Add Recently Used File List to Desktop Menu?

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Marc Schwartz wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 09:51, Jasper Huijsmans wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 09:33:25AM -0600, Marc Schwartz wrote:
> 
> > > 
> > > I also just noticed another issue from the above file segment, which I
> > > had not before. It appears that not all applications (ie. XEmacs) update
> > > the file list. For example, if I use gedit to edit and save a file (such
> > > as above), the recently used list is updated. However, if I used XEmacs
> > > on a file, the list is unchanged.
> > > 
> > > That might suggest that there is a desktop (ie. GNOME/KDE) library
> > > specific functionality when saving a file, which would be a problem. I
> > > noted the same thing when using OpenOffice under XFCE4, whereas I am
> > > pretty sure that when I used to run GNOME, the OO.org files were on the
> > > GNOME panel recently used file list.
> > > 
> > > Does that make sense?  If so, then the value of my thought would be
> > > diminished.
> > > 
> > 
> > It is certainly up to the program to support this. A bit strange that
> > OO.o works differently under GNOME, but that's also the case for
> > folowing theme changes.
> 
> Ok....I just figured out the difference.
> 
> I logged out and (don't yell at me...  ;-) ran GNOME.
> 
> When using OO.o Writer to create and save a file, the file did not show
> up on the list. However, if I click the file in Nautilus, opening it in
> Writer, then the OO.o file showed up in the list. That's why I
> remembered the OO.o files being listed under GNOME. It is Nautilus, not
> OO.

yeah, i realised the issue of application support, but i didn't realise 
nautlius was including files via a dirty hack.  i suppose it's possible 
to have a master list of known apps that don't write to the file, but 
that seems rather hackish to me.  nautilus can't be unconditionally 
writing to the file whenever it opens something, because then if the app 
does it too, it will have duplicate entries.

the <Group> element is totally useless.  for gedit, it shows 'gedit', 
for eog it shows 'Eye of Gnome'.

> So, indeed, it would appear to be up to the application being used to
> access the file.
> 
> That would diminish the value of my thought, since I am of course
> neither using GNOME nor Nautilus.

i'm still willing to implement this, for the simple reason that ad-hoc 
'standards' like this only get application support if people actually 
use the feature.  personally, i think someone should draft a 
recently-used-files spec for freedesktop.org... oh.  look at that - 
there _is_ a spec:
http://freedesktop.org/Standards/recent-file-spec
so yeah, i'm even more in favor of this now...

	-brian