Unifying ~/Desktop

[Eric Christopherson]

On Tue, Jun 11, 2002 at 06:12:14PM -0700, Jason Katz-Brown wrote:
> 2002 6$B7n(B 11 $B2PMKF|(B 15:29$B!"(BMartin Konold $B$5$s$O=q$-$^$7$?(B:
> 
> > > it means that for removable media the trash travels with the media, so
> > > if I throw something away on a floppy it stays on the floppy instead
> > > of copying to/from the hard drive. There may be other reasons.
> >
> > This can be a severe privacy/security issue when giving away the floppy.
> 
> Not to mention the waste of space on the floppy disk.
> 
> "Sorry - not enough room on drive to copy to."
> 
> "But why? There's only one file, and it's taking up 7 megs!"
> 
> 
> I think the trash-folder is much more logical. If I throw a piece of paper 
> into a trash can, it isn't copied somewhere behind my back. It's in the trash 
> can, and I can recycle it if I want, or retrieve it later. I see no reason 
> why a computer should not model this as it is in real life.

I'm glad this subject came along. I've been thinking about it for a while
here. Here are some new things I'd like to address, too.

First, people worried about security and privacy probably aren't throwing
things in the trash anyway, whether it be a real-world trash can or a
digital one.

Second, waste of space. How can 7 megs be taken up on a floppy?

Third, the "trash" metaphor itself. There's no reason computer use has to be
bound to an arbitrary convention of the real world, i.e. the trash. (See
http://www.acm.org/cacm/AUG96/antimac.htm for more on arbitrary metaphors.)

Anyway, just because MacOS found a cute way to describe marking files for
deletion doesn't mean everyone has to follow their lead. But regardless of
whether we choose to call it "trash" (or "recycle bin" or whatever), it
would be really nice if the way things are stored in the "trash" reflects the
way they were stored before they were "trashed." That way, if we somehow
forget exactly where a file came from (not hard to do when dealing with
hierarchical filesystems), we would be able to see by looking at its
properties or whatever where it came from, and put it back accordingly, or
choose a new place for it.

Additionally, name clashes would be avoided. I can't count the number of
times I've moved files to the trash only to be prompted to rename or
overwrite them because files with the same name are already in the trash. (I
might even go so far as to say it'd be nice to be able to store several
copies of the same file in the same path, but at different times, but that's
probably more of a novelty.)

Anyway, just moving trashed files into ~/Desktop/Trash is a real hack. Why
don't we come up with a sophisticated and intelligent approach? (I know,
you're gonna say "you code it then!" :) )

-- 
Eric Christopherson, a.k.a. Contrarian Conlanger Rakko ^_^