Mac OS X 10.4.1 Suggestions: In-Program File Organization

Address Book, iPhoto, iTunes, and Mail all have a similar organizational interface. In the left-most pane of the window, they each display all of the groupings of the individual items. In the right-most pane, they each display all of the individual items within a selected grouping. And now, with Tiger, they now all have "smart" capability.

For the purpose of these suggestions, "smart groupings" will refer to Smart Groups, Smart Albums, Smart Playlists, and Smart Mailboxes respectively from Address Book, iPhoto, iTunes, and Mail.

Allow folders
Could it get more basic than that? iPhoto and Mail have got this nailed, but Address Book and iTunes are lacking. It's just a massive pain in the butt to have long lists of smart groupings to have to wade through. Apple's gotten the clue over the course of iPhoto and Mail's existence that this needs to be done, now it's time for Address Book and iTunes to get the same treatment.

Allow smart and non-smart groupings to be organized within the same hierarchical structure.
As is, in the apps where folders are allowed, smart groupings always come before non-smart groupings. In Mail, smart and non-smart items can't even share the same folder.

This needs to be revamped. I should be able to put smart and non-smart items together in the same place. Moreover, I should be able to order them as I want. iPhoto lets you order things manually, but only within smart and non-smart sub-groupings within a folder.

Here's how it should work. There are three basic components: non-smart groupings, smart groupings, and folders.

Let's start with folders. iPhoto's handling of folders is how they all should do it. That is to say, clicking on a folder should display all the contents contained therein. Folders should maintain a count of all items contained therein. If you want a more specific grouping, you've got to open the folder and click on that grouping.

As in both iPhoto and Mail, folders should have the dual functionality of containing groupings but also standing as a grouping in and of themselves. In Mail, for instance, this is done by placing both a folder (X) and an .mbox mailbox (X.mbox) in ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/. Such a simple solution would work equally well in other apps. However, this functionality is limited to non-smart groupings in both Mail and iPhoto, and rightly so; if the folders are to display all hierarchically lower groupings, this would make the rules of the smart folder meaningless. Thus, when another grouping is dragged onto a smart grouping, the two groupings should be placed inside a new folder, with both the new folder and the original smart grouping having the name of the original smart grouping.

Within the groupings, I think there should be two means of ordering them. iPhoto currently does it manually, while Address Book, iTunes, and Mail all do it alphabetically. I think you should be able to toggle between the two, and manual settings should always be remembered even when using alphabetical.

Make the implementation of Trash consistent
Currently, only iPhoto and Mail have a Trash grouping in the left-most groupings pane. iPhoto displays Trash at the bottom of the list, while Mail displays Trash (and Junk) at the above smart groupings. Trash (and Junk, in the case of Mail) should always be at the bottom of the list. Address Book and iTunes don't have any Trash grouping at all, but I see no reason why they shouldn't.

Relatedly, all of these apps should have the same preferences as Mail does regarding Trash, which lets you (1) determine whether deleted items will be put into Trash at all and (2) how long before items in the Trash will be deleted.