MetaView: Dynamic metadata based views of user files

Hierarchical file systems are the most common way of organising large collections of documents. However, there are several desirable features they do lack. These include: good support for placing files in multiple locations; dynamic views on the users’ data; and explicit ordering of files. This paper introduces MetaView, a new approach to enhancing file systems so that they can present users with a fluid and dynamic view of their files based on metadata. MetaView allows users to describe how they wish to view their files by specifying an organisational structure based on a metadata path. Experiments indicate that this approach is viable for collections of up to several thousand files in size, enabling flexible organisation of substantial parts of a user’s file system.