Spoken like a...
Michael Vance said:
Apple needs to adopt the URL style address structure system that Windows uses. Anything else seems quaintly archaic, as if today's users can't read and make sense of a URL, needing instead informationless windows with no indication of their place in the file structure.
Now, I'm only taking a slightly edgy tone here because of the somewhat weakly qualified descriptor 'quaintly archaic'... Other than the broad assumption that most users understand URIs, the motivation is good...
The above quoted was spoken like a person who has never had to provide technical support for a 1200-person business (or perhaps you didn't really mean that the feature should be the default behavior). Today's POWERusers CAN make sense of URL-style file navigation aids. The *average* user tends to be confused by the mere presence of such a superfluous tool. I've supported both PCs and Macs in both my current job as well as my previous job (similar size) and realized a long time ago that the average user needs to see as little excess text as possible. In user interface design, one must shy away from providing too much information for too little impact. If you are a programmer, try this experiment... on a status line at the bottom of your application's window, cause the program to display the message
"Action Taken- MouseOn leftButtonDown leftButtonUp MouseOff- This message is UNIMPORTANT, please ignore this message and do not call your tech support department"
What's the first thing they'll do? They'll call tech support. Tech departments love that kinda stuff. It's just the highlight of a tech's day to explain to someone for the 5 tetrazillionth time that "you should ignore that text as it does not benefit what they are trying to do and, oh, by the way, RememberThatTrainingWeSpentX-thousandDollarsOnForYou?ThatTextAndItsPurposeWasThoroughlyCoveredThere."
Now, let's assume you left out some details of how you wished this idea to be implemented... An excellent way to provide this feature would be as a Finder Preferences option that defaults to 'off'. That way, the minority can turn it on and the majority don't have to worry with something they don't need. The idea of design of computing for the masses necessitates removing the user's intellect from the equation and assuming you are building systems for someone who has never even heard of computers.
Of course, then again, that is only a good idea if you want to maintain status-quo and not create a new more usable paradigm. While Column-view is not exactly revolutionary, or even perfect, it DOES give the user an indication of where they are in the file system. Problem is, most users don't understand the left-to-right column structure immediately upon trying it and they revert back to habitual List or Icon views. Column view becomes a Power-User type item.
So what side of the fence am I on? I say provide the Power User type features, but not as default. Perhaps there could be a Preferences Assistant that comes preloaded with popular Preference sets. The default set would be the one that tested the best with a random selection of the global demographic (the average user). Other sets could be tailored for PowerUsers, Developers, Graphics Artists, Publishing, and of course any other important groups.
Of course, on a final thought... What reason do we have for sticking with the whole file/folder paradigm? It seems that there are more intuitive ways to think of your data. Provide the average user with their files and folders, give PowerUsers a content-threaded concept-clustered three-dimensional interface enabled through a pressure-sensitive touchpad or a whole new input device. OK, now I'm just delusional... I'll quit typing now.
