Ask Slashdot: Is the Recycle Bin a Good GUI Metaphor?

dsginter writes "During a recent Windows 7 upgrade, I disabled the 'Recycle Bin' from appearing on the user desktop. Why? Because this allows the users to retrieve errant deletions. While this was the goal of the 'Recycle Bin' in the first place, most people (including myself) are in the good habit of keeping a tidy workspace and 'taking out the trash' when they see that it is full. For some people, their OCD meant that deleting a file was a two step process: delete the file and then empty the recycle bin. By disabling it from view, I have found that the original function is restored for the smattering of times that it is actually needed. Why are we wasting pixels on such a poor metaphor?" Going further, is there some combination of metaphor and method of use that you'd find more useful or natural?

Comments

Re:Autocratic Admin?

[wampus]

You just described NTFS shadow copies. Also, the recycle bin can have a set maximum size and it will start deleting the oldest files if it is never emptied.

Re:Autocratic Admin?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not why "restore lost files" tools work. They work because when you delete something the data on hard drive is still there. Pushing delete wont overwrite it.

Re:Autocratic Admin?

[iluvcapra]

Why not make the recycle bin a separate filesystem? Allocate a block of disk of pre-defined size for the recycle bin.

Because that would cause deletions that now run in O(1) to run in O(n) (at least); a deleted file (maybe an 80 gig video file) would have to be copied to the deletion FS before the deletion operation was complete. The idea of the Trash Can (eff this Recycle Bin noise) is that it's an abstraction that lives on top of the filesystem and allows interaction with files without regard for their filesystem, or if they're even filesystem entities at all; they might be resources on a WebDAV server, or references to files on an FTP or SMB. Trash Cans are entities of the Desktop Manager and are used for managing the user's session with the Desktop, and only presents of facade of underlying operations. And your rules for dealing with all the exceptional cases basically would make it impossible for a casual user to know if his file was even going to stay in the trash, or if they'd even be able to go in the trash at all (instead of going straight to being unlink) with a sudo, or constantly putting up "Are you sure you want to... This can only be deleted if..." messages).