FILE SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING ITEMS OF DIFFERENT TYPES AND FROM DIFFERENT PHYSICAL LOCATIONS

摘要

A file system for displaying items of different types and from differentphysicallocations. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a wide scope ofitems may beavailable. In other words, the system is able to represent items from multiplephysicallocations (e.g., different hard drives, different computers, different networklocations,etc.) so that to a user all the items appear to be from one location. The filesystem utilizesvirtual folders. The virtual folders expose regular files and folders to usersin differentviews based on their metadata instead of the actual physical underlying filesystemstructure on the disk. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, non-file itemsmay be represented in the virtual folders. In other words, files that arestored in memoryare located in a physical store. The virtual folders can be made to includeitems that arenot currently represented in the physical store. Examples of non-file itemsare e-mailsand contacts.