Windows 'recent' menu

[DiapDealer]

It can't have anything to do with it, but you guys posting screenshots seem have non-standard icons for the Sigil program entry on that jumplist (@BR's is bright red and @DNSB's is blue). Where are they coming from? A standard install should use the standard Sigil icon (Maroon script S) for that entry. You are running official versions installed with the standard installer into the standard locations, right?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It can't have anything to do with it, but you guys posting screenshots seem have non-standard icons for the Sigil program entry on that jumplist (@BR's is bright red and @DNSB's is blue). Where are they coming from? A standard install should use the standard Sigil icon (Maroon script S) for that entry. You are running official versions installed with the standard installer into to standard locations, right?

I am running the official version with the standard location. The only difference is that I am using a different icon for the Sigil shortcuts. I find the standard Sigil icon tends to disappear in the black background on the task bar while the image of a S on a book shows up better. I seem to remember the icon was from Heliogon on DeviantArt (not sure, it's been a few years).

[DiapDealer]

No problem. I figured it was something like that, but I just wanted to be sure.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I am running the official version with the standard location. The only difference is that I am using a different icon for the Sigil shortcuts. I find the standard Sigil icon tends to disappear in the black background on the task bar while the image of a S on a book shows up better. I seem to remember the icon was from Heliogon on DeviantArt (not sure, it's been a few years).

- mine is from here ==>> http://www.iconarchive.com/show/flat...igil-icon.html

BR

[DiapDealer]

So it seems that while epubs immediately show up in the Windows MRU after opening them, html files, images and the like don't show up in the MRU until after the epub they were added to has been saved. At least that's how it's working for me. Weird. I thought that since epubs showed up immediately after opening, the other file-types would behave similarly. But at least I finally got something other than an epub to show up in the MRU! So it is indeed just expected Windows behavior (and as such, sometimes unhelpful). Now I can return to completely ignoring those Windows Start-menu/Taskbar jump-lists again!

[BetterRed]

- I didn't have to save the epub to see the .zips or .jpgs in the MRU list, they showed up immediately after adding, I was using the default empty book to test, see screen shot in post #8.

FWIW: I just tried adding a .jpg to a couple of 'similar' programs, it didn't show up in their MRU lists.

Added: I don't like unsolved mysteries either.

BR

[DiapDealer]

I still can't get .zips to show up on any of my machines. Only .epubs and .htm|.html|.xhtml files I've "opened" with Sigil so far (opened as I would open an epub).

[carmenchu]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I still can't get .zips to show up on any of my machines. Only .epubs and .htm|.html|.xhtml files I've "opened" with Sigil so far (opened as I would open an epub).

Query: have you associated .zip with any program?
I mention it because, though I usually open them with 7zip, I haven't linked them to it--they still open in windows with a double-click.

Anyway, the issue can't be all windows.
Reason: I usually send images to both gimp and inkscape from irfanview, through the same 'open with' but with the following opposite results in the jump list:
- Gimp shows only files opened by double-click from explorer: no 'open with' nor 'opened internally' or 'new' or 'exported'
- Inkscape shows all: opened by 'double click', by 'open with' and 'new'.
Somehow those two programs communicate with windows in different ways...

[DiapDealer]

I use 7zip as well. I've no idea if it's the default handler for zips or not, I only ever use it via the context menu. I'll take a look, though.

I tend not to make a lot of hard default associations based on file extensions. I'm forever unchecking the "Always use X" when opening a file via the context menu's Open With.

There's probably a ton of ways I could affect the way the MRU list operates if I was willing to do a lot of Windows-specific api programming, or willing to create a ton of cryptic registry entries. But I'm not willing to go there. If I can't do it with Qt, it's not happening.

[KevinH]

According to MS docs, this automatic adding of recently opened things is a "feature" of using any of the following Windows API calls:

SHAddToRecentDocs
GetOpenFileName
IFileOpenDialog

And of course in Qt QDialog's Native getOpenFilename on Windows there is a call to:

class QWindowsNativeOpenFileDialog : public QWindowsNativeFileDialogBase
{
public:
    explicit QWindowsNativeOpenFileDialog(const QWindowsFileDialogSharedData &data) :
        QWindowsNativeFileDialogBase(data) {}
