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Panther Feature: 'Piles'

I have heard of something like this before...

... it was called LifeStream.
Here is an example of the idea. It worked on the Apple Newton (hint, hint)

http://www.pencomputing.com/Newton/lifestreams2.html

There is a version of this software of this software out for MS WIN 2K/XP.

I do not remeber what it was called, but I will try to find it.

Regards,
Lou G.

one more thing... I always like Be OS because I was able to "database" my files via Meta Tags. Making my search better and faster. I do not use Be OS anymore, I am with OS X. But I do miss building a database with my file system.
 
sounds a little processor intensive to me (as others alluded to). 10.2.5 is slow feeling enough on the current iBook (800 with 640MB). i would rather apple worked on speed (os x and the hardware both) and usability first. more eye candy isn't needed, thanks.
 
Originally posted by Perceptes
This sounds like an even worse use of $130 than Jaguar was to start if this is the kind of stuff that's going to be pushing it.
Click to expand...
what exactly would you like them to push into it.

iJon
 
This could be very interesting. I hope apple keeps people
from stealing this very interesting idea. If not, apple will be
apple to do it better than MS and other companies. ;)
 
Originally posted by scem0
This could be very interesting. I hope apple keeps people
from stealing this very interesting idea. If not, apple will be
apple to do it better than MS and other companies. ;)
Click to expand...
well apple patented it so i dont think anyone will be stealing it without a lawsuit.

iJon
 
sounds pretty damn cool if you ask me, not sure about the name though, "piles" :rolleyes: . nah, just conjures up some nasty stuff. I thought they should call it "stacks" instead, as in stacls of papers, but then that has the "stacked" connotations, nicer than the "piles" connotations mind ;)
 
Originally posted by scem0
Microsoft sure does seem to do well at copying apple 'legally' though... :( ;)
Click to expand...
well if apple was smart they would have copyrighted the mac os and windows wouldnt be what it is today. if it made me the richest man in the world i would do it too.

iJon
 
I have no problems with 'piles' although I could understand
people attaching..... odd connotations to the word. ;)

stacks, files? What other names are possible?
 
as a designer and dealing with, to say the least, MANY more files than the average user, lately I have been experimenting with different ways of organizing my own data... it seems that no matter how hard I try by days end I have a hundred files on my desktop.. .. my interpretation of this "piles" thing is something of a "portfolio" or better yet a "packet" where any type of file (.psd, .ai, .jpg, .doc, .indd, etc) could be put in a project by project based pile..or maybe this is only my wishing.. organization freaks abroad should get geeked about something like this.. this would be my savior to organization and the cure to endless headaches...

then again this could also turn into one of those "genie effect" dock things that serve no purpose but bog down your machine and a thing to show drooling windows users.. only hours after owning jaguar I switched to "scale effect" over "genie effect"
 
One of my past ideas was to be able to drag "spring loadad dock items" into the dock to reduce clutter. for example, you click on a globe and OmniWeb, IE 5 X, and Safari all overlay the globe so you can pick one.

The last post gave me another idea though, iTunes has smart playlists, imagine porting the idea to files. I'm thinking how this could work, but basically you would set rules for a folder and it would create subfolders for you. For example all files in your documents folder say created within 2 days would be in a folder, all your photoshop files in another folder, and so on.
 
Originally posted by MasterX (OSiX)
One of my past ideas was to be able to drag "spring loadad dock items" into the dock to reduce clutter. for example, you click on a globe and OmniWeb, IE 5 X, and Safari all overlay the globe so you can pick one.

The last post gave me another idea though, iTunes has smart playlists, imagine porting the idea to files. I'm thinking how this could work, but basically you would set rules for a folder and it would create subfolders for you. For example all files in your documents folder say created within 2 days would be in a folder, all your photoshop files in another folder, and so on.
Click to expand...
you can already do that, drag a folder to the right part of the dock and your set.

iJon
 
I wonder if this is going to operate somewhat like the minimize in place hack?

