Open Question: How Can We Fix Files?

33 点作者 dschroer将近 4 年前

15 条评论

chubot将近 4 年前

Sort of related: I'm still confused by GUIs and files, and I've been using computers for ~30 years and programmed professionally for ~15, using Windows and Linux.I've mostly gotten over all the confusion in Windows and Linux, but OS X still confuses me. Specifically how to install an application. It seems like it's different with each app.For example, I downloaded a .dmg file for the Transmission BitTorrent client. And I double clicked it. There was another icon inside, and I double clicked that.Now I'm running the Transmission client and I can use it. But it's not installed? I can't click on a .torrent file and have it launch the client.I try to drag the whole thing into Applications? That makes a big mess. It doesn't install it. I have to open up finder and manually remove the files.Then I realize I have to click the .dmg and then drag the thing inside into Applications.To me everything in OS X looks like an "icon" and there is some tenous relationship to directories/folders, and "Applications" is some special pseudo-folder. I'm still confused, and not surprised at all that end users are confused. And this is on the OS that's supposedly the most user-friendly.

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jl6将近 4 年前

There’s nothing wrong with files. Files are a fundamental freedom - the freedom to have custody of data, unlike the mobile/cloud paradigm where everything is an app/API with no guarantee that data you access today will be accessible tomorrow.File management and file browsers could always improve, but let’s not get rid of files themselves please.

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jeroenhd将近 4 年前

> This caused confusion because the the user did not understand that a online view of the files is not the same as having the files on your computer.I think that's the crux of the problem. The concept of files should not be estranging to anyone. It's the weird mix between native GUI and online GUI that's confusing here.Modern smartphones have abstracted files into specific names inside specific apps. Every file is in their own little app, and the idea that a document and a picture can live right next to each other is starting to look foreign.I believe this babification of user interfaces is taking away fromtthe computer experience. The arcane menus and knowledge Windows 98 required is luckily a thing I'd the past, but the concept of "web browser or file browser" shows a dangerous lack of knowledge about the system in use. This isn't a problem for random DOCX files, but it makes phishing very easy. After all, if the user doesn't know that there's a difference between the browser and the rest of their computer, how will they ever doubt those messages about their computer being infected by a virus?People use computers every day for many tasks, but their education seems to have halted around ten years ago. Kids are growing up solely with the smartphone model in mind, of apps and sandboxes and no way to move information with anything but the "share" button, so it's only a matter of time before that concept is also simplified.Interfaces should be intuitive but computers should not be used without knowledge of the core concepts like "what is a program" and "what is a file". We can try to fix this by making even leakier abstractions, but what we really need is education.

regularfry将近 4 年前

Not building actively confusing user interfaces would be a good start. If what you have is a file, presenting local file controls is appropriate, so do that.If what you have is kind of like a local file but the abstraction is leakier than the Titanic, don't, because unless you can be very clear to all concerned about which operations aren't available (and here's a hint: you can't), it is inevitable that the user is going to try something that Just Doesn't Work for reasons they don't care about.And that's a terrible user experience. Not just because they don't achieve their goal, but because it undermines their trust in interfaces that do get it right, so suddenly everything is fraught.

coldacid将近 4 年前

This is more a question on fixing in-browser cloud storage services.Mounting the cloud storage locally is probably the best solution to this. I don't access my files in Nextcloud through my instance's website, I do it through the app that lets me treat it as another directory on my computer. OneDrive and iCloud already do this by default on Windows and Mac, respectively.

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londons_explore将近 4 年前

Gmail/google drive is a big offender here...When someone sends me a zip file, having the most obvious link take me to a list of files in the zip that I can neither preview nor download seems illogical.In the 21st century, I expect webmail providers to understand zip files.

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anotherhue将近 4 年前

Skips the rather more pressing issue of files no longer existing for most mobile apps. Data portability matters but not to anyone in particular.

alex_young将近 4 年前

Simple, get a file cabinet. It holds all of your files, and you can forget about them until you move to the next place.Seriously though, this data exchange motif is so ingrained in computing as to be almost unimaginable to dispose of. Programs need a semipermanent method of exchanging information and we call that thing files.

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perryizgr8将近 4 年前

The problem described here is not a files problem. It is a Microsoft SharePoint problem. Link to a file should directly download it to your computer. Not open up a fake file browser inside your browser.

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southerntofu将近 4 年前

> Anyone who has used a computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) knows what a file browser looks like.Just nitpicking here, but a lot of people who started using GUI on a "smart" phone have no idea what a file browser looks like. They know what a one-dimensional "photo" or "document" browser is, but they have no idea both are "files" that are stored in "folders".

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Const-me将近 4 年前

> Are there ways to simplify and streamline this fragmented system?Technically, yes. There're protocols like FTP and WebDAW supported in pretty much all operating systems who allow users to view, download and/or upload files using any app.Practically, no. Internet companies hate specialized protocols because they don't serve ads.

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rapjr9将近 4 年前

While you're at it maybe you could prevent ransomware by making access to one file different than access to many files? Any application that wants to access many files, especially critical ones, should require special permissions, perhaps a USB access key. For critical infrastructure this could be very useful. Spawning threads for each file should be detected and require the same special permission. Emergency access could be provided via a physical "break glass" mechanism that triggers logging and an alert on the network (perhaps even via an independent mesh network based on cheap ESP32 chips). Sure it would cost more, require some OS changes, and be a hassle to use, but for critical infrastructure those costs seem worth it. I know computer science has studied such things, is there some known roadblock to implementing this? Perhaps it was viewed as making system administration too tedious but I haven't seen any other ransomware solutions [backups (which will not stop blackmailing with stolen data) and kill cryptocurrencies (not possible internationally)] that make much sense so maybe it is time to reconsider, the costs may be worth the protection.

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mikewarot将近 4 年前

I've been reassuring people for decades that computers are confusing, it's not just them. My go-to example is quite simple...<pre><code> "You have two folders, with files in them, if you drag a file from one to the other, what will happen? Depending on rules you can't be expected to remember, one of three things will happen. It might copy, move, or make a shortcut to the file. If you right-click (the other mouse button) on a file, and drag it to the destination, you get to choose which thing you want done, every time." </code></pre> This little instruction saves boatloads of time for Windows users. It's sad that there isn't a right button in the Apple world to help make things easier.

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S5yDyAk3XoQH5将近 4 年前

You can't. When you build a software to be idiot proof, somewhere a better idiot is built.

kmarc将近 4 年前

While it doesn't "fix" the issue of file sharing with less technically inclined people, I found it good enough to tackle my problems with SharePoint:<a href="https://rclone.org/" rel="nofollow">https://rclone.org/</a>