How to show MRU Most Recently Used Documents on Start Menu?

[Puppus Dogfellow]

BTW, I never had to wait for another post to be written to validate edits. Strange...
Perhaps your return key is sticky, or something?

May I suggest that you ask Flash about this? He knows the regular behavior of the forum
software through and through, and he will certainly be able to confirm or rectify your impressions.

BFN.

validate edits? i think you've misunderstood me. though it was edited twice, because i was the only one posting in the thread, the edits didn't show up with a little notation like "edited two times total" as you sometimes see on this forum. had someone posted after me, it would have. the forum treats it as the original post because it is still the post of record, so to speak.

isn't that how it works for you? if you respond to this post and no one else does, you can just continue to add or edit (like i do with some of those ridiculously long repo posts i've got) and those changes would show up with no notation, as if you were editing your original post in the reply box. were someone to post after you, perhaps referencing something now subject to change or omission, the edits would be recorded, which makes sense to me: if someone is discussing something that has changed, it would then be more obvious to any who were reading the thread.

but maybe i'm misunderstanding you--"validate edits" doesn't really mean anything to me as a phrase. you edit or you don't and you can see your changes or you can't. i can edit and see that i've done so the site's software appears to be working fine from where i sit.

whether or not this is normal behavior for most forums, i do not know. i only post in two forums really, and the other registers each edit with a notation once 90 seconds are up. i can remember hearing it wasn't always like that--because people were going out of their way to reedit stuff to make others look ridiculous, the admins changed the default behavior. this is a more benign crowd and the content is frequently more complicated; i always figured it was just a chance to get one's s. together. it also doesn't seem like particularly relevant information unless a subsequent post has been made.

[nooby]

Testing Edit a few example.
I use FF latest in case that is important to the test
First post for the test

Sorry this is a first Edit the one I edit is the original now being edit first time.

I saw nothing aboutho many times that I have edit.
This the second edit then? or should it be seen as third?
Still no notice about how many times o maybe you are right?
I make a new post and pretend to be someone else???
Still old Nooby

[nooby]

Old Nooby pretending to be a new commentator posting.
Let me look for any sign of forum software knowing such?
Edit of this one. I have no clue on where to look maybe
or one really have to be another username. Flash will know.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

nooby, go back and edit the first of your two posts now and see if it gives you the message that it's been edited. (that's what you're talking about, right? now that i've posted, it should also work that way for your second post.)

[musher0]

Hi, guys!

@nooby: Good to see you again!

@Puppus_D.:
Ah, I see. You mean the little message at the bottom of the post that is sometimes
there after an edit. I thought that that little phrase only appeared when the initiator of
a thread edited his/her first post, so it never worried me too much, since I always have
other fish to fry! Besides, I'm a bit of a maniac, I edit myself a lot, so the number
indicated would be hair-raising at times!

BFN.

musher0

[Puppus Dogfellow]

no response form the script's pop up list on precise 5.6.1 (been a while since i've checked; don't recall it being this broken).

[musher0]

no response form the script's pop up list on precise 5.6.1 (been a while since i've checked; don't recall it being this broken).

Chucks, now I have to install Precise 5.6.1 to test it. What seems to be
wrong with it? No response... at all?

Maybe a segmentation fault ? Or somebody played with the script ?

Ah, I remember now, isn't that the Puppy Precise that started burying the
/recently-used.xbel file the script uses in /root/.local/share? If so, just bring that file back as a link in /root, and retry?

Please also check if you have a file named .gtkrc.mine in /root with this
line at the very top:

Code: Select all

gtk-recent-files-max-age = 15

Or if that number is 0, obviously, the script will process zero files...

Keep me posted?

BFN.

[Puppus Dogfellow]

no response form the script's pop up list on precise 5.6.1 (been a while since i've checked; don't recall it being this broken).

Chucks, now I have to install Precise 5.6.1 to test it. What seems to be
wrong with it? No response... at all?

Maybe a segmentation fault ? Or somebody played with the script ?

Ah, I remember now, isn't that the Puppy Precise that started burying the
/recently-used.xbel file the script uses in /root/.local/share? If so, just bring that file back as a link in /root, and retry?

Please also check if you have a file named .gtkrc.mine in /root with this
line at the very top:

Code: Select all

gtk-recent-files-max-age = 15

Or if that number is 0, obviously, the script will process zero files...

Keep me posted?

