Ask Slashdot: Is the Recycle Bin a Good GUI Metaphor? 465
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?
Autocratic Admin? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or maybe, as a UI bonus, it can be used as a FIFO for disk space: when it's full, it deletes the oldest file first. Except that would fragment the file system to hell.
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You could avoid it creating fragmentation with a bit more intelligence. Keep deleting the oldest files until a suitably large contiguous block is available for what's needed.
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fragmentation of the file system is no issue in our times. ... no modern OS is spreading that big file over lots of small groups of blocks.
Hard Disks are so big, you basically always have a big enough chunk to save a file.
E.g. if you save a movie
Open a big word document, save it again. You can basically bet that the file is saved in a new location on the hard disk and not on top of the old file. That is the reason why "restore lost files" tools work.
angel'o'sphere
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That will always be a problem if you use your disks to capacity. The solution is to not fill your disks to capacity if you plan to be using them as random read / write media.
For home desktop use, you should really be be upgrading your storage solution at around 80% full. You should also be using a SSD for the drive your OS is installed on.
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Fragmentation hasn't been a problem for a really long time, it's just that some filesystems like NTFS don't spend the time to place files in a way that prevents it. I don't think I've ever seen a UFS filesystem with more than a couple percent fragmentation that wasn't practically completely filled up.
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And because Windows throws everything into one partition re-arranging files is a must too. We use MyDefrag [mydefrag.com] to speed up customer's pc's when they come in for maintenance because they're slow.
If it even *is* a majority (Score:3)
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't suppose you've ever heard of something called VMS by any chance?
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't suppose you've ever heard of something called VMS by any chance?
/cry
I miss it.
But of course, you're talking about the naturally versioned file system.
/MoreCry
And TPU. And DCL. Lexical functions.
me := f$WeepsHorriblyIntoCereal
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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It's called Shadow Copy in windows.
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You mean, like Time Machine?
Isn't that exactly what he said?
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Same here, but requiring that extra key is a good thing, it means that you're more likely to be sure you want to get rid of it than if you accidentally fat finger the delete key.
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:5, Informative)
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).
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An 80gb file wouldn't end up in the recycle bin, there's a size limit on that, unless they've changed that in recent times. Plus you're right about the rest of it, when you delete a file it gets renamed and moved to the recycle bin, which is pretty cheap as far as operations go. Moving it to another partition would be quite a bit more resource intensive and add an opportunity to corrupt the data.
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Oh, well. My OS does.
There's a difference between protecting the user from a careless action, and presuming every action of the user is careless and requiring them to prove to the OS their carefulness -- there was a reason everyone made fun of Vista's security validation screens, it was b
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I disagree. In the workplace, you're not the owner of your machine. I've never worked in an office that allowed me to do whatever I wanted with a computer.
I am forced to agree with the OP. Removing tools from users' desktops based on admins' personal opinion about how they should delete things is autocratic and out of line.
While it's true in the workplace you're not the owner of the machine, neither is the "admin", you have a job to do, and a computer is assigned to you for you to do your job, that j
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But an admin disabling the Recycle Bin because he thinks it's a shitty metaphor is just fucking stupid. Your users might except the recycle bin to be there, or they might even *gasp* use it correctly!
He also presented a valid and functional reason to disable it. Some users were having problems because they weren't using it correctly. By hiding the icon, he assured that the functionality works for everybody, not just those who use it "correctly".
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http://xkcd.com/198/ [xkcd.com]
Relevant.
Re:Autocratic Admin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. A computer provided to an employee is a tool for that employee's use. To get the best results, that employee ought to be able to configure and customize that tool in any way that helps them work more efficiently.
I work with Real Computers, and don't use a "Trash Can" or "Recycle Bin", but if some pissant sysadmin told me I wasn't allowed to alias rm to '/bin/rm -i' or ls to 'ls -F', I'd laugh in their face; and if I were sanctioned by management for doing so, they'd find themselves without my services, since it would be pointless to continue working for a company so clearly doomed.
"Sovereignty?" It is to laugh.
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these are people who really shouldn't be allowed to operate equipment
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>these are people who really shouldn't be allowed to operate equipment more complicated than an adjustable 3 hole punch.
Fine, but we shouldn't make site-wide policies based on the stupidity of the worst of the worst. Thats the real problem here. Because you have one moron, that doesnt mean you need to punish the other users with stupid UI decisions like "Oh, lets get rid of the recycling bin for all because Jane can't figure it out."
