FOLDER3D: A graphical file management system supporting visualisation of file relationships

Abstract

The desktop metaphor with its hierarchical structure of folders is the basis of almost all graphical file management systems. Despite this popularity, these systems suffer from several problems, including the restrictiveness of the single inheritance structure of hierarchical file management. Although various alternative systems have been proposed, none of these have gained popularity. We argue that the reason for this failure is that these systems have generally proposed complete alternatives to the hierarchical system, thus ignoring many of its positive aspects. In this paper we describe a 3D graphical file management which complements conventional 2D hierarchical folder structures by allowing visualisation of alternative file relationships.