BFN.

of course i'll keep you posted:

both things you mentioned have been fixed (absolute and relative link both tried for the first; "gtk-recent-files-max-age = 15" added as the first line in .gtkrc.mine for the second) but still no response from the a click on the list.

[musher0]

Hi, Puppus_D.

Just a word to let you know that "I'm on it" !

I did a couple of hours worth of research on the recentlyused.xbel file.
Problem is, everybody seems to want to cancel it, whereas I want to
improve it! People see the recently-used file as an encroachment on their
privacy; I see it as an accelerator, as help getting to re-run a file fast.
Oh, well, here I go counter-current again!!! (What else is new?!)

I also subjected my MRUD script to some more tests. (Poor thing...)

The best solution seems to go back to using ROX's launching capacity and
forget about BK's "defaulthandler". The latter works by detecting file
endings, which is ok, but limited: some files -- of all types, BTW -- don't
have an ending. So the script will at time look like it doesn't work -- and
the user will think: "this musher guy doesn't know how to script." Right.
It's not me, I swear! At least I'm trying very hard for it not to be me!
Anyway.

I realized a couple of things:
* if you have scripts listed in your "X-Belle" file, ROX may indeed
launch them, but they may not appear to be launched because they may
have had an extra parameter in the initial run -- an extra setting that our
"Belle" doesn't catch. The classic case of the "pretty girl who can only give
what she's got", as the French proverb goes. (Feminists will surely get on
my back for this...)

* Besides URL addresses not being "caught" by our "Belle"...
(Médor from the French side of the forum did bring it to my attention and
I checked, and it seems that our "Belle" stops at the door, so to speak, of
any browser. Of course, browsers usually maintain their own history file,
so there's no damage, really.)

... it seems that our "Belle" is camera-shy? She's not listing pictures, as
I'm discovering now. Could she be prudish?! -- Can anybody help me
confirm this? Thanks in advance. (Note: Downloaded pictures are
registered in the list, but not the ones you load in, say, mtpaint.)

I know that mtpaint for ex. has its own history file, but I think that it
would help the user have an overview of what (s)he's done, I think, to at
least have a flag saying something like "picture" in the xbel file, or maybe
only the name of the picture program. That would implicitly tell the user:
you also processed or looked at pictures with program Z.

The same would be nice indicating that a browser was launched, so the
user can go see the browser's history file.

Incidentally, I'm conducting these tests in a nice variant of PPrecise 5.4.3,
http://www.canbike.ca/off-topic/linux/p ... 5-4-3.html
and the script works fine in it. What the hell is wrong with Precise 5.6?
Here's another proverb: "God knows why, but the devil's got a hunch..."

In short, I need some more input by users before I can release a new
version in the wild. Thanks in advance.

TWYL.

musher0

[musher0]

Hello again, people !

Here is a draft of the edited script.

This one screens the xbel list, also opera's global history and mtpaint's history.

Depending on your "keep file history" setting in ~/.gtkrc.mine, you'll get
+/- 12 regular files, 4 URLs and 4 pics in the list.

The script is at the bottom of this post. As you'll notice, I do need help
with translating the "erase" and "edit" strings in about a dozen European
languages... Any volunteers? Thanks in advance.

Other changes:
* rox launches the regular files and programs instead of Barry's launcher.
* defaultbrowser (opera) will display the URLs
* defaultimageeditor (mtpaint) will display the pics.

I looked up how the mozilla family of browsers save their history, and it's
in sql database language. Calling that cavalry seemed a bit much for a
simple script such as this, so l've limited the choice to opera. Any other
browser that stores its history in +/- plain text format could be added for
a later version.

I used mtpaint's history because it's default on all Puppies. If someone
knows that Gimp, for ex., (or any other image editor) stores its history in
a +/- plain text file, then we could use that as well.

Finally, if a text file doesn't show up in the editor, it may be that you have
changed its attributes to "executable" by accident. Happened to me (a
case of cobbler's son, I suppose...) So check that out before
complaining?

I must say I'm happy that I was able to find a way to add to this "recent
documents" list some entries that Miss X. Belle didn't have. It's not
perfect, but it a breakthrough, in the sense that we now know where to
look and how to do it.

