Wouldn't it be much better to just turn ShareWith into a sort of
virtual directory structure that is mounted into the user's folder.
The internal implementation would be the same as what you propose,
but to the user it would look like a special "System" folder that
seems to contain subfolders for preference panels, fonts, sounds,
components etc.
You always have to ruin my fun, huh? :)
While something like this would probably work for a System folder, I
think ShareWith is still a good metaphor for sharing documents with
other users (via email or chat), or sending to a printer -- actions
where when you drop the file you are performing a bunch of other
actions behind the scenes (for example, convert data to print-ready
format, or encode or compress data for transfer via IM). I thought it
might be natural to extend that style of interaction to the system as
a whole -- make the desktop be smart enough to manage it's own file
organization. My original concept does lead to questions on how the
user would remove installed components, though, which the folder idea
solves.
This is what services are for.
Could you give a bit more explanation?
Are you referring to using services in place of ShareWith, or using
services for removing installed components, or something else entirely?
And, if I understand correctly, in the ideal concept of how Etoile
would work, there are only services, no applications. How does that
impact what you're describing?
J.
