LESSON 1.1
STAYING ORGANIZED
SAVING WORK AND USING FILE NAMING CONVENSIONS
Pre-homework:
Watch these 4 video about Filenames and best practices
Quiz
TGJ2: Quiz 1.1: Filenames
Key concepts:
using Finder, file names, file extension, folder structure, risks, special characters/‘floating’, common file extensions, the ‘downloads’ folder, spaces vs. underscore
Digital files create an organizational challenge that is best addressed early on. As a responsible digital citizen, you are expected to keep your work and files in order. This means saving work within logical structures, and with names that are meaningful. Many students fall into the habit of saving files with meaningless or cryptic file names. Names like ‘highres.jpg’, ‘new-image.jpg’, or 'image-1.jpg’, lack meaning or information. Even if these files are placed in a properly named folder, minor changes to a file can quickly result in a confusing jumble of files like ‘newer.jpg’, ‘newest.jpg’, ‘newest2.jpg’, ‘newest-final.jpg’, and ‘newest-final2.jpg’.
To avoid confusion, and to ensure files are easily found, our class will use the following folder structure and naming conventions for all work.
FOLDERS
We want to start using good organizational practices from the start. These are good habits to get into. Each unit will have its own organizational structure. For this unit, set up the following folder structure:
FILENAMES
Filenames should be descriptive. They should give the user some idea of what the file contains. Files should never be left with the default name untitled. Files may include version numbers if applicable. e.g. diamond_logo_version_2.png
Files and folders will be checked and marked periodically throughout the semester.
Marks will be assessed for proper folder structure, proper naming of files, and proper saving of files within the structure. No files should be saved on your desktop or saved in your downloads folder. Finally, no files should be named 'untitled'.
*Note: when saving files, be aware that saving or moving a file into a folder that already contains a file with that name may result in the original file being over-written.