Any competent admin would be able to retrieve those deleted files and pr
Oh, jeebus (Score:3)
Dude, think about that for a minute. Sure, there are people like that. Is hiding the recycle bin really going to solve your problems with them? If they're too stupid to know not to pour coffee on their machine, or to read and understand a message telling them they can't send more mail until they delete something... I submit that, yeah, they ought to have their machines taken away. Hiding th
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LOL@ IT department's sovereingty
IT is a service provided to other parts of the company, they have certain responsiilities and the employees using their services also have responsibilities and restrictions. But when the IT department decides it owns everyone's desktop you end up in a bad place where procedure overrules actual use cases and stuff just takes forever to get done.
At work, my machines are my responsibility. If I don't have AV or a firewall I may get in trouble if I don't have a good reason. If I
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that, as stupid as it may be, the owner of the machine SHOULD have omnipotent power over what happens, and is or is not allowed.
IT doesn't "own" the computers any more than the users "own" the computer. The company "owns" the computers.
Challenging IT's computer sovereignty is something only upper management has any business doing. Users who attempt to do so should get sanctioned, and rightly so.
Perfect philosophy if your goal is to get outsourced. Seriously, whenever I have an employee that thinks this way I have to educate them. IT's job is to empower the users to get their job done more efficiently. Period. You serve the users.
Users "own" the applications, in a logical sense. It's their responsibility and their right to be an integral part of the process in determining how it functions. It's a two way street.
There are some things that each side is correct in putting their foot down and drawing a line in the sand - and this one is firmly owned by the users.
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Furthermore, company policy is different from a misguided admin creating their own policy.
As I said:
"There are some things that each side is correct in putting their foot down and drawing a line in the sand - and this one is firmly owned by the users."
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That's the admins job - essentially to save people from themselves.
It's why so many companies lock down the desktop to a varying degree - Windows (to be fair, any desktop OS) has a whole plethora of ways that the innocent can shoot themselves in the foot. One of the aims of locking down the desktop is to reduce this, and hence reduce helpdesk calls.
Regarding the recycling bin - you heard the (probably apocryphal) one about the secretary who used the paper recycling box on her desk as a "pending" tray? The
Shift+Delete (Score:5, Funny)
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That's a bad habit that I got into. My best option was to make a normal deletion "easier" by disabling the notification when I hit the Delete button. I mean, that's what the Recycle Bin is for; to save your ass from accidental deletions. Notifications are just another layer and should be limited to the more "permanent" deletions, like Shift+Delete.
Sure, there are free recovery tools to really save your ass, but you run a greater risk relying on those over the Recycle Bin.
Re:Shift+Delete (Score:4, Insightful)
No, thinking before you delete is a good habit to get into. When I hit delete, I mean delete. The computer should comply.
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Versioning on the other hand is much more important, but for that I just save as a new file every time, I don't especially need a file system designed for it, that seems too abstract a concept for
Thank you. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only a poor metaphor for the few really anal retentive people who can't be bothered to learn how and why their OS works. But that's not right - the metaphor isn't in error - Trash works just like a trash can. Put stuff in and take it out, empty it when it's full or stinks. What the writer wants is an incinerator.
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What the submitter wants is a garbage chute that the users can throw files in and not be bothered by a trash can that they can see. (Actually a garbage chute for each user... not like one shared in an apartment building.)
Maybe you're right and only a few overly anal people compulsively empty their trash cans, or maybe the submitter is right and this affects most computer users.
Either way, I just wanted to point out that he's not asking for an incinerator: which would destroy files immediately. Submitter wan
Re:Shit+Delete (Score:2, Funny)
There, fixed it for you.
You Gotta Be Kidding! (Score:5, Insightful)
OMG GOOD JOB!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Let the resume' building commence.
You so smart.
No, really.
Here's a pixel for your effort: .
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I'm visually impaired you insensitive clod!
Not exactly a world emergency this one (Score:2)
OK, people don't use their computers all in the same way. I don't know what made the author think that the majority deletes everything immediately after dropping files in the recycle bin. I don't. Can't tell if I'm with the majority, but I can tell that my behaviour changed as the hard drive space increased. With my current PC, it is not unusual that I have several gigabytes of stuff in the recycle bin. Occasionally I see total free space getting low-ish and I remember that I haven't purged the bin for mont
Re:Not exactly a world emergency this one (Score:5, Insightful)
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Simple. (Score:2)
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And if it was important, it was in SVN anyway, so I can always get it back from the server if I deleted the wrong thing. The Recycle Bin exists because Microsoft wanted to emulate the Macintosh as much as possible in Windows 95. The Trash can exists because the designers of the original Macintosh wanted to build one of the only general purpose computers without any sort of command line.
