Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I disagree. That metaphor works well for probably better than 80% of typical people's use of archive files. (The most common exception being installs). And Windows/desktop metaphors are inappropriate for some percentage of almost everything anyway. I still spend too much of my time explaining to users the difference between a file and a shortcut on their desktop.
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It's not a metaphor. It's MS adding features to Explorer instead of fixing bugs. It doesn't help usability. But obviously MS now shares your opinion. They didn't use to do it this way.
Also some versions of Explorer break zip format files when the user treats them as if they are folders/directories because that's what Explorer is doing.
Also shortcuts are not just on the desktop. They can be anywhere and historically they had great big arrow on the icon if it was user created.