I definitely agree it would be challenging although I also think momentum is increasing in favor of alternative metaphors. Regarding familiarity, it becomes that way with education and/or experience. My wife didn’t know what the Desktop was until I attempted describing it to her, having effectively ignored it by being insulated from it with the apps she uses. She still barely uses Finder as a file manager, with little reason to adapt its file/folder metaphor. I know many less experienced users like her, possible likely to more easily embrace alternatives than some veterans with their heavier biases of familiarity and expectations.

I’ve been more satisfied letting users with minimal file/folder metaphor influence serve as my muses for the alternatives than attempting to teach them that traditional metaphor. It’s interesting trying to understand ways my wife wants to usefully manage/organize information differently than the boringly familiar ways I do. :)

It would be a challenge to move away from the desktop file/folder metaphor. The big advantage of it is people’s familiarity with it, and the fact that it makes for consistent behaviours across applications—when Apple does bother to make sure that they are consistent, that is.

I just opened TextEdit and there are two Readme.rtf documents under the Open Recent submenu without any enclosing folder indicator. But I know what you mean since I’ve seen that indicator in other apps.

I’d rather iTunes/iPhoto folders be named groups, collections, or something else(?) — with non-folder icons (like other source lists have). Naming them folders reenforces a desktop metaphor association with Finder-like folders (and files “physically” stored within them) rather than moving towards other abstractions for organizing/viewing, as playlists/albums already do to a limited extent. I don’t want to be thinking about files while using iTunes/iPhoto, but sticking “folders” in there is a silly reminder.

I won’t turn this into one of my longer anti-traditional desktop/file/folder metaphor rants, but that’s essentially what I’m advocating. Recent example of a relatively successful transition to a file/folder-less abstraction in more mainstream thinking and widespread usage: Gmail’s “folderless” mail system. I don’t particularly like Gmail’s implementation but I admire the effort and result.

To me, it looks like the ability to put playlists in folders was added without proper integration with iTunes’ other features. It’s almost as if Apple went, “ok, ok, we’ll give you playlist folders” without bothering to update the other parts of the software that needed to be updated as well.

Apple does have features to distinguish items with identical names elsewhere in the OS X interface. For example, if several items with the same name appear in an application’s “Open Recent” submenu, then Mac OS X adds the enclosing folder with the folder icon next to each item in the menu.

So it’s not like they can’t do it with a little bit of effort.

As for folders vs. something else, I am not sure what else you would suggest here. After all, “playlists” themselves are already a bit of an abstraction. They are not the media files themselves, they are lists referring to the media files. So in effect they are “documents” (think of a set list for a concert) and can be filed inside folders. I don’t really see what’s inappropriate here.

• Create two folders
• Create a playlist with the same name in each folder
• Add a track to both playlists
• Open the shortcut (contextual) menu for that track in the Library and notice the duplicate playlist names under the “Add to / Show in Playlist” submenus

I don’t have a specific example handy, but that “same name, different location” problem reaches outside iTunes, at least in the media browser of other iApps. There’s an analogous issue with iPhoto images/folders appearing with undifferentiated names in certain contexts.

Objects appearing in hierarchical namespaces without an easy way to be uniquely identified can be troublesome for usability in non-Apple apps; DEVONthink Pro immediately comes to mind.

By the way, I wish iTunes “folders” had a different name and icon. The desktop metaphor doesn’t fit there, IMO. Who stores physical audio/video media in manila folders? ;-)

You still have to repeat the step for each and every playlist, but at least it’s a bit simpler…

1) export a playlist
2) import it
3) delete the playlist from the folder
4) repeat this for each playlist in the folder

Thanks for the correction.

– Simone

So you now have two places where you manage what extras are displayed in the source list, the General Tab, and Parental. Plus the way the options are phrased means in the parental tab you “tick the box to DISABLE” – in the general tab you “click to ENABLE”.

Not intuitive at all :-/

Good point about the ‘Clear’ menu item as well. That one really is a confusing bugger that appears in many different places.