[fit2rule]

I've always thought computers should just have a temporal interface, where they just record everything you ever do with them, and allow you to go back and forth in time - so that in fact we don't use a 'name for' something as the primary way of finding something, but rather a 'time for' selection. I took a picture .. when was that again .. 'yesterday' .. is what the user thinks. Well, when I take that picture, ask me what I might also like to think about that picture .. tagging. No filenames, just a temporal interface with tags.

Trouble is, of course, this requires big thinking in the GUI department. There are analogs out there of the Temporal navigation, I remember it being kind of a 'big thing' in the 80's, but it all got WIMP'ed out, I suppose.

[userulluipeste]

That works out well for people that are temporal-centric, and only for things related to personal events that happened in user's recent history which are easier to remember this way, otherwise ask yourself - what have you done two years, five months and two days back from now? How about adding ten or more years? How about other things, like accessing a musical piece or a user guide for something? I would probably know some information like the author or something about content's name, but not very likely the time of its date of publication. The same for a lot of other impersonal things. Chronology is not a strong point for that many people.

[fit2rule]

Of course, easier said than done - the interface has to support this of course, but how I see it: The older things get, the more words get tagged to the point in time. You start off thinking 'work I did yesterday' which eventually becomes "The 2013 Project", which you can also see as a data fact associated with the active Temporal view.

[minor_nitwit]

Like a giant browser history?