Currently views mangle filenames to be unique by converting a file named "foo/bar.ext" to "bar_%foo.ext". That is kind of ugly and weird.

But also in views, metadata like author="fred/barney" is made into a directory that looks like "fred/barney" but the / is a different unicode character that looks like a regular /.

So, why not also use that in the filename mangling? Then a view could have a "fred/barney" subdirectory containing a "foo/bar.ext" file!

The unicode might pose challenages for users typing the filename, but probably users will tab complete or use a gui anyway. If that did cause a problem for some users, there could be a config added to disable the unicode.

How to handle upgrading git-annex when a view branch is checked out, if this change is made? It seems it would need to handle both the new and the old names when unmangeling (in dirFromViewedFile). Perhaps something additional could be recorded when entering a view branch that indicates what kind of name mangling was used, so it doesn't have to try both. --Joey

When several files are in a deep directory tree like foo/bar/baz, that would be an annoying common prefix to deal with, which the current mangling avoids. So perhaps keeping it postfix is still a good idea, but it could still use the psdudoslash. Eg, somefile@foo/bar/baz.ext? --Joey

Related: Configuring metadata view filenames