment proves how clueless you are (and that's where I stopped reading for that reason). Tabbed browsing is probably one of single best improvements that's been made to any browser, and is hardly a 'fad', no more than windows in operating systems. But then again, if you say it's a fad, then it must be so, right? And I suppose Apple, Microsoft, Be, Linux programmers and all those other software companies that actually use those windows must be wrong, right?

[Millennium]

Piles are one of those things which looks great on paper but just doesn't work out in practice. I suppose you could say they're the opposite of the Dock in that respect. No one's ever come up with a way to actually make Piles work in reality, and this demo is no exception. Some of the flaws in this particular implementation:

• How do you move things out of a pile?
• How do you rename things in a pile?
• How do you select multiple items in the pile?
• How would the command-line see a Pile? Would it show up as just another folder (inconsistent with the GUI), or as separate files? If you show them as separate files, then how do you keep track on the backend of what's in a Pile and what isn't?

Piles just don't work in practice. The click-and-a-half from OS9's Spring-loaded Folders managed to provide most of the functionality that a Pile would. The only thing you don't get from it is a single icon showing everything in the folder, and as this demo shows us, that doesn't work any more than an actual stack of paper. To see what's in it, you have to actually look inside, which defeats the purpose. It's a slavish devotion to real-world objects, taken too far without realizing that sometimes, one has to move beyond the real world if one wants to work with the virtual.

[n~s]

I don't think I would have a use for something like that...and I can't see how it would be possible to quickly remove something from a pile without using a right-click or control click.



I'll stick with folders, thanks.

[ASIMO]

I await the operating system that reads my mind.

[gunnar]

Piles seem useful for we Mac users that have cluttered desktops. I personally keep all my current files on the desktop so that I don't forget about them. I can see them plainly and since I work on so many different projects at once, it means that I don't have to do a lot of sorting as I go, I can just work with the set of files in front of me. Piles would be great in this respect because I could very easily group things in a more powerful graphical manner while still being reminded what was left to do. It's the same with my real desk at home. When the projects are done, or are no longer relevant I take them off my desk all at once and file them appropriately until the next "batch" of things to do comes along.

[sambeau]

Originally posted by Millennium:

• How do you move things out of a pile?
• How do you rename things in a pile?
• How do you select multiple items in the pile?
• How would the command-line see a Pile?

Here's how I would do it:

How do you move things out of a pile?

Click on the pile select the doc you want, pull it sideways and place it where you want it.

How do you rename things in a pile?

Pull it out of the pile, rename it, put it back.

How do you select multiple items in the pile?

Select on hold down the command key select another.

How would the command-line see a Pile?
Just as a folder, almost certainly. The folder would only need to contain a .pile file or something similar.

also,

How do you start a pile?
Drop one document onto another.

How do you drag a pile
Click-drag a pile.

What can you do with a pile?
Drag a pile onto one app and they all open.
Right click on a pile and select open and they all open in one app.

Piles, would be quicker, lighter folders that would allow an open project to be manipulated at high speed before being consigned to a folder.

I hope... at least that is my take on them.