[feldon34]

If you sit down and read some of the highly-regarded User Interface Design manuals, you'll find that File Manager/Windows Explorer goes against every principle in the book. File Manager/Windows Explorer (I consider them largely the same thing) was buried from view after Windows 3.1. Microsoft realized that it was a mistake and that it was non-intuitive. It's not the only bad idea of Windows 3.1 that was deleted, and File Manager/Windows Explorer was left in (you press Windows-E), but it's certainly the one bad idea that millions of users have clung onto.

Microsoft has got you guys trying to navigate a hard drive in a single two-paned window. I have tried to work that way and it totally goes against the way my brain works. I don't think on one level. I don't just think of all the items in my apartment. I think of all the boxes in my apartment and WHERE the items are WITHIN each box. It's called progressive exposure. In the 1970's, the behavioral psychologists got together with the computer guys and came up with User Interface Guidelines. They came up with the idea of progressively exploring deeper into folders and other containers. Basically recreating reality in the computer.

Then Windows 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 (most people never saw 1 or 2) comes along with this flat view of your data and everyone has jumped on like a lemming and approaches things that way. No wonder new people are scared of computers--they demand they think in a way diametrically opposed to the way the human brain is engineered.

The basic distinction for me can be broken down to exploring a file cabinet.

Some people open a file cabinet and flip through the folders to find a file. Once they find the folder, they open it, but keep it in the file cabinet and just fish out the proper piece of paper.

Some people find the folder, pull the folder out, put it on their desk, and THEN examine the contents. Then they leave that folder on their desk until they are completely done with it.

Windows Explorer is type 1. These people SHOULD have clean desks if their mind is working the same as their operating system. They should be focused on ONE project at a time and only have one task on their desk at a time.

Exploring through My Computer with the stupid "open each window within this window" setting turned off is what I consider type 2. I always have several pending projects on my desk, and likewise on my screen. If someone calls me and asks me to work on something right now, I don't panic, I just push the other folders to the side (and correspondingly, minimize the folders on my screen) and put the new one front-and-center.

I don't think I can express strongly enough how much I hate Windows Explorer. The only time I brush with anything close to its madness is the Open and Save dialog boxes each program uses. I rarely use the Open command in most programs, preferring to switch back to the file folder I have open on the desktop and double-click on the appropriate file, or drag that file to the open Application window.

How many times have you saved a file into the wrong folder? If it's a lot, then that's proof that Explorer/Open/Save boxes are non-intuitive. It should be clear exactly which project folder things are getting filed into. If anything, I'd like an OS where you get MORE feedback about this.