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by angdis 3812 days ago
I think the underlying problem here is the expectation that you, the user, should be able to find stuff by looking "in" particular places. This is perfectly reasonable if you're dealing with a fairly limited set of files or executables, but that era has been slipping away for the last 5 years or more.

It is no surprise that the question comes from 2011. I believe that was near when Unity came out and Ubuntu did away with mouse menus to find "Programs" in favor of just searching for what you have. A lot of folks did not like it at first but I think its no longer an issue.
1 comments
drzaiusapelord 3812 days ago
>A lot of folks did not like it at first but I think its no longer an issue.

The sudden popularity of Mint and ElementaryOS at the time of Unity tells me its still an issue. Those who care just left. Personally, I couldn't use Unity on a daily basis for this and other reasons.

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angdis 3812 days ago
OK, but even now Windows folks have largely given up on pressing <windows>/<All Programs> and looking for what they want.

There's simply too much stuff on a typical computer these days for a user to pick out what they want from a dropdown, yes, even if nested.

It is the same problem that Yahoo once had back in the day when it tried to "Categorize" the internet. At some point such attempts at categorization break down and you gotta look at more sophisticated strategies for search.

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csydas 3812 days ago
Well, I think this is sort of where Spotlight on OS X came from. Spotlight was pushed pretty hard when it came out as the new way to interact with your files, and for the most part it has lived up to its claims, allowing you to search concepts or text within a file and get nigh instant results, and it has only gotten better with SSDs now being default in so many Macs.

Of the users I've worked with over the last 10 years, many older users still hang on to rigid folder hierarchies, but I have noticed some users who are used to Spotlight and the faster Windows searches doing away with these strict hierarchies in favor of just a really well indexed search.

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vanattab 3812 days ago
This is precisely when and why I made the switch to mint.
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