Piles are a rumored new feature of the forthcoming the Mac OS X Panther release.
“Piles are kind of like super spring-loaded folders, without the folder. Advantages are: you can tell just by looking at a Pile what’s in it, and have easy one-click access to all files contained in it. Piles can be various sizes, and you can see at a glance how big one Pile is compared to another,” writes Piles Preview creator Richard Das who has created a small Flash demo of his impression of how the rumored feature ‘Piles’ would work.
Check out what Piles might look like and how they could work here.
Do we really need a panther with piles?
“…panther with piles?”
Which is exactly why they would be called stacks.
Although I’ll give you that having a stacked panther would be a bit off color as well.
We need this about as much as NASA needed to find rings around Uranus (or yorinis as TV comentators insisted in calling the planet)
I see no problem with Apple trying new concepts… that is what they do best! I can see a folder having the option of being displayed as a pile/stack or as a folder.
Let’s face it, we all have more stacks and piles on our desk than we have organized files. Perhaps Apple is taking the “desktop” concept closer to reality; a better reflection of how we really work.
In order to win over more and more Windows die-hards, Mac OS must be more and more intuitive… to the point where Windows looks more like a “for geeks only” operating system.
There is no way Jobs and company will come out with a whole new level of OS (Panther) and just make it a warmed-over version of Jaguar. Steve has consistantly given each new OS a major “Wow” impact. I am sure piles/stacks are just a tiny feature of a whole new OS.
…as Gates and his geek-minions continue to suck Apple’s dust from 5 years ago. I’d give a month’s wages just to see Gates’ face as he views Panther for the first time. His dreams don’t look this good!!
A panther with piles? Oooh – That would be a very angry cat indeed. Some cream should do the trick though.
Piles on the Desktop? Great – Then it can look like my desk – A mess! The difference would be that I could clean it up much more easily.
I like the new interface concept. Anything that lets you look into a bunch of files (a folder, pile, whatever) and quickly determine the contents is a plus in my book. They must come up with another name though, a “pile” of something often carries a negative connotation.
Uranus is only one example of politically correct interference with the language. How about the word regina? It comes from Latin and means queen or goddess and it’s also the name of a Canadian city, but the appliance manufacturer insists that it’s pronounced regeena.
Cool idea. I think having multiple piles/stacks within a folder/desktop is a great idea. They will be there if you want to use them (like spring loaded folders), but you wouldn’t be forced to…
I personally like the idea, hope it’s true.
Having said that, speeding up the OS should be a higher priority
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
In the Flash Demo, it’s an RTFD document,
but the TOP image is of a JPEG
and until you expand it you can’s see that it’s an RTFD.
I Think that the “Master Document Type” (RTFD in this case)
should be the top-most icon, so that it can be identified without having to expand it. I would hope that that form of presentation would be available in a ‘piles’ implementation.
Piles?
I think you can buy a cream for that at the drug store.
But Solo, there ARE rings around Uranus (and Neptune)
Good way to create a mess on your computer. Just like in real life:)
Why not just control-clicking a folder to see what’s in it?
For previewing things I’m very happy with the finder column view.
Honestly, I think this feature would be very unlike Apple’s policy to be careful about overwhelming the user with features.
I think that piles will match my work and organizational styles pretty well. Certainly I’d like to see them to play with them. Not a big fan of the name…”stacks” is definitely the way to go.
That said…
Uranus with the accent on the first syllable is the correct and original pronunciation. The one that sounds like “your anus” is the secondary one, probably invented by a schoolchild somewhere (gotta give credit to that kid, considering the success of his joke).
Regina (-geyen-) is British & Canadian. Regina (-geen-) is American, and was a perfectly reasonable pronunciation long before the appliance company.
Do we really need another yet another post asking if we need a panther with piles? I mean, honestly, the horse is dead – stop beating it. Doesn’t anyone read the previous posts?
Anyone who really wants to go off tittering like a schoolgirl at the thought of disorders of the anus should contact the Piles Advisory Bureau at;
http://www.pilesadvice.co.uk/
Would be nice to have a demo of what piles actually is somewhere
http://homepage.mac.com/bograt/PhotoAlbum1.html
It seems to me that Piles would offer something that has disappeared since OS9 (sadly in my view). That is the Labels feature. I used to use Labels to group related files together. Sometimes I want to collect a group of related files together, but don’t want to put them in a new folder. Labels were a reasonably good mechanism to do this – piles will be a MUCH better way. Bring it on.
I should think that if Apple were to actually implement this in Panther, the Piles would be customizable as to the order of files from top to bottom per the user’s needs.