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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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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I’ve always wanted an email client that lets me reorder my inbox so I can prioritize what to respond to first! Feels like such a natural feature to me but don’t know of any client that can do it
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💯I've worked in software that does re-orderable lists 🟢. It's hard to synchronize them and merge concurrent changes. It's easy to "store the order" when you load/store the whole list all at once.
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To be database friendly you need this
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If you're also looking for that piece of software, consider something more generalized than a "read it later" app. would work well, as might a todo list app like or (if used only for this purpose). File systems aren't great at custom metadata.
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File systems are just too low level for this use case, there's no concept of 'importance to user' or anything explicitly user-centric. But it's weird read it later software doesn't do this, it should be its purview to consider the broader scope of how we pick things up to read.
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Also I think what you're getting at here is the meta-task of 'preparing future reading' which few design for. Reordering is one example in this vein, but others like 'read these together' also go unexplored. I'm actively thinking about this in my work w Anjan