A screen capture is attached. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Enjoy!

musher0
~~~~~~~

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
# ~/my-applications/ae/MRUD-lst.sh
#
# Réf./Ref. : openbox.org/wiki/Openbox:Pipemenus:recentfilesxbel
# Merci au groupe openbox et à stu91 du forum Puppy pour le tuyau.
#
# Adapté(ed) par / by musher0 pour / for aemenu, fin /end of oct. - début /beg. of nov. 2012
# Rév. : 15 oct. 2013, 16 nov. 2013 (MRUD-lst.sh, v. 0.3)
# Rév. : 11 juin / June 2014 (v.0.4)
#
# Dé(e)penda(e)nc(i)es : aemenu, replaceit et un fichier ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel ou ~/.recently-used.xbel
#
# Other / Autres : opera & mtpaint
# Will work without those two, but warnings will appear. /
# Va fonctionner sans, mais des avertissements s'afficheront.

####

# Préparation pour aemenu
export AEM="/root/my-applications/ae"
[ ! -d $AEM ] && mkdir $AEM
# pour .recently-used.xbel
[ ! -f /root/.recently-used.xbel ] && ln -s /root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel /root/.recently-used.xbel
# Langues (pour le titre)
case ${LANG%_*} in
	 ca) DOCREC="Documents recents"
	 	EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 en) DOCREC="Recent Documents"
		EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 es) DOCREC="Documentos recientes"
	 	EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 fi) DOCREC="Viimeisimmät tiedostot"
	 	EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 fr) DOCREC="Documents récents"
		EFF="Effacer la liste"
		EDT="Éditer ce menu";;
#	 gr) DOCREC="Π

[musher0]

Hi, folks.

Already an update. This one is good for monocores.

The only change is that the full path of the opera history file is searched
only the first time, and then saved to a temp file. The next times, the
script looks for this temp file instead of doing a full find procedure. It
saves a couple of seconds every time, in other words the menu shows
up immediately after the initial run hic-cup.

Notes concerning the pic.
* If you've cleaned your opera history, this is how the menu will look.
And that's fine.

* If you create or edit a "new" pic with mtpaint (if mtpaint thinks it's new),
the name of the pic will go in Miss X. Belle's log. So here you have two
mentions of a defaultmediaplayer picture, one from Miss Belle's log, the
other one from mtpaint's history. And that's fine.

General note :
I still need translators for those strings. Anyone hearing the "calling"?
Thanks in advance.

BFN.

musher0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
# ~/my-applications/ae/MRUD-lst.sh
#
# Réf./Ref. : openbox.org/wiki/Openbox:Pipemenus:recentfilesxbel
# Merci au groupe openbox et à stu91 du forum Puppy pour le tuyau.
#
# Adapté(ed) par / by musher0 pour / for aemenu, fin /end of oct. - début /beg. of nov. 2012
# Rév. : 15 oct. 2013, 16 nov. 2013 (MRUD-lst.sh, v. 0.3)
# Rév. : 11 juin / June 2014 (v.0.4a; this version)
#
# Dé(e)penda(e)nc(i)es : aemenu, replaceit & ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel or /ou ~/.recently-used.xbel
#
# Other / Autres : opera & mtpaint
# Will work without those two, but warnings will appear. /
# Va fonctionner sans, mais des avertissements s'afficheront.

####

# Préparation pour aemenu
export AEM="/root/my-applications/ae"
[ ! -d $AEM ] && mkdir $AEM
# pour .recently-used.xbel
[ ! -f /root/.recently-used.xbel ] && ln -s /root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel /root/.recently-used.xbel
# Langues (pour le titre)
case ${LANG%_*} in
	 ca) DOCREC="Documents recents"
	 	EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 en) DOCREC="Recent Documents"
		EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 es) DOCREC="Documentos recientes"
	 	EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 fi) DOCREC="Viimeisimmät tiedostot"
	 	EFF="Erase this list"
		EDT="Edit this menu";;
	 fr) DOCREC="Documents récents"
		EFF="Effacer la liste"
		EDT="Éditer ce menu";;
#	 gr) DOCREC="Π

[Puppus Dogfellow]

no response from script on a precise 5.5 install (earlier version just correctly opened a docx file)

musher, is the browser history part necessary? the browsers themselves can manage that... i'd rather have access to recently opened files and folders regardless of their classification...

not sure if that makes your workload any easier, though. so xbel doesn't list all you've opened or visited? ...guess it's sort of interesting to see what i was looking at the last time i used opera...

...take it back. it just popped up after a big delay. it's much slower than earlier versions but it's asking me about run actions, which is an improvement...subsequent activations are quicker...isn't aware of many existing set run actions or they've been lost some how...will fiddle around with it more later...



