Re: the search for "recent documents"

de Sietse Fliege 05/27/2006 03:31

Spacey Spade wrote:
> Hello everyone. Recent documents and recent folders in XP has been my
> holy grail for some time. Mainly I have sought recent folders. I've
> tried all types of aftermarket software, and they all fail for files
> opened and saved without an Open or Save As dialog.
>
> I was all happy in win98 with the use of Quick Folders, by Alexey
> Rubtsov. In winXP, Quick Folders has some issues. I think it doesn't
> work with multiple user accounts. I've had mixed success with it, as
> sometimes it stops working in winXP altogether. Lately I've been
> using it again just fine on a computer with only one user account,
> but there is one difference, which is true for any aftermarket
> "recent folders" type application for winXP: if you double click on a
> file to open it in Windows Explorer, the folder the file is in does
> not get added to the recent folder cache. Lately I haven't needed
> this feature... I think it depends on what apps you use, because if I
> "save as" for the document in most apps, the "save as" dialog opens
> to the folder where the file resides. Also, if you save a document
> without the "save as" dialog, just by clicking save, and you opened
> the same document by double-click in Windows Explorer, then the
> folder the document resides in never gets added to the recent folders.
>
> So Quick Folders only works with the Open and Save As dialogs and
> nothing more. Opening and saving without a dialog won't track the
> recent folders in Quick Folders, or any other aftermarket "recent
> folders" type software. I guess M$ has to take away some features so
> that the next OS will be better. I'd say a history of what stuff
> you've been working on is pretty vital.
>
> Lately I have tried to figure out the behaviour of the built-in winXP
> recent documents. I have tried to modify it to include this
> functionality for ALL documents. I think I have succeeded, except for
> files that do not have an extension ( files that are * and not *.* ,
> like boat and not boat.txt). I did this by deleting ALL editflags in
> the registry. I felt no ill effects. As far as I can see, editflags
> only REDUCE functionality, by enforcing unecessary rules on an item
> type. I may be mistaken, but this is what I understand from briefly
> looking at the M$ website.
>
> I also wanted a more convenient access to recent folders. I took it
> off the Start Menu, and added it as a toolbar in the taskbar. (right
> click taskbar > toolbars > new toolbar...) Recent now shows up in the
> taskbar, and you click on the icon next to it to get a popup with all
> the recent documents AND recent folders. As you go about your
> business, they get stacked in chronological order, which is exactly as
> I wanted it.
>
> Unfortunately, when you turn off the computer, the order is lost, and
> the display will be alphabetical. As you work on more documents, new
> documents are added to the bottom of the stack in chronological order,
> with the old items still in alphabetical, until the alphabetical items
> get driven off.
>
> This is the best solution I have found. If you have better, please
> respond.
>
> Spacey

Windows PowerPro lets you show folders recently accessed with Explorer.
I frequently make use of it: when I right click the caption bar of any
window, up pops a menu with a lot of items, including a column with a
configurable number of recently opened folders, in chronological order
and conserved across Windows sessions.

(The thing is though that while PowerPro is Pricelessware every year, it
is not for everyone.)

--
Cheers,
Sietse Fliege