Here's what they look like when you 'pile' them on top of each other:
 

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I remember reading that article of Tog's a while ago... piles was one of the cooler ideas in it.

there's a lot more that can be done on the interface so I'm hopeful...

I've wanted to see more done with icons... Adding "Show Item Info" in Jaguar is good, but why not have a badge on folders that tells how many items are in it? there's a lot more ideas out there... like instead of locking up the finder when you connect to server, how 'bout showing a server icon on the desktop with the spinning progress indicator on the icon until it connects.
 
Originally posted by vniow
I wonder if this is going to operate somewhat like the minimize in place hack?

Here's what they look like when you 'pile' them on top of each other:
Click to expand...
that was in the first couple of betas for jaguar, i wonder if they will bring it back in this one. wasnt a feature i was to fond of anyways.

iJon
 
Originally posted by iJon
you can already do that, drag a folder to the right part of the dock and your set.

iJon
Click to expand...

you can also pretty much do the iTunes indexing through column view. I mean it's not exactly the same, but it's pretty similar... just organize your files in whatever way you please (eg make a folder with photoshop stuff) and navigate away.
 
Originally posted by iJon
that was in the first couple of betas for jaguar, i wonder if they will bring it back in this one. wasnt a feature i was to fond of anyways.

iJon
Click to expand...

I love it, I couldn't operate as well without it, since I have a small screen, my dock gets full rather quickly so I just hold down ctrl and click on the minimize button and I have this little mini-window that I can drag around wherever I want, I never had it on by default, but I do appreciate the option to use it if I choose (by clicking on the minimize button while holding down the ctrl key ot double clicking on the top bar while holding down the ctrl key...)
 
Originally posted by MasterX (OSiX)
The last post gave me another idea though, iTunes has smart playlists, imagine porting the idea to files. I'm thinking how this could work, but basically you would set rules for a folder and it would create subfolders for you. For example all files in your documents folder say created within 2 days would be in a folder, all your photoshop files in another folder, and so on.
Click to expand...

I believe I read something about that exact idea recently. Wasn't this going to be one of the features of Copland?

::searches internet::

Oh yeah, here it is in an ArsTechnica article (http://www.arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-5.html) . Live search folders. I guess they had some problems implimenting them because they didn't want the user to be waiting while the search was going on, but the searching has to happen sometime. Personally, I would like to have this feature, even if I had to wait everytime I opened the folder. It seems like that would be very easy to impliment just by tying saved searches with folder-like icons. Maybe we'll get that in Panther. That seems way more useful to me than piles, but I don't think I really get piles anyway. I do think self rearranging windows would be cool as long as it's snappy. Imagine if your whole desktop scaled under your cursor like the dock does. You could fit tons more open windows on it. As long as you could turn it off after you've shown your friends, I think it would be neat.
 
i just installed this little hack... just wondering: if i want to can it, is it easy to find and trash by just searching it in the finder?

what interests me about this rumor, besides "piles", is the mentioning of windows/objects having a dynamic reaction to your "input". makes me think of how dock icons sort of move out of the way when your adding a new icon, but having to do with actual App windows.

EDIT: this was supposed to be in reply to vniow about the MIP hack
 
You know, sometimes it doesn't pay to think different.

Originally posted by iSmell
I believe I read something about that exact idea recently. Wasn't this going to be one of the features of Copland?

::searches internet::

Oh yeah, here it is in an ArsTechnica article (http://www.arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-5.html) . Live search folders. I guess they had some problems implimenting them because they didn't want the user to be waiting while the search was going on, but the searching has to happen sometime. Personally, I would like to have this feature, even if I had to wait everytime I opened the folder. It seems like that would be very easy to impliment just by tying saved searches with folder-like icons. Maybe we'll get that in Panther. That seems way more useful to me than piles, but I don't think I really get piles anyway. I do think self rearranging windows would be cool as long as it's snappy. Imagine if your whole desktop scaled under your cursor like the dock does. You could fit tons more open windows on it. As long as you could turn it off after you've shown your friends, I think it would be neat.
Click to expand...