...appears to be working flawlessly in precise 5.7.1...and precise 5.5.

performance in 5.6.1 is much improved, but it still seems to not keep track as well as in 5.5. or 5.7.1...some recently visited files (.xbel and .xml) didn't show up on the list...and it warned me it wouldn't work if i didn't have opera set as my default browser. no such warning with 5.5 or 5.7; i suppose i have chrome set as default in the former because that's what it used to open the links...pretty sure the other two are set to firefox...nope, 5.7.1 is set as seamonkey...links didn't show up as an option in 561...maybe it's a firefox thing (that one is definitely set to FF as default browser).

on the subject of browsers, i think a favorites section on the list would be better for most users. the history part is largely redundant and this way you get to set five or so home pages; comment the script so that users could just enter their choice of browser and site in the appropriate space. it makes it feel more like a tool and less like something that's checking up on you that way.

my two cents. i'm already pretty pleased with it. gave it an icon (going on the menu eventually) and everything.

[musher0]

Many thanks for the feedback, Puppus_D.

I might just remove the "not-opera" warning... If the default browser does
not have a +/- plaint text type history, I might just skip the section. Then,
there will be less question marks blinking above the user's head.

Adding a favorites section is already possible in aragon's take on aemenu
(he called it "Simple Puppy Menu 3" [not sure about the version number,
it's been awhile]). Maybe I could import / adapt that.

So it would become a "Recents and Favs" panel, eh?! We're getting
windowish, now, aren't we?

Nice thought, psychologically, adding a "Favorites" section. Thanks for the
idea.

TWUL.

musher0

[Puppus Dogfellow]

Many thanks for the feedback, Puppus_D.

I might just remove the "not-opera" warning... If the default browser does
not have a +/- plaint text type history, I might just skip the section. Then,
there will be less question marks blinking above the user's head.

Adding a favorites section is already possible in aragon's take on aemenu
(he called it "Simple Puppy Menu 3" [not sure about the version number,
it's been awhile]). Maybe I could import / adapt that.

So it would become a "Recents and Favs" panel, eh?! We're getting
windowish, now, aren't we?

Nice thought, psychologically, adding a "Favorites" section. Thanks for the
idea.

TWUL.

musher0

you're welcome for the feedback, musher. i like the script and use it often. i have discovered, i think, the reason why it seemed to perform so inconsistently for me at times--it can't handle files or folders with spaces in the name. is this correct?

i was about to write that the favorites aspect can be taken care of through "editer ce menu," but the text editor just failed to open when i clicked it on my 561 machine. doesn't have that problem on the precise 5.5 and 571 installations...

[musher0]

Hmm... You have an "Editer ce menu" entry in your Recent menu?

The script is supposed to recognize the LANG variable of the user.
If you have en_US or en_UK, etc. the entry should read "Edit this menu"...

Please do an

Code: Select all

echo $LANG

in a terminal on your machine and tell me the results. Thanks.

I should have a "Tower of Babel" machine.... But I know only
English and French. Shucks.

musher0

[Puppus Dogfellow]

Hmm... You have an "Editer ce menu" entry in your Recent menu?

The script is supposed to recognize the LANG variable of the user.
If you have en_US or en_UK, etc. the entry should read "Edit this menu"...

Please do an

Code: Select all

echo $LANG

in a terminal on your machine and tell me the results. Thanks.

I should have a "Tower of Babel" machine.... But I know only
English and French. Shucks.

musher0

en_US.UTF-8

erase and recent are in english. an older version had the former as effacer cette liste (or something like that--my french is quite poor ).

[musher0]

Thanks, Puppus_D. I'll rework that.

[musher0]

There you go, Puppus_D.

Version 04b. I had forgotten to insert the proper variable at the "edit this menu" line. I apologize for any inconvenience.

BFN.

musher0

[Puppus Dogfellow]

There you go, Puppus_D.

Version 04b. I had forgotten to insert the proper variable at the "edit this menu" line. I apologize for any inconvenience.

BFN.

musher0

musher, can you confirm what i wrote about the spaces in the file names?

the french is actually less of an inconvenience...

[Puppus Dogfellow]

mrudicon.png

made an icon for your script, musher0. bleu, blanc, et rouge in honor of your province and my favorite hockey team. transparent background, r and d for recent documents. easily converted back to invisible template with mtpaint for any who like the script but not the icon.