Possible to increase number of 'Open Recent' files?

[Jaffa]

At the moment, when I use File/Open Recent I see the titles of 10 files.  Have searched and cannot find any way.

Is it possible please to customise to see more of the 'recent files', say 20 ??

[Callum]

Hi Jaffa,

The information found in the below forum thread should be useful to you

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/48835-increase-recent-file-list-size/

Thanks

Callum

 

 

[GarryP]

This hack may not work; see below for details.

And here's a hack to increase the size of the jump list on Windows 10 which may, or may not, work (depending on which Windows 10 version you have): https://superuser.com/questions/1035179/how-do-i-increase-the-number-of-items-on-a-jump-list-in-windows-10

Edited July 9, 2018 by GarryP

[Jaffa]

On ‎7‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 7:10 PM, Callum said:

Hi Jaffa,

The information found in the below forum thread should be useful to you

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/48835-increase-recent-file-list-size/

Thanks

Callum

 

 

Hi Callum - I checked this out on my desktop at home and increased recently opened possibilities to twelve, however, given that ten are available already and the roundabout way of getting the other two, I will pass.  However, thanks for responding.

[Jaffa]

On ‎7‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 7:37 PM, GarryP said:

And here's a hack to increase the size of the jump list on Windows 10 which may, or may not, work (depending on which Windows 10 version you have): https://superuser.com/questions/1035179/how-do-i-increase-the-number-of-items-on-a-jump-list-in-windows-10

Thanks, Garry, looks complicated.  I will have another look later and see whether it is within my capabilities and yields the results I am after.

[GarryP]

You're welcome. I haven't tried using the procedure myself so I don't know how well, or if, it works.
As for AD/AP, allowing user to set their preferred number - up to a reasonable value (whatever I mean by reasonable) - shouldn't be too difficult to implement considering what the rest of the software can do. It's probably just a constant somewhere. Or maybe it's a maximum set by whatever APIs or whatever the developers are using. I don't know, but 10 seems to be a small number for people busy with lots of files.

[photophart]

The registry hack in the link above contains an error. In the second part the dword in the new registry entry is not named. The first part is correct. Nevertheless, if you are on the latest version of Windows 10: version 1803, the registry change does nothing and the jump list remains at 10 items.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

As for AD/AP, allowing user to set their preferred number - up to a reasonable value (whatever I mean by reasonable) - shouldn't be too difficult to implement considering what the rest of the software can do. It's probably just a constant somewhere. Or maybe it's a maximum set by whatever APIs or whatever the developers are using.

For Macs, the maximum number of items in an app's Open Recent menu is controlled by the OS, not the app. It is a global setting that affects all apps equally, but there is a maximum (50 items total) that can not be exceeded.

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

I don't know, but 10 seems to be a small number for people busy with lots of files.

I have lots of files but at least for me, setting the max anything above 15 quickly becomes harder to use than other methods provided by the OS.

[GarryP]

@photophart Thanks for adding that. I've edited my previous post so people know it might not actually be useful.
@R C-R I never knew that was a restriction at the OS-level for Macs; it's a nice bit of info'. However, if the application keeps a list of recent files for itself then surely it can make that list as long - or short - as it wants, just ignoring the OS-specific recent files list? It's just a list of strings after all.

I agree that having more than 15 in the main File menu can make the menu look horrible but, as Affinity does, if the list is in a sub-menu then more than 15 could be better accommodated. Maybe the list could be organised by folder, as in my very-crudely-drawn example, or maybe not, I've not thought about it very much.

But, as you say, there are probably better methods of organising things. I wonder if anyone is willing to share some good methods that people can learn from.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

@R C-R I never knew that was a restriction at the OS-level for Macs; it's a nice bit of info'. However, if the application keeps a list of recent files for itself then surely it can make that list as long - or short - as it wants, just ignoring the OS-specific recent files list? It's just a list of strings after all.

I don't know all the details, but it is not just a simple list of filename or file path strings independent of the one maintained by the OS. If that was all it was, there would be no way for the app to keep it current when files were deleted from or moved around in the local filesystem or cloud storage unless it constantly polled the OS for that info & updated its list accordingly.

As for organizing the list by folder, consider that a file could be deeply nested in the folder hierarchy, enclosed by a dozen or more higher level folders, so a user would have to work through a lot of different folder submenus to access it.