Maybe I havn't spent enough time violently exploring Jaguar, but maybe they could implement some tagging-type system to the file system? Like labels? Personally I've had a tendancy to be pretty well organized in my file system (although I finally had to overhaul it to be more Jaguar-friendly) but over the years I have had more and more need for fine organization, and frankly have never liked the way colorized folder icons work.

With an Aqua interface this could be much cooler. They could do not only colorization but perhaps badging as a visual representation, and then allow you to sort according to this. This would only work within folders, of course, but personally I hate to have a cluttered desktop (he says, reaching over his overdue bills, DBZ toys, and bunny ears). It interferes with the beauty of my wallpaper.

Piles sounds like it could be neat, but more indexing features would be considerably more useful.

You know what else would be useful, Jobs? A two button mouse! You could save us all a lot of animation and just give us a frickin two button mouse! Do you know HOW HARD IT IS TO PLAY DIABLO WITH A ONE BUTTON MOUSE??

Sheesh
 
WHOA!!!

this sounds ssooo good!! :D i'm a big fan of minimise in place, i've loved it ever since i installed it... it's just awesome! imagine if 'piles' were like minimise in place, but when you put the cursor over them, they enlarged like the dock!!! :D :D that would be so good for organizing stuff, hope it makes it into Panther!!:D:D YAY!! :D
 
Combine 'piles' with database file system

I'm reminded that there is also a rumor that BeOS like database files system may also be showing up in 10.3

Now combine this with 'piles' and you get a wonderful mixture of what we have now. Folders and 'bundles'.

Folders are a hierarchical organization tool. What happens when you need to organize a folder? you make more folders... and on and on. Folders are application agnostic... they tell you absolutely nothing about the contents other than the number and size.

Bundles on the other hand are very specific folders which contain very application specific contents... all the files and media needed for the 'application'.

I see 'Piles' as a correlative to 'Bundles' in that they are specific folders which contain specific contents relating to a specific project. These folders or 'piles' can now be given specific meta data related to that project which would not be useful for a generic folder. This is kind of like talking about a formula one race car having certain characteristics as opposed to an economy car, certain attributes in the f1 car aren't relevant in the economy car.

So going back to the BeOS DBFS (database file system) which included massive meta data capabilities you can see how further classification of specific folder types is possible when it has so much potential meta data. 'Piles' is just the beginning and really 'bundles' preceded them as well... Keynote itself creates 'bundles' as it's ouput with all the media inluded with an XML description of what all of that media is used for. So 'piles' seems to essentially be a new 'project' type 'bundle' or folder type.

I'm sure you all can extend the analogies and metaphors I've used to cover more specific uses of 'folder types'.

I'm definitely interested.
 
Arn and a few others explained the idea in a way that sounds cool.
If they are right, it will likely rely on your knowledge of what is in the pile. So, if like insidedanshead wrote for his want, you would be able to have an IN box/OUT box type of arrangment. A bunch of disparate doc types that would be labelled as you mouseover them.
It also might signify metadata returning to the fold. that is very cool because it would mean the implementation of more GUI additions which allow for customizing the interface or arranging the Desktop to your personal preferences. That said, piles might be a feature you turn on or off, but if you are dealing with a ton of related files you'd likely want it on.
As for Hotsauce....oh, that was a great idea i hoped would have gone down. But its demise was because of Apple's R and D budget being cut. It was one of the first technologies that made me think the web could be cool like the search engine in that movie "End of the World" made it look. Well, OK. not THAT cool, but, cool enough.
here's to hoping Panther just changes alot...
some Copland related links(yikes. wha happened?):

http://www.access.ch/power/infoservices/MacWeek/MacWeek220196.html#Index3
http://www.mug.jhmi.edu/mirrors/InfoAlley/0296/12/copland.html
 
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