Why haven't file managers improved as much as browsers?

Is it because webbrosers bring money while file managers don't?

Is it because current file managers are just great and do the work?

Why practically none of the alternate file managers for various platforms haven't become mainstream.

Think about IE4 and WindowsExplore back in '95, they were practically the same thing

Now, we have new serious contenders ( such as Firefox and Chrome ) that are pulling IE8 in the shape it has. While the WindowsExplorer is pretty much the same old thing.

EDIT

Something I really really hate from most file manager is that I have to "click" too much to get into a folder which is too deep in the file system.

Of course I could be more organized, but, why is it faster for me to go to superuser.com than to c:\Users\oreyes\some\folder\with\some\other\path\superuser.txt?

( in Google Chrome I just type F6 + S + u + Enter )

Something is wrong here. I could create shortcuts, but again, it doesn't scale. I think file managers could do a better job.

Solution 1:

File Manager tightly represent the underlying file system model of the operating system. You may remember, Windows Vista in the early Longhorn development period presented another pillar called WinFS, a re-thinking of how file systems should work to make it easier for users to find/locate their files and material without having to worry too much where exactly they are stored. Just query the database for it, was the basic premise.

This drastic re-engineering got so complex that it ultimately got cut-out, to give it time to propely mature and stabilise for a much later version of Windows (certainly not in Windows 2008 or 7). How to abstract all these to make it look like a traditional NTFS system so we don't have to re-engineer all our applications and programs that only "believe" in old-school file systems, that is a monumental problem indeed.

Once this type of file system is in place, you can expect a paradigm shift to take place with the UI design of the "file manager".

Solution 2:

File Managers have changed. I have Windows XP, Vista and 7 machines in my house, and use Windows 98 (shudder) quite regularly. There has been a massive improvement in Windows Explorer throughout all of them. XP saw 'Common Tasks' (or whatever it is called) brought to a little sidebar thingy, allowing for quick and easy actions (such as extracting a zip archive, which Explorer has evolved to handle natively, or burn a CD), Vista had the built in (improved) search and a better sidebar thingy for quick shortcuts around the file system. Windows 7 has even more great improvements with better search, a better sidebar, Libraries and all sorts of goodies. I am sure if you looked you would notice a drastic change and improvement has Explorer got older.