have you explored sets?

best wishes

Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz

That's what I'm talking about, its so impracticable, it needs to be updated to a more operating system like approach, having folders means you wont have to trawl through material, even if they are in sets.

I'm not sure there's anything you can do with folders that you can't do
with sets. The only real difference is a file can only exist in one folder,
while it can exist in many sets.

Is there a specific example you're thinking of?

best wishes

Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz

For one you cant put sets inside sets inside sets, or use a hierarchy structure with folders, its more user friendly that way and not just linear. Much quicker as well and you are clicking on something you named and it feels like its physically held in that place and not a huge line of files.

Our experience has been that it takes quite a bit of effort to keep file
systems well organized, and most people don't do it. That's why we
abstracted the file system, created sets, and designed this to work the way
it does.

Since you can put files in multiple sets, I'm not sure why you'd need to
put a set within a set. If something is both "red" and an "apple" you can
simply put it in both sets. You don't need to decide if apple belongs to
red or red belongs to apple.

I'm certainly open to learn how this system fails to meet real world
problems. It does come up from time to time as disconcerting to people who
have been taught to think in folders and files, but I've yet to hear of
something where its clear sets just won't work.

I look around and I see more and more organizational tools taking this
approach. (iTunes, gMail, osX, etc..) while files and folders may exist
under the hood, more and more interface seems to be going away from forcing
things into a literal hierarchy and towards letting you group things in
different ways for different purposes. Not to get super philosophical, but
that's kinda how nature works as well, there are precious few absolute
hierarchies out there.

We've considered doing sets within sets before, and I'm not going to say
that'll never happen, but it does raise a lot of complex problems around
file ordering and permission structure. If there was a really compelling
reason why we needed them, it'd really help justify the effort in solving
those challenges. I think this is one of those cases where we have put some
thought into something and we need to be shown the limits of our solution
in practical situations.

best wishes

Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz

I do see how it works, its just it takes up a lot of space on the page, which is frustrating when trying to get to what you want, it would be a nice option if you could change views, such as in MS Windows, where you could display a list, folders, no thumbnails or thumbnails, or even just having a batch organiser like on flickr.

A client of mine literally dumped all his photos into the file manager, which was a bad move as now everything is all mixed up in a mush of files, logos, photos and icons which means its pretty much impossible to organise it.

Thanks

I hear ya.

Of course, I have folders on my computer that are super messy too. Good
luck finding something in my Documents directory. ;)

You could probably do an advanced search with a few filters to get just
those images selected (file type, date added, etc?) and then either delete
them or throw them in a set to organize them. No?

best wishes

Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz

I think what might help is a setting that makes sets appear like folders. I have a client that knows how to use a windows computer, but not much else. Getting them to use sets is not easy to say the least.