Re: [Usability] User problems and practices with modern desktopsystems

[<john erling blad aftenposten no>]

> > I would prefer if categorization and other indices about file
content
> > was stored as file metadata, sill the metadata could be indexed by
some
> > external means and stored in some relational database.


> Perhaps the first step for anything would be to standardize on an API
> for accessing and modifying file metadata.  Then the backend
> implementation could be either a new filesystem type, or an external
> RDB, or just a set of XML files somewhere; it wouldn't matter much to
> the user.

The reason why I would like the metadata to be stored together with the
file is to be able to move it around as one single unit. If you put the
metadata in separate files or even an alien rdb you have to code for
reuse of the metadata.

Although, more often than not you would write a new file and swap it for
the old one so you will loose metadata if the program isn't aware of its
existence. One hack that could work is to let the metadata linger for a
short while and if a new file is created and closed, without any
metadata assigned then the old metadata is reassigned to the new file.
Seems a bit to much of a hack to me but could work for applications that
isn't well behaved.

John