I kicked yesterday off talking about things which, hypothetically speaking, might be present in Windows 7 Milestone 3 based on what was in Milestone 1. I’m going to dedicate today’s followup serving of yam dip to something much more concrete.
I already mentioned the existence of Libraries. Based on what the technical fellows who used Vista Beta 1 know, if Libraries are anything like Virtual Folders, the feature will likely enjoy the frequent use and prominence that Virtual Folders enjoyed in Windows Vista Beta 1. Because of this, Libraries will likely be very well woven into Windows 7, thus making it exponentially more useful than Vista’s search folders. Examples of how this would be done:
- Libraries would be viewable and accessible as if they are normal folders. Whether this applies to applications as well as users is a good question, but if libraries could be treated by applications as normal folders, a whole host of possibilities would suddenly open themselves to developers.
- Paths could be relative or absolute, which trumps the usefulness of search folders altogether.
- It would be possible to manually add folders to libraries.
- A user will likely have default libraries for his pictures, videos, etc.
Integration would go beyond simple aesthetics. Logically, Homegroups could hypothetically support sharing libraries as opposed to folders simply because Libraries would inherently be more organized. A user may have many folders filled with pictures, but if all of those are in a “pictures” library, all of this user’s photos could then be shared over a homegroup just by sharing that one library.
On that wonderful note, since Libraries will likely be xml files interpreted by Explorer just like Virtual Folders were, let’s take a look at what the basic structure of such an xml file could be after the break.
<Library><LibraryAttributes><!-- Examples of attributes:--><Tags>Example,Test,Pictures</Tags><ExcludeTypes>sys,png,exe,xlsx</ExcludeTypes><Pinned>1</Pinned></LibraryAttributes><ListOfLocations><DescriptionOfLocation><BasicLocationStuff><address><!-- One literal or relative path goes here. Examples: c:\folder \\Bryant\folder --></address><!-- Other stuff might be contained here as well, such as dates accessed and dates modified (example below) --><DatesModified>1221588862,1221588801,1221587292</DatesModified></BasicLocationStuff><ComplexLocationStuff><!-- More complex material might be kept in here, such as different types of meta data and anything binary--></ComplexLocationStuff></DescriptionOfLocation><DescriptionOfLocation><!-- Rinse and repeat per folder--></DescriptionOfLocation></ListOfLocations></Library>
This structure would allow for multiple folders to be referenced, either via relative paths or direct paths, which would prove to be immensely useful
If Libraries really are a true reincarnation of Virtual Folders minus the confusion plus the enhanced integration, Microsoft might have a huge convenience prize winner on its hands. It’s about time, too.
