file extension TRASHINFO

File extension TRASHINFO description:

An ability to recover accidentally deleted files has become the de facto standard for today's desktop user experience.

Users do not expect that anything they delete is permanently gone. Instead, they are used to a “Trash can” metaphor. A deleted document ends up in a “Trash can”, and stays there at least for some time — until the can is manually or automatically cleaned.

This system has its own problems. Notably, cleaning disk space becomes a two-step operation — delete files and empty trash; this can lead to confusion for inexperienced users (“what's taking up my space?!”). Also, it is not easy to adapt the system to a multiuser environment. Besides, there is a potential for abuse by uneducated users — anecdotal evidence says they sometimes store important documents in the Trash can, and lose them when it gets cleaned!

However, the benefits of this system are so great, and the user expectation for it so high, that it definitely should be implemented on a free desktop system. And in fact, several implementations already exist — some as command line utilities, some as preloaded libraries, and some as parts of major desktop environments. For example, both Gnome and KDE have their own trash mechanisms.

This Specification is to provide a common way in which all Trash can implementations should store trashed files. By complying with this Specification, various Trash implementations will be able to work with the same devices and use the same Trash storage.

This is important, at least, for shared network resources, removable devices, and in cases when different implementations are used on the same machine at different moments (i.e. some users prefer Gnome, others prefer KDE, and yet others are command-line fans).