What I do to keep things organized is mostly to rely on Mac OS features like 'smart folders' (which are just saved searches), the open dialog search field that searches the Spotlight index for matches, and/or tags I have added to files. It probably would not work very well for anybody else but it is all I need.

[GarryP]

@R C-R I wouldn't have thought that the app would have to constantly poll the file system to see if the files still existed. Most modern OSes have a "watch" function and even if that wasn't used - for whatever reason - then it would only have to check when the user opened the "recent files" menu. Or at set intervals. Or even just at start-up (it's easy enough to have a "file doesn't exist dialog"). Read the list -> Does the file exist? Yes: Keep it in the list, No: Drop it from the list. (I have no idea how this would work with NAS/Cloud files.)

As for the folder structure, the idea that I was trying to get over was that the path (without filename) would be in the first sub-menu and the filenames would be in the second sub-menu (no more sub-menus after that). The path by itself would be shown in the first sub-menu if there were more than one recent file in that folder. If there was only one recent file in that folder then path+filename would be shown in the first sub-menu.

For example:
Open Recent ->
    Documents\Work\WIP\CompanyA\Brochure June 2018\
        Cover Page.afdesign
        Contents Page.afdesign
        Back Page.afdesign
    Documents\Work\WIP\CompanyB\Flyer July 2018\
        Version 1.afdesign
        Version 2.afdesign
    Documents\Work\Archive\CompanyA\Poster August 2017\Version 1.afdesign
    Documents\Work\Archive\CompanyD\Flyer May 2016\Version 2.afdesign

It would help people to find what they are looking for. Also, as above, when you have more than one document with the same name (e.g Version1, Version2) in different folders it would help to see what folder it was in before you opened it, so you can pick the right one. In AD, as it is now, there's no way to tell where the file is from.

This path/filename arrangement is how I expect my "mini-DAM" to work when I eventually get round to finishing it - see attached (extremely early) demo - so I hope it's a workable solution. Back to the drawing board if not.

For file organisation, I should really have a look at what's available in Windows these days. I'm using it like I did more than ten years ago and I'm sure things must have moved on a bit since then.

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Read the list -> Does the file exist? Yes: Keep it in the list, No: Drop it from the list. (I have no idea how this would work with NAS/Cloud files.)

Since it can take a while to access NAS or cloud files, just polling the OS for that info when a user opened the menu item could introduce stalls & even time outs if it worked like that. The "watch" function you mentioned in the Mac OS is provide by the Metadata Server (the same thing that powers Spotlight) which monitors the file system for changes in the background. Since all file accesses are done by the OS & any changes are recorded by this server as they are made anyway, this is what apps use to keep the "Open Recent" menu items current. There is no need for the app to initiate a check when the menu is accessed by a user to see if a file exists, if has been moved, or whatever -- that already was done whenever those changes were made & is immediately available to the app. But that is only possible because the list is maintained by the OS, not the app, & it is not just a list of filename or file path strings.

It is actually a lot more complicated than that but like I said, I don't know all the details, so I can only provide a broad overview of all this stuff. For one thing, there are lots of daemons running in the background that provide various system level services to apps besides the ones provided by the Metadata Server. Apps can't (or at least should not) do anything that interferes with them or delays their execution. That can lead to file system errors & data loss, create security vulnerabilities, cause crashes or mis-operation in any app that relies on those services, & other hard to diagnose problems.

The tl;dr version is (to the best of my understanding) that no matter how convenient it would be for users, apps are not allowed to do much of anything without strict OS supervision; otherwise bad things can & often do occur.

[GarryP]

It sounds a lot more complicated than it first seems. Maybe best to just let the OS do its thing.
It would still be nice if the Affinity applications would show the path - or at least a generous amount of it - along with the filename though, just so the user can see where the file comes from.

[emptyT]

Please increase the number of 'Open recent' files!

[Grayhem]

Hearkening back to the days of Pageplus X9, there was a very useful start window that had the option to display a visual list [with a thumbnail and a filepath] of all your recent files, going as far back as three months [!!] - this was such a timesaver when working with a pile of different documents. If only a similar sort of thing would be remade for the affinity apps!!

Seeing the thumbnail of each design was often a much easier way to finding what I needed, than remembering what the name of the file was. 

[GarryP]

6 minutes ago, Grayhem said:

very useful start window that had the option to display a visual list [with a thumbnail and a filepath] of all your recent files

This has been requested before, including (but not limited to):
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/79369-start-screen-with-recent-documents/
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/89544-startup-assistant/