And, in a nod towards elegance over safety, the original trash can wa
When they see that it is full (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if I delete a tiny little file, the trashcan icon goes from completely empty to totally full.
Perhaps the trashcan graphic could show the actual size of the deleted files relative to the space allocated on the hard drive for said files.
That way you would only need consider taking out the trash when the can is actually full.
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It goes from empty to full because it's hard to tell on a modern screen if it's a couple percent or completely full. Plus the whole point of it is that it's not empty. They're not trying to tell you how full it is, they're trying to tell you that it's full enough to empty.
Re:When they see that it is full (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember on my roommates' old PowerMacs with old Mac OS (not X), they had programs that showed how much was in the trash can, but with a liquid state. I would love to see that today in all OS' including Windows. Do they exist?
Why does it exist in the first place? (Score:2)
I don't see why you can't just symlink it to /dev/null. If you are going to delete something, delete it already. If you might want to save it, save it. For all the rest (accidental deletion) there are snapshots, versioning systems or backups. The 'Recycle Bin' or 'Trash' is not used properly by anyone because it adds an unnecessary step. I loathe taking out the trash at home and I wish that everything you put there could automatically go wherever it goes when I put it on the curb. Computers are supposed to
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What about accidental deletion before you do snapshots, versioning or backups?
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I tried looking for that file and couldn't find it? Where do I find this /dev? Is it on my C drive?
out of disk space (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are we wasting pixels on such a poor metaphor
Because, I actually want to have an easy way to empty the recycle bin. It's utilization of disk space wasn't a major concern for many year, but now with the introduction of SSDs, and the fact that huge SSDs are not yet affordable, I find myself running out of space on mine quite often. When I do, I tend to find I've got some large files sitting in the recycle bin.
Why are windows trash cans such a pain? (Score:3)
Why is the Windows trash can a folder, yet I can not just browse the contents? In KDE I can just look in the folder and treat it just like any other, and I can purge by date to clean it up. All files are exactly what they were before but with the one additional option to restore it.
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Wait, it's not? I open mine and I get an explorer list of everything in it. Sure, I can't view the actual files, or go into subdirectories, without restoring them. But I can sort by date modified, size, date deleted, container type, name, or location - and those are just the default columns.
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This is just because otherwise people would use the bin as a directory/folder as any other.
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It's a special folder. The way that deleting things on Windows works is that it renames the file and moves it to a directory within the recycling bin. I'm not sure how it determines the name for the file, but I'd suspect that it has to do with the name and path of the file. It likely has to do with naming conventions and wanting to combine multiple drives deleted folders into one bin.
deleted items (Score:2)
I know an Outlook user at work who uses Deleted Items as a place to *store* emails. We've always been tempted to ask him if he stores his lunch in his trashcan.
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Good idea, weak implementation (Score:2)
I like the idea of a recoverable deletion bucket. But, it should be less intrusive. Deletions should occur without prompts and if users want to recover files, they know where to go. Additionally, the system should treat the deletion bucket like a stack where deleted files are permanently removed as more disk space is needed.
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you mean queue, right?
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Yeah my bad
You're the worst type of admin (Score:5, Insightful)
How could this possibly be a good idea? And how can you implement this and then accuse every other Windows user of having OCD? Pot. Kettle. Black.
This is an absurd personal preference to force on your users, and a good example of an admin crossing the line from "ensuring the system works well" to "forcing the users to compromise their workflow because of the personal whims of the admin". Admins are supposed to keep users from interfering with the operation of the system, but it's equally important that they don't interfere with what the users are doing more than they absolutely have to.
This is right up there with admins who don't set the time properly / leave the display at a ridiculously low resolution, then lock down the preference setting so it can't be adjusted.
Re:You're the worst type of admin (Score:4, Insightful)
On the contrary, he's streamlining the system so that it works for his users. I seriously doubt that the users like to have to delete, confirm a delete, and then empty the bin. They're also probably pissed if they accidentally get rid of a file and he can't recover it because they've emptied the bin.
