File system GUIs ostensibly mimics files in folders, but funny to note that *reordering* is a fundamental verb for physical papers in folders (or in piles on my desk). There’s no way to reorder a list of files in Finder without something silly like adding numbers to the front.
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You can switch to grid view and drag icons around, but that’s a “reposition” verb, not a “reorder” verb, so doing something like “moving a paper to the top of the pile” is surprisingly awkward. (Of course, explicit positions are sometimes useful too!)
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The file system makes this kind of affordance technically challenging. Folders are a bag! How would you even store an ordering portably? You’d probably resort to something like .DS_Store.
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This rant came from wondering: why do I feel like I want a special piece of software to manage my reading lists, or my sheet music? Why not just folders of PDFs? (Never mind the fact that most specialized “read it later” software doesn’t let you reorder the queue!)
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Related:
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i fear and resent scrolling (e.g. scrolling way up to see chat history) b/c i know application developers don't take it seriously as app state
like I'll click on another chat, then back to the chat where I'd scrolled way up, and the app'll have thrown away my scroll position
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File under: everything is trapped in little black rectangles
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Replying to @andy_matuschak
This is a very good point but sidesteps the reason why paper shuffling works so well: you can easily scan each piece of paper. Sure, Explorer & Finder have "quick view" functionality but it can't hold a candle to the information density & ease of scanning of physical paper.
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A lot of file system GUIs evolved as thin veneers over the command line interface, so a lot of the assumptions are still kind of baked in, and they try to represent things in a one to one fashion, very often.
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For example, it should be possible to set a "manual ordering" of files without actually changing how they're configured on disk, it's ultimately just a way of viewing that data
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This is the main obstacle for me for a sane way of keeping my web-book drafts. I want a file per web page, named with its title, and I want them shown in book order, not alphabetic.
I’ve been meaning to write a VSC plugin to do this but not gotten to it!
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