XYplorer Beta Club

Everybody knows what a flat view is, but GPSoftware (Directory Opus) claim that they invented the term "Flat View" for it and yesterday they informed me that they insist that I cease using "Flat View" for the flat view feature. Since they have put an unregistered trademark (TM) on the term "Flat View" in 2004, their lawyers would probably beat up my lawyers. So I need a new term.

I want "Flat" to be the first part of it for various reasons, and my current favorite is "Flat Tree". Do you have something better? (Note that "Flat Branch" is a brewery that is probably also going to sue me if I use it... LOL).

Note that I'm not amused about this. Changing that name (source code, help, web site) will be a lot of work for me. Googling Flat View yields 380,000,000 results. IMO that's common usage. If anybody of you happens to be a lawyer who knows more about this than me (and even little would be more) let me know if I really have to do this.

No lawyer here, sorry. Just two suggestions...

1) Naming suggestion: flatten, flattened http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flatten

2) Maybe you should talk with brewery - remember the ABBA story? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABBA#Official_naming

Good luck!
Borut

Yes, Flattened View would work for me.

Why not Branch view ?

jjk wrote:Why not Branch view ?

The word "flat" is already present in user code (/:flat). This cannot be withdrawn. That's why "flat" must be part of the term.

What bad

Flat Tree seems not to say what it is - it's the mix of tree *and files*.
If Flattened View would be no problem I'd vote for it.

PeterH wrote:What bad

Flat Tree seems not to say what it is - it's the mix of tree *and files*.
If Flattened View would be no problem I'd vote for it.

Agreed. So Flattened View is number one for now.

Flat list
Flat listing
Flat grouping

admin wrote:Everybody knows what a flat view is, but GPSoftware (Directory Opus) claim that they invented the term "Flat View" for it and yesterday they informed me that they insist that I cease using "Flat View" for the flat view feature. Since they have put an unregistered trademark (TM) on the term "Flat View" in 2004, their lawyers would probably beat up my lawyers. So I need a new term.

I want "Flat" to be the first part of it for various reasons, and my current favorite is "Flat Tree". Do you have something better? (Note that "Flat Branch" is a brewery that is probably also going to sue me if I use it... LOL).

Note that I'm not amused about this. Changing that name (source code, help, web site) will be a lot of work for me. Googling Flat View yields 380,000,000 results. IMO that's common usage. If anybody of you happens to be a lawyer who knows more about this than me (and even little would be more) let me know if I really have to do this.

That's the kind of matter that only detracts against a company IMO.
Please ensure this forum topic will not be touched by them by any means so future searches will reveal how ridiculous a company can be and keep up the great work, Don!
I just feel sorry I lost contact with a good legal advisor on intellectual property...

Well, Stefan's "Flat list" sounds good to me. It is not so cumbersome to pronounce as "flattened", I think.

OK, I started a rant about the common phrase "Flat View" and it's uses in photography, and how Mr. Manski tried unsuccessfully, many times, to trademark the phrase - but then I found: "Flat View™ is trademarked by GPSoftware 2003. Opus6™, Opus8™, Opus9™, Opus10™ are trademarked by GPSoftware 2000-2011." and decided my complaining would do no good, even though I could find no reference to it but their claim.

So, I wanted to add my 2 cents about a name. I am terrible with names, but I would really suggest you not use the term "flat" anywhere in the new name. If your term is distinct enough (and we all use it when referring to this type of folder display), whatever you name it will become its definition (I hope I phrased that so it makes sense). In other words, people will not use "Flat View" to describe the viewing of all subfolders on a single tree level, but "XYtree View" or "SubTree View" or "Raze View" or whatever you name it. I like Raze...

tiago wrote:That's the kind of matter that only detracts against a company IMO.

My thoughts exactly - regardless of their legal claim (FreeCommander has used the term forever), I will never consider buying Directory Opous now (and I still don't shop at Exxon - not since the Valdez "accident" - I have a long memory for these things).

I think *not* flat listing or grouping.

But "Flat List" doesn't sound bad to me, too...

Off topic, but I couldn't resist...

Trasd wrote:(and I still don't shop at Exxon - not since the Valdez "accident").

Cool. I am doing the same with my electric power (am in Austria) after Fukushima (zero % nuclear in my cables and zero % of my energy provider in the ownership of any nuclear based company).

Borut wrote:Well, Stefan's "Flat list" sounds good to me. It is not so cumbersome to pronounce as "flattened", I think.

I agree that "flat" is punchier, but I like "flattened" more as it describes the process and end result better. Also, I'm guessing that dropping "flat" entirely is safer from a legal point of view.

Branch View
Tree View
Family Tree VIew
Flat Search
Structure View
Hierarchy View
Flat Hierarchy
Flat Hierarchy View

Remove Flat from the name entirely...
Full List of All Things View