[whatwg] Proposal for local-storage file management

I don't want to make the file manager the "primary interface". I think that,
by default, a virtual filesystem stored somewhere out of the user's view
(either in a hidden folder in the profile, or however else the UA wants to
implement) is fine as a majority use case. However, there are also cases
where you do want to interact with the real filesystem. I think that
managing photos is one example on Windows, on a mobile device it might be
interacting with the SD card, etc.
As for how to grant access -- I think there are paradigms that work well
today. E.g. opening up a "file open" dialog and letting the user browse to a
file or directory that you want to give access to. Picasa seems to have also
gotten down the whole "Scan once" / "Watch" thing with a reasonably concise
UI (whether you want the program to look at the folder once or have
continuing access).

Again, not trying to say that it's the primary or end-all use case, but i do
think it is an important one that we are currently ignoring.

2009/8/28 Mike Wilson <mikewse at hotmail.com>

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > Broader note: loading and then modifying existing
> > documents in the browser might be cool. But in
> > general, I don't see the win of making the file
> > manager the tool to manage data created by web
> > apps. File managers are not really that great an
> > interface for managing information, and much of
> > the time, something specific to the type of
> > content is a better interface.
>
> That's what I think too, and my guess for the future
> is that applications will be focusing on the actual
> information, letting users project it in different
> useful ways, and not force them to map it to
> physical folders or files.
>
> So I say first priority is to design a first-class
> browser storage, to make it possible to build really
> good apps in the browser. Done right, this browser
> storage may eventually become users' first choice
> and ordinary files may become uninteresting.
> (There could very well be device-specific ways to
> exchange files between browser storage and the
> device's own storage representation.)
>
> Best regards
> Mike Wilson
>
>
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Received on Friday, 28 August 2009 09:54:24 UTC