James A. Donald wrote: > Chimpy McSimian IV, Esq. wrote: >>> If anything, it sounds like you should stick with exposing a tree >>> structure to users. > > David-Sarah Hopwood wrote: >> This would be incompatible with supporting fine-grained sharing > > Sharing is typically browsing. Browsing arbitrary graphs is fine. > > Manipulating arbitrary graphs is not fine.
If the filesystem is a graph, then the tools need to support it as a graph. > Most manipulation tools should manipulate a tree. If a tree is being > manipulated, then what is displayed to be manipulated, or as the results > of manipulation, must also be a tree. You're confusing user interface with structure and semantics. > Windows explorer (a browse and tree manipulation tool) displays three > kinds of things in a directory: Folders, shortcuts, and files. > > Shortcuts and folders form an arbitrary graph, folders form a tree, > files are leaf nodes of the current folder. When manipulating, > shortcuts are treated as leaves, so one always manipulates a tree, even > though one browses an arbitrary graph. Windows explorer is hardly a good example of a well-designed UI for browsing *or* manipulating a filesystem with symlinks. It can't even expand a symlink without throwing up some modal error dialog. (Try browsing '\Documents and Settings' on an OEM Vista install; you get "C:\Documents and Settings is not accessible. Access is denied." This is not actually an access control error; it happens for any symlink. Completely f'd up, if you ask me.) -- David-Sarah Hopwood ⚥ http://davidsarah.livejournal.com
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