Folders - the "needle in a haystack" method

Currently, the standard method of organising data on a computer (for the purposes of this discussion, "data" will be computer fonts) is by grouping the data into sets, or folders. This is what we're all used to when we use Windows Explorer on a PC, or Finder on Apple Macs, and this is the method that all font-management programs have used.

OK, so I spend an hour or so going through my font collection, previewing each one and setting up category folders. I come up with a folder structure like this:

• Serif
  • Heavy
  • Light
  • Outline
• Sans-serif
  • Heavy
  • Light
  • Outline
  • Shadow
• Script
  • Heavy
  • Light
• Outline

At first I think I'm really achieving something, but the more fonts I look at, and the more folders I create, the more difficult and frustrating the job becomes - simply because the bigger the structure of folders gets, the harder it is to decide where to put things.

The reason is that things often need to be filed under more than one category. A font might be Serif, and also Heavy. Or Sans-serif and also Outline. The standard way of dealing with this in a folder system is to put folders within folders, in a hierarchy of multiple levels. What inevitably tends to happen is something like the following. I've been filing my "outline" fonts under two top-level folders; Serif and Sans-serif. Then I start coming across fonts which are definitely outline, but they're halfway between Serif and Sans-serif. So I create a new top-level folder for them, just called "Outline". But now, whenever I come across an outline font, I need to decide which of three places to put it in. And later on, when I'm looking for outline fonts, I'll have three places I need to look in.

What's really wrong with folders?

The very basic flaw with hierarchical folder structures like this is that is that "where things are" is important. When you put something into this structure, you put it into a particular folder in a particular branch. When you want to retrieve that item, later, you need to open that exact same folder. Take a "wrong turn" somewhere in the network of branches and what you want won't be there. This is why it's so easy to lose things in Windows Explorer - you have to take the correct branch at each junction; in a directory structure with hundreds of junctions spread over dozens of branches that could be a half-dozen or so levels deep, it's easy to go wrong.

To sum up, what makes a hierarchical structure difficult to work with is that everything is filed away in a specific place. When you file things, you have to ask "where do I put it?". When you want to retrieve something, you have to ask "where is it?". Wouldn't it be nice if instead of having to know where something is, you could just say "give me what I want"?

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