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Why We Should Stop Hiding File-Name Extensions
An anonymous reader writes 14 years after the Anna Kournikova virus took advantage of users' ignorance about file-name extensions in order to wreak worldwide havoc, virus writers and hackers are still taking advantage of the tendency of popular consumer operating systems to hide file-name extensions: Windows users still need to activate extension visibility manually – even though email-transmitted viruses depend most on less savvy users who will never do this. Additionally applications on even the latest versions of Apple's OSX operating system still require the user to 'opt in' to including a file-name extension during an initial save. In looking at some of the eccentricities of the modern user experience, this article argues that it might be time to admit that users need to understand, embrace and responsibly use the only plain-text, obvious indicator of what a file actually is.
The crap ones like Windows and OSX, they hide it because they assume the user is a drooling moron.
And most of the time they are right.
The first thing I do on windows is change the settings to show tilename extensions. Much of the confusion I see in others can be directly traced to the fact that they don't know what their files are.
Stop being afraid to make someone learn something useful to use a computer.
That being said, don't make people learn useless things. Design a powerful set of useful things to learn each of which is valuable and worth learning and remembering and then reward people for learning them by maintaining their usefulness
Making things overly simple robs users of the power to make things simple for themselves, and ends upt complicating their interaction with the computer.
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There's a whole slew of weird extensions now, that when clicked, do things.
Instead of insisting that modern OS design carry forward an old and archaic standard set of digits describing the type of file, show users visual information about the file type/associations in way that is meaningful to them. If it is an executable file, don't make users parse that .exe is short for that, and in many cases .com and .bat can kinda work the same way. Give users a visual identifier that lets them know clicking this file will lead to this action. A web icon for anything that'll attempt to open itself from a browser, a document icon for something that will open in a document viewer, and so on.
Insisting on showing people a 3 character code that 99% of them are entirely ignorant of solves nothing.
This seems irrelevant. If you have a jpeg with a TXT extension, Windows at least will treat the file as a text file not an image.
The filetype is now contained in the icon
The icon of an executable is set by the executable. Enjoy your porn.jpg.exe with a thumbnail icon.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The tendency to treat the user like a moron is common on all the widely adopted consumer operating systems and it really does need to stop.
It just leaves otherwise intelligent people utterly baffled when simple things happen because they're kept in a fantasy land by their GUI.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
My favorite is the config files for .Net programs.
When you create an "app.config" file, Visual Studio handily renames it to be [compiled output file name].config. So if you have program named "foo", and you compile it to make "foo.exe", your app.config file is going to be named "foo.exe.config". Now, hide the file extension and see the confusion erupt on all sides. "foo.exe" becomes "foo", and "foo.exe.config" becomes "foo.exe". So instructing someone to run that executable becomes an exercise in frustration as they repeatedly open the config file with Notepad.
Hiding file extensions needs to die, at the minimum. I'd like to see VS adopt a better naming convention for app.config files, too. Like just calling them "app.config" or at least [project name].config.
No shortage of stupid user interface choices. Some of the ones I've hated the most.
* Hiding menu options, aka personalized menus
* Wholesale rearranging and renaming of user interfaces between versions, esp. for infrequently used options
* Super secret hidden files.
* Windows 8
No. A user should be able to trust the name of the file.
If the file isn't really what it says it is, then that should be a BIG RED FLAG for the user shell. At that point the OS should know to treat the file as a threat.
A deceptively named file should immediately go into quarantine.
Instead, the user (assumed to be an idiot) is just left to fend for themselves.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I hear the faint and cryptic laughter of Steve Jobs echoing in the distance...
Hiding Things?
Well of course, because modern UI design is all about obfuscating control over your device and interface.
Microsoft and the rest(this includes Linux desktops) don't want a "cluttered" user experience. UI designers seem to forget that people to need to modify and control their device and interface.
UI designers are too quick to "googlify" interfaces to such a degree that vast uncounted eons of time are wasted simply trying to modify simple things because UI designers have mandated a "spartan" and oh so Sprockets-like look and feel.
Users are tricked into thinking they shouldn't see the nuts and bolts.
Users are treated like idiots, and then become idiots.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The extension vs file system property is a trade off case. If I see a .EXE file I expect it to be a binary file. if I see a file which a 755 mod to it. How would I know if it is a binary file vs. a script without looking into it. Renaming a .bat file to a .exe will prevent it from running. A file that is chmod 755 will try to run. So the file extension is actually a good way to know what type of file it is.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Why trust users to know what file extensions are "safe" and which are not? Surely the same computer that shows "ImportantFile.doc" to the user when it's really "ImportantFile.doc.exe" can be smart enough to pop up a message when someone clicks on it: "Hey, this filename *looks* like a document, but it's really an executable so instead of opening a document, I'm going to run it. It's probably a terrible idea to run it, so I'm not going to do it, you'll have to rename it to something less ambiguous if you really want to run it. But you should't do that. Really. I'm not kidding."
So the file extension is actually a good way to know what type of file it is.
No, it's brain dead. The filename is a name. The filetype should be another piece of metadata. (and not just an executable flag either - a complete file type.)
If the file type needs to be seen by the user, then that's a UI design issue, not a reason to have brain dead mixed purpose metadata fields.