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AsLan^
Not a tame lion...
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
 
2007-02-05, 02:11

I was just thinking about the iPhone and how Steve seemed fairly impressed with the fact that rather than using a standard UI across applications, each application's UI was tailored to what you needed.

We also have other examples like Front Row, Dashboard, Expose, Time Machine, and Aperture, that follow the same kind of philosophy.

I was wondering how this concept might be applied to the humble Finder in Leopard.

For example take moving files from one location to another but having to navigate through multiple folders. Not especially hard but even using the space bar to quick open folders it can be pretty tedious. What if when you selected some items to be moved and started dragging them the screen dimmed a la Dashboard and you were presented with graphical (but flat) representation of your home folder and all its sub folders arranged in a tree diagram. Of course it wouldn't have to all fit on the screen at once but as you move the mouse it should scroll with in the direction you wanted to go. When you reach the destination folder you simply drop the files like you normally would in and they are moved. When repeatedly moving files to particular folder that folder would become weighted so that when you started moving files in the same direction again, the scrolling would speed up and be guided to that folder, perhaps using some those neat swarm algorithms to correct course or move the folder towards you if you overshoot or something like that.

There could be multiple special Finder interfaces that detected what you were trying to do and presented you with the best interface for that particular task.

Anybody else think we might begin to see more customized interfaces or perhaps have any ideas for what could be improved with a custom interface?

EDIT: Regarding that tree idea above, just a slight modification. I think it would be even cooler if instead of automatically popping up when you dragged the selected files (which might get irritating say if folders are close to each other) you first had to drag the files to an edge of the screen. Then the tree would shoot in from the opposite edge and you would browse back i.e. if you move them to the top edge, the tree comes in from the bottom and you navigate down, if you move them to the left edge, the tree comes in from the right and navigate to the right.

Last edited by AsLan^ : 2007-02-05 at 02:28. Reason: Refined tree idea
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