
Show HN: New UI pattern for file manager type apps - greyshirts
https://github.com/greyduchess/bookmark_ui_demo/tree/master
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majewsky
I admit that I haven't read everything, but that's because I got stuck on the
first paragraph of the README:

> New UI pattern for file manager type apps. It makes moving and reordering
> files much easier and more intuitive than traditional UI patterns.

You should go into more detail who the target audience is here. Casual users
don't care about moving and reordering files into place meticulously. They
just want to find stuff quickly and are will prefer a better search box over a
better filing system.

I'm sitting on the other end of the scale. I do obsess over file ordering to a
certain extent, but then again doing any of this ordering on any sort of phone
UI drives me crazy because of the form factor. I'm much better served by
something that lets me do this on the big screen. Right now I use KDE Connect
which has a feature for mounting the phone's FS on the PC via sshfs. Then I
can use big-boy file managers (or heck, just a terminal and good ol'
coreutils).

I'm not saying that there is no place for your UI design, but a good design
starts from which users have which needs, and your pitch (i.e. the README)
should reflect that.

~~~
thawaway1837
Because casual users are exploring Github looking for new UI patterns for file
manager apps?

The audience is clearly not casual users.

And why does the README have to be a pitch?

~~~
mpalmer
Well, people who develop apps for casual users are exploring GitHub.

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GuiA
I have a hard time understanding what you've built (and don't have an Android
device handy to test). The GIFs are jerky, and it's always hard to tell what
is going on with touch interactions on screen recordings alone.

From what I can tell, this shows a few interactions for a multitouch file
manager, where there is an explicit "selection mode" to reorder/move files;
selection is preserved when navigating away from the current view.
Additionally, interstitial affordances are revealed to facilitate
rearrangement.

My main point of feedback would be to focus on the presentation - it is very
hard to tell what is going on, and all I wrote I feel like I had to speculate
to interpret. Explain clearly what problem you are solving, and why the
current approaches haven't worked for you.

Btw I'm not sure what the claim of newness is; I have seen these interactions
in other software in the past (but perhaps I am missing something).

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mattlondon
The "move here" thing for me was confusing.

When showing near the folders, was the "move here" between folder 1 and folder
2 supposed to mean move the files into folder 1, folder 2, or literally just
display the selected between the two folders? It was not clear to me.

I think this could benefit from tweaking the "move here" thing to be closer to
the thing that it relates to (classic UX issue/design approach)

~~~
datguacdoh
Yeah I struggle with these types of UIs as well, where it's in between two
elements. I think it would work a little better if the right side of the
horizontal bar had an overlay with the Move Here text. That way you could tap
a much larger target and it's more obvious what it's referring to. This is an
improvement though to many patterns I've seen.

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mkl
The Moodle learning management system [1] uses a very similar UI for moving
items (links, documents, etc.) [2]. It supports drag and drop, which is more
convenient for small moves, but this method is better for big moves or moving
between sections (~folders). I think Moodle can only move one item at a time,
though.

I think the pattern probably works better for this kind of thing than for
files, as files aren't often manually ordered.

[1] [https://moodle.org](https://moodle.org),
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle)

[2] [https://www.umass.edu/it/support/moodle/reorder-sections-
or-...](https://www.umass.edu/it/support/moodle/reorder-sections-or-items-
your-moodle-course)

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rezonant
This seems to be highly tied to the challenge of moving things around on a
mobile phone (multi-touch device). While I do think there's benefits for
accessibility in this sort of UI, I think most users would prefer if a multi-
touch drag/drop reordering UI would be... multi-touch. I should be able to
drag with one finger and scroll with another. I find this to be almost
nonexistent in practice though :-(

EDIT: On a desktop you have a mouse wheel that very much serves this purpose
at least in a single-view scenario. Again, accessibility is a whole extra
layer to the topic

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asidiali
This is a really cool concept, thanks for sharing.

I like the idea, but I'm not too keen on the way that once you select an item,
the additional "Move Here" UI pops up for _every_ single item in that view - I
can imagine for longer lists, this could alter your frame of view
significantly as you get towards the bottom of the list. I didn't clone the
repo, though - do you had any considerations about this concern? I wonder what
an alternative UI would look like for that piece - I guess a simple, more
traditional checkbox wouldn't do the trick because it doesn't signal _where_
you want to move something.

~~~
vanderZwan
You could maybe mitigate that with by only having the "move here" show up in
the visible portion of the list

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cosmotic
Expanding all those 'move here' regions sure is disorienting and janky/slow. I
suggest a floating element with an arrow pointing to the seam between the list
items, that way you don't have to relayout anything.

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Ayesh
Anyone remember Tera Copy?

It (was?) is a Windows file copy/move utility that was fantastic! It support
multiple file copying, and drag/drop operations to queue files and add to an
existing running operation.

~~~
ww520
Still use it. It's good with resume-copy on huge files.

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cnorthwood
I think the creativity here should be applauded, it's an interesting novel
improvement to an existing pattern. I think it'd be very interesting to do a
bit of a formal usability study on this: set some metrics for common tasks and
ask people to do them versus a control group and see how well it performs. I
think sometimes we get all caught up with the hype of UX, but a good old study
like we did back when we called the field HCI would be enlightening here. You
could even get a published paper out of it!

------
zoomablemind
I'm interested... but puzzled about what is it about from reading the Readme
and seeing the anima-gifs

This is the case of when a picture is in a need of more words; not a thousand,
but maybe enough to word the principle and contrast the novelty.

Still interested.

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vehemenz
I like the idea over drag and drop, but the interface itself in the demo is
too low-information to use.

It reminds me of all the problems with Apple Podcasts compared to other
podcasts apps. Too many screens, too little information on each screen, and
the thumbnails are way too big.

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nailer
I would be good to edit the title to say this is mobile specific.

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thecupisblue
Nice idea, but not good enough. The long press is undiscoverable - put it on
more Have a menu appear under the item on more with simple icon actions -
move, rename, delete, copy. When an action is selected, change the state of
items in the list to "Editing" and have each folder have a "Move here".

Or, you can also do drag and drop that everyone understands.

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FpUser
I think the best concept for file management ever invented is the one used by
the orthodox file managers (Double Commander, Midnight Commander, FAR etc.
etc).

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
What do you mean?

~~~
cerberusss
Meaning, the screen is always split in two. On both sides, there's a directory
shown. All commands (copy, move, etc.) now instantly have a target (namely,
the other side).

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Ah, right, that seems on now you point it out.

I use Q-Dir at work because I’m constantly managing files on four networked
devices.

No affiliation, just a satisfied user.

[http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir/Screenshots](http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir/Screenshots)

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svecoldr
It reminds me of a bookmarking pattern. You bookmark several items and later
on perform actions on the bookmarked collections. Very interesting concept
worth investigating further .

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d0gbread
I like this. On desktop the "move here" could be on hover, maybe, to prevent
so many added elements.

It kind of reminds me of spreadsheet functionality in terms of inserting x
rows above or below.

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justinclift
> "New UI pattern for file manager type apps"

Needs the word "mobile" in the heading somewhere, as it's nothing to do with
standard (eg desktop) apps.

~~~
TomMarius
Isn't the number of smartphone owners larger than desktop/laptop owners?

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sova
Amazing idea, scrolling unidimensional UIs for the hand need more innovation
like this

