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000111one111000

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2001
217
2
DeKalb, IL
Doesn't Apple already have a patent for this?

lh_stacks_demo_01.jpg



enoch
 

Daveway

macrumors 68040
Jul 10, 2004
3,370
1
New Orleans / Lafayette, La
nightdweller25 said:
What exactly does it do? =/
I'm not sure, but it looks like it shows how many files are in the folder.

Can anyone clarify?
Edit:
Developed by Gitta Salomon and her team close to a decade ago, a pile is a loose grouping of documents. Its visual representation is an overlay of all the documents within the pile, one on top of the other, rotated to varying degrees. In other words, a pile on the desktop looked just like a pile on your real desktop.

To view the documents within the pile, you clicked on the top of the pile and drew the mouse up the screen. As you did so, one document after another would appear as a thumbnail next to the pile. When you found the one you were looking for, you would release the mouse and the current document would open.

Piles, unlike today's folders, gave you a lot of hints as to their contents. You could judge the number of documents in the pile by its height. You could judge its composition very rapidly by pulling through it.

Sounds like an awesome feature that would look great in OpenGL.
 

Timelessblur

macrumors 65816
Jun 26, 2004
1,086
0
daveway00 said:
Does anyone notice that MS is stepping away from the long standing Windows look to more Mac look. Notice the search box? And it certainly doesn't look easier to use.

Well this feature has a lot to do with WinFS and was wanted to be put in winFS to begin with. Apple spotlight is a very water down verson of what winFS will be in the end. When MS took on WinFS they bit off more than they could chew and it been in deveplment since I think windows95. The current stuff you see coming out is just one element of what winFS potention is goign to be. Microsoft is taking elements out of winFS and putting them in to the its OS to help them out. winFS is a very huge thing to take on and is not very easy. When they came up with the idea there where no computer in existen that had the power to run it.
 

jimjiminyjim

macrumors 6502
Feb 24, 2003
440
14
Canada
Apple may have a patent for it... but it's hardly rocket science, as they say. The difference between stacks or piles and a folder is pretty negligible. If you were apple, would you go chasing after them for it? I sure wouldn't bother.
 

mrzeve

macrumors 6502a
Jan 25, 2005
617
1
Sorry but I dont get what the hell your talking about.

Looks like a regular folder, with an icon, and when you click it its being highlighted...
 

jimjiminyjim

macrumors 6502
Feb 24, 2003
440
14
Canada
mrzeve said:
Sorry but I dont get what the hell your talking about.

Looks like a regular folder, with an icon, and when you click it its being highlighted...

Since you asked so politely... the "icon" is not a single file, but a "stack" of files. So the one highlighted are say, 5 of Steve's files. I guess you do something like double click it to reveal all five. In the meantime, it keeps your folder or desktop neat.

Edit: If you look at the screenshot, it's actually 62 documents (files).
 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5
Jun 6, 2003
12,110
77
Solon, OH
daveway00 said:
What's so great about WinFS?
Here's a link to a WMV of Bill Gates describing what WinFS is all about.

EDIT:
From http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp
Microsoft is trying to make it easier for you to find your data on our ever-increasing hard drives. By adding relational database capabilities to the file system, it will take less time to find documents, email, and other data. After all, as one Microsoft executive asked me recently, "Why can we find anything we want on the Internet in seconds, but it takes so long to find our own data on our own PCs?" In addition to the underlying WinFS technology, Microsoft is also adding a new file system concept called Libraries, which will organize like collections of data in Longhorn, regardless of where they are physically stored in the system. For example, a Photos & Movies Library would collect links to every digital photo and digital video on your system.

"I should not care about location when I save," says Microsoft VP Chris Jones. "Why can't I just click on my computer and it shows me my documents? It is a computer. It should know what a document is, what I have edited and annotated, what I have searched for before, and what other places I have looked for documents. It is not just documents on my computer I am looking for. It is documents I care about."
 

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Feb 4, 2004
7,273
5,211
Florida Resident
daveway00 said:
What's so great about WinFS?
SQL Server as your file system. I am not sure why it has taken so long since it will use existing technology. Oracle created their own file system (IFS) based on database technology years ago. Benefits would be you can recover your system without corruption from a power shutdown, hot backups while files are in use, speed, better filtering technology, better searching and is extendable, device independence, can find files as easily remotely as locally. I wonder what the problems could have been besides backward compatibility with tools like Norton Utilities.
 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5
Jun 6, 2003
12,110
77
Solon, OH
BornAgainMac said:
SQL Server as your file system. I am not sure why it has taken so long since it will use existing technology. Oracle created their own file system (IFS) based on database technology years ago. Benefits would be you can recover your system without corruption from a power shutdown, hot backups while files are in use, speed, better filtering technology, better searching and is extendable, device independence, can find files as easily remotely as locally. I wonder what the problems could have been besides backward compatibility with tools like Norton Utilities.
Does Apple have any technology like this that they can leverage in a future version of Mac OS X?
 

rand()

macrumors regular
Jul 15, 2004
151
0
Michigan
wrldwzrd89 said:
Does Apple have any technology like this that they can leverage in a future version of Mac OS X?

Have you seen the original WWDC demo's of Spotlight? This is exactly what they are doing. If I recall correctly, Spotlight is based upon SQLite. The difference is that with Apple's solution it isn't directly built into the filesystem.

But once you index your volumes for Spotlight the first time, the OS itself will keep up with your changes, additions, and deletions of files, regardless (I believe) of the filesystem you're using on the volume. This enables things like Smart Folders (read: Piles or Stacks), and incredible search technology.

Feel free to correct if my memory is wrong. :)

-rand()
 

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Feb 4, 2004
7,273
5,211
Florida Resident
wrldwzrd89 said:
Does Apple have any technology like this that they can leverage in a future version of Mac OS X?

Apple's hybrid solution probably gives the best of both worlds and in the shortest time. Keeping the database separate from the filesystem may be good enough.
 
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