Tiles 
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Tiles |
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In the DNE Desktop, a tile is simply a link to a piece of information. A piece of information is often a file, but it could also be a subdocument within a file or it could be a web page, etc. A tile can link to any piece of information your computer can access - on your hard drive, your company's intranet or the internet - in any format that is supported by Microsoft® Windows®.
Tiles are represented by a different graphic than files, and the different graphic indicates that the DNE Desktop is actively managing the information rather than just hosting it. Where a file is represented by the icon familiar from the Microsoft® Windows® folder structure, tile icons are always displayed on a tile background
Files can be hosted in the desktop portion of the DNE Desktop (and on the bench) without being actively managed by the DNE Desktop as tiles. But the active knowledge management components of the DNE Desktop - cabinet and spill - are compatible only with tiles. Although cabinet and spill are only compatible with tiles, you can create a tile just by dragging any file into the cabinet or into spill. A tile link is created automatically, and the information is accessed whenever you doubleclick the tile. Creating a tile link does not alter the source file in any way, and it is still accessible from its original folder.
The DNE Desktop uses tiles and NEs instead of files and folders because some DNE and DNE Desktop functionality is incompatible with the limitations of folders and files. However, everything you can do with folders and files you can still do, and exactly the same way, with tiles and NEs. Tiles do not change your information at all, they only manage it in the DNE Desktop environment. When you doubleclick a tile, your file opens in its native format as normal, or your web page opens in your default browser, and everything is still accessible via Windows® Explorer. You gain the knowledge management advantages that the cabinet and spill offer without losing anything you already have. And, if you also use the full DNE, you can also take advantage of all the extra functionality when working in the full DNE.
In the full DNE application, the tile has extensive functionality not available to normal files, including flexible, user-determined meta-data fields (just as in the full DNE application, the NE has extensive functionality not available to normal folders).
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