Re: If you were in charge of RISC OS...

Rob Kendrick <nntp@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:25:20 +0100
Jim <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2008-08-18, Rob Kendrick <nntp@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

(And Mac OS's hierarchy is pretty clean in this respect, too - and
UNIX's is completely clean.)

Under MacOS9 and below that was certainly true. Provided you didn't
muck about in the System folder, the rest was yours to organise as
you saw fit.

Under Mac OS X you're supposed to be limited to /Users/<name>/, which
means you're effectively starting a couple of layers down. Given that
Mac OS X is a multi-user OS it's hard to see how else they could have
done it I suppose.

I'm pretty sure you're welcome to open the root directory in the
Finder, it just starts somewhere more useful by default.

Which is what Windows tries to do. By default, it hides the Windows and
Program Files folders so that the user can't tamper with what's 'under the
bonnet'. However, it does allow you to click on a link and open them up if
you want to.

It also starts usefully with the 'username' folder which contains folders
such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Downloads, Games etc. Vista helpfully
lists these at the right side of the Start menu.

A tree view is also only a click away if the user wants full access to the
whole filing system.

As to computer literacy, the term 'Silver Surfers' has sprung up to
describe a generation of older people who are now computer aware - a lot
of them 80+

By contrast, RISC OS only gives direct access to the root directory when
you click on the drive icon and I know that many RISC OS users have
dragged all their files there as they didn't have usefully named
pre-determined folders to put them in.

Cheers,

Ray D
.

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