There's no great use to having the bin icon on the desktop. It's a convenience if you happen to frequently delete a lot of files you meant to keep (huh?), but otherwise it's probably a "me to" remnant of some UI designer that though the apple trashcan was a good idea.
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But is the business paying for the time it takes to retrain users how to handle the lack of a recycle bin? I think that's the point, that if the company isn't asking for the retraining on something like this it shouldn't be given. All it does is cause headaches for end users who can't or won't learn to use their computers properly.
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Dude, they're your users. If stupidity protection is something they need, and it's not something your backups provide, then it's time you thought about redesigning your backup scheme to handle it better.
Time Machine anyone? (Score:2)
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Your point number one would have limited benefit for anyone other than a software developer working on code or a website because most of the data in those user cases would be text but then it would be redundant since any competent developer should be using a source repository like SVN in the first place. The average user's data probably has a lot of binary components to it like images, video and sound so recreating an SVN-like versioning would not work very well. Versioning systems like SVN do store increme
Fuck Whether N=NP (Score:2)
Eh, depends... (Score:2)
Now, in high-resource environments, there is a much str
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Why can't I traverse a high-granularity timeline of every change made to every file I deal with?
It's coming in OS X Lion. With Time Machine on hourly backups to a local drive or over a fast network it's practically there now. [/fanboi]
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Obviously, the engineering challenges of doing robust version
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See your shrink, your meds need adjusting (Score:2)
Really -- you're focusing on lost desktop space and some kind of extra effort to delete files "permanently"?
IMHO, the bigger issue is that the Trash (MS called it Recycle because it sounded more PC and Apple already had a Trash) metaphor combined with large disk drives allows people to turn the Trash into a storage place (like Outlook's Deleted Items).
OK, this is and of itself isn't an issue, but periodically the trash gets emptied and then usually someone (sorry, women in marketing, but you're the most com
I don't think so (Score:2)
The recycling bin is wrong for several reasons:
- It is an icon, and all icons except this one represent applications. It breaks the metaphor.
- The concept of an undelete-store has some merit, but it absolutely needs to have a limited lifetime for its content.
- It is hard to find as it has no fixed location. And it eats icon space without good reason.
- Because it has no fixed position, the notion of drag&drop to it is fundamentally broken. Delete has to be a fixed gesture or command, not a variable one,
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> - It is an icon, and all icons except this one represent applications. It breaks the metaphor.
Where are you from? Mars.
Icons can represent more than just applications and it's always been this way.
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??? Maybe on your desktop. Icons on a Windows desktop can be, or be shortcuts to, applications, files, filesystem locations, URLs (smb, http, ftp). The Windows Desktop is simply a filesystem directory like any other.
I suppose in one sense those are all OPENED by applications, if by applications you mean passing the link to explorer.exe to handle - but in that case then the Recycle icon opens the explorer.exe application to a specific
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I was a big OS/2 fan because it had a shredder (Score:5, Funny)
I thought that was THE metaphor for deleting files, dragging them to the shredder.
Plus, my wife edited a .wav of a chainsaw buzzing followed by a scream and associated it with the action of shredding a file. That added to the effect, you shred a file, hear it get cut up and scream its last. The message it re-inforced was FILE DONE GONE!
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Did OS/2 repeatedly overwrite the "deleted" file with random data?
Re:I was a big OS/2 fan because it had a shredder (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need greater assurance than that, physically destroy the drive. It's the only way to be sure.
Technically, that is only one way to be sure. The other is to leave the drive intact but destroy the rest of the universe.
Multiple trashcans FTW! (Score:5, Funny)
I've only just skimmed the summary, but I completely agree, it'd be wonderful to have multiple recycle bins, each a different colour so I can organize my trash. I put red files/icons in the red trash, and green ones in the green etc. I'm pretty sure this helps the OS with housekeeping, because it makes it easier to restore the bits for future files. Sometimes, the colour is not seen before, so I've set up a system to pick the trashcan colour from a colour wheel - this helps organization further.
On top of this scheme, I have various levels of trash: shallow, deep, and megadeep. When I first delete a file, it goes into the shallow trash so that I can restore the file immediately if I've made a mistake. If I'm really sure I don't want a file, or I need more disk space, every so often, I dig into the shallow trash, and move them into the deeper trashcan, and again with the other levels, finally to be deleted at the end of the chain. It's cumbersome, but this way I can make sure I won't delete very important files too easily.
OCD Problem, Not OS (Score:3)
Leaving it on the Desktop is nice for the times you really *do* want to permanently empty those files as well as the times you want to undelete.
Off topic: Why force your personal preference on the users of your company? I think that's poor form. Let them decide how they want to use their own workspace.
Rookie Mistake (Score:2)
Some people make mistakes like this. Of those, some eventually learn. I wish you luck on your journey.
WTF? What Windows desktop metaphor? (Score:2)
Windows doesn't have one, it has been totally subverted. Windows has an "application launching" metaphor.
Nobody uses the desktop metaphor on Windows, they use the start menu to find the application they want then they open a file and find the file they want from within the application.
Or they click on the application icon on the desktop... Now there's a WTF. Then open a file using the application.
I don't know anyone who uses the Windows Desktop as a desktop...
Apple, Gnome, XFCE OTOH all get it right. Last t
Their? (Score:2)
For people that have massive OCD like me, that meant that deleting a file was a two step process: delete the file and then empty the recycle bin.
Fixed.
Seems like the person who wrote this 'story' is in denial about their OCD.
OCD leads to BOFH behavior (Score:2)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder leads to get another Windows "administrator" deploying policies to make the system less user friendly. Bravo!
Want the recycle bin cleaned up? Try doing it properly - deploy powershell and create a service similar to the temp cleanup script on better systems (like UNIX and UNIX clones) where temp files, or in your case, the recycle bin is cleaned up automagically after (n) days. Or, just leverage the cleanup utilities built into Windows. Or, better yet, if you want a single-st
Missing the point (Score:2)
Don't fight the system (Score:3)
You are correct that it is pointless to delete things twice. However you are wasting your time and defeating the purpose of the system by emptying your recycle bin.
Unless you are running some ancient relic of a home desktop, storage space should hardly be an issue. When deleting extremely large files they bypass the recycle bin and are directly deleted...so there is no need to pedantically empty it. As you noted, it is a waste of user time to do so.
However I can't tell you how many times I have found occasion to desire something that was previously deleted...perhaps months ago. Sometimes we make stupid decisions. Sometimes when going through and cleaning up files we accidentally delete the newer version and leave the older version. Sometimes when working ona project we make changes that later on don't end up working out so well and we decide we want to roll back to a later date. There are countless unpredictable reasons why we may want to retrieve a previously deleted file.
The correct way to use the recycle bin is to delete things and then forget about them. If you ever need that space, which you won't, you can manually empty it. Until that time, it is a waste of your time to empty it, and will probably come back to bite you someday when you realize it was a providing a function that's actually useful.
I think anyone who swears theyve never needed to recover a deleted file is either full of it or has a bad memory.
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As far as Windows goes, I've been in the habit of moving the Recycling Bin off of my desktop for years now. It wastes space in an area that I like to keep as clean and free from icon as possible. If I'm not actively working on a project, it shouldn't be on my desktop. It's kind of like my real world tables, I suppose. Where is the Recycling Bin to go if not on the desktop? Well, I put it in the Start Menu where you would normal have all of those useless "recently used" links.
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Maybe the submitter doesn't believe in recycling. He may be more comfortable with an OS that, when deleting a file, makes those clusters unusable until he reformats.
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No. The trash bin is a good metaphor because the meatspace version is not immediately destructive. You can always pull stuff back out of the trash before the can has been emptied because it got filled up. ....I think someone has entirely too much time on their hands and Slashdot is having a really slow news day.
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Yep. Clean out the recycle bin once a week with a cron job.
And set up an audio file with a "beep beep beep" of the garbage truck backing up to give you just enough time to rescue something you want to save at the last moment.
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It's the opposite, really. He's proposing hiding the desktop icon to increase the likelihood that the users won't "double" delete stuff to keep the bin empty. The bin's functionality would still be available in other areas. Explorer, I believe has an icon for it, for instance.
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It stimulated discussion on an associated topic, security. Look past the surface, mate - secondary considerations are often indicators of something people really want to discuss. And there are a lot of divergent opinions, and in their elaboration, lurkers form their own opinions, some are educated and the purpose of a technical forum is fulfilled.
Why are you even here?
You're right, I would be surprised (Score:3)
Because for one thing, the bin by default limits itself to 10% of the size of the disk, and I'm pretty sure that for larger disks, no matter what percentage you select, there's a hard limit to how much space the bin will take up (automatically deleting things to keep under the max size). And what the hell does RAM have to do with it? Windows is not keeping the contents of the recycle bin in RAM, for heaven's sake.