Quote:
Originally Posted by latepaul
Natural or not many people found it confusing. And there were far few PC users anyway. The idea that we should be using folders because they've been around for a long time is based on a selective view of the past.
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I don't think people found the actual concept of folders - even nested folders - confusing. I think what they found confusing were: (1) finding things in folders that other people had organized (like, say, navigating around the 1,000+ folders that install with Office); and (2) things where folders are used outside the office metaphor (you need save in a file in the same directory; the config.sys file needs to be in the same folder as the program; this data can only be put in a folder with this path).
I really don't think that folders work well for e-books, though; they are too inflexible. You get Science Fiction -- Atwood -- Handmaid's Tale...but if you want some of her other works, you have to go to Feminism -- Atwood -- Edible Woman. This makes it inconvenient if you want to see everything by one author who crosses genres - and the more granularity you want, the more difficult it becomes. And even in the above example, the "Feminism" folder would exclude "Handmaid's Tale" because it was in SF.
With collections (tags/labels/etc.) you can put the book in as many collections as you want - Feminism, SF, Dystopia, 1980's, Atwood, Canadian, Religion, 20th C, etc.