Thanks for reminding me about those 3D Desktops (I'd forgotten, but it does explain why the idea seemed familiar): I played with them about a year ago I think. At the time I thought they may have been nifty, but not a lot of use (they seemed to be appearing in films a lot at the time).
I don't think I was actually thinking of 3D like render, but just the creation of a model that displayed links and groups that increased functionality and user experience.
Obviously the more dynamic the link creation is the better. It's just another view of what's already there on the harddrive, I was wondering if it would be a more functional view?
I think the answer is in how the links are created and how they can be used to adjust the display and any possible actions.
Say for example a view was created by the search term 'Work', I guess some of what could be displayed is files/folders that have work in their meta data somewhere, and they could be displayed in a net of files in their directory structure (I'm visualising the
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ example here). Clicking on different nodes creates a different view.
If 'Work' could be defined by subgroups of some sort (apart from the filesystem) by the meta data, maybe 'Work at home', 'Issues at work', etc then those subgroups become the nodes that redefine the search. Once in the subgroup, those files could be "selected" no matter where they are on the filesystem and acted upon in some way.
You're right Rover: the hierarchy and how to generate it, is the crux here.
- Perry