S
Spacey Spade
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
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
