Monday, September 22, 2008

Shell idea

I was plowing along in school today and had an idea for a shell replacement. What do you usually store in folders? Files related to a project, happening or another common denominator. Wouldn't it be nice if these folders were dynamic, if you put a file in "Project A" and it automatically adds it to related "Project B" and your "This weeks todo"-list.

The basic principle are these
- Files have a number of tags
- The desktop contains a number of searches for a combination of tags
So if you had a number of files tagged "Essay about X" and then a search for the tag "Essay for X" those files shows up in the box. The files themselves are shown as either iconss or small thumbnails.

Random side-ideas
- A new file type for quick notes, originally called "Note". Basicly it's a mix of a document file and an image file with support for quick squibbles. Can be converted to either document or image once one has decided
- Zoom. Searches can contain sub-searches and the user can zoom out to get a good overview or zoom in to see further sub-sub-searches.
- Concurrency. Multiple people can work on different parts of the same desktop, giving project managers or other leaders quick and easy overview of how it's progressing.
- Color coding of both searches and files. Color coding can be read any way the user wants, one way would be to see color as how close the project or file is to deadline, shifting through green->yellow->red as deadline approaches.
- Opacity. Can be seen as how finished the document is.
- Drag'n'Drop between searches, drag a file to add it to the other. Not sure how the search should be modified though.
- Program files can be tagged by name and version by the installer to easily see which files belong to a program.
- Time related parameters to searches, give you files related to this week and similar things.

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