Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [47]
Unlike the author initials and date, the topic is optional. While the topic is usually helpful, some files are unimportant enough that they’re not worth the user’s effort to type in a topic. For example, saving an ordinary e-mail from John Smith, I might just call it js-0925.txt, and if he sends several during the day I would just use digits to designate the order: js-0925-1.txt, js-0925-2.txt, and so on.
Extension
Most Windows software adds the file extension (e.g., “.txt” or “.pdf” in the example files above) automatically when creating a file, so users don’t have to type it. And on Macs, the extension is usually unnecessary if the file is going to be used only on Macs. However, Mac users who might share a file with Windows users may need to manually add the extension, since Windows often needs the extension in order to know what application to open it with.33
Space name files
While the file naming scheme is usually helpful, there are some special kinds of files that are worth making exceptions for. One is the “space name” file.
In a given folder there are often one or two files that you open much more frequently than any others. The trick is to name these popular files with a space character at the beginning, so that they are listed first—at the very top of the project folder—when files are sorted by name.34 This makes it easier and quicker to access those files. When viewing any folder, just hitting the space bar usually selects the top file, allowing you to then open it with a single keystroke.
For example, in my project folders, I often create a file called “contact” (that’s the space character, then the word “contact”, without the quotation marks) to hold the contact information of everyone involved in the project. Without this special file, their contact info might be scattered across different locations—in an address book, a shared database, or on a website somewhere. The “contact” file makes things easier, since whenever I need to find someone’s e-mail, phone number, or postal address, I know exactly where to look. Moreover, the amount of data in the file is limited, since it’s confined to the people on that project. Instead of searching Outlook or some other address book and scrolling through an endless list of names, I can open “contact” and find the person right away.35
There are many possible uses of this trick, like a “schedule” file, if the project schedule is something you often need to consult. Just remember that space name files work only if they’re exceptions and not the rule. The fewer such files there are in a project folder, the more prominent they are.
Ongoing files: canvases and log files
The distinctive quality of space name files, apart from their name, is that the user edits them on an ongoing basis. This is precisely why they don’t contain a date in the file name. In contrast, a file named using the naming scheme includes the creation date, since it is a “one-off” or snapshot of bits created at one moment, on one day.
There are two kinds of ongoing files: the canvas and the log file. (All space name files are ongoing, though not all ongoing file names need to start with a space.)
A canvas is any file that the user may want to continually edit, making changes and saving them in the same file. A canvas’s file name doesn’t include a date, since the canvas may contain bits from many different days. For example, the “contact” file described above is a canvas, since the user can continually update the file to keep everyone’s contact information up to date.
A specialized type of canvas is the log file. This is a canvas divided into individual entries that are organized chronologically, much like a diary. Generally the most recent entry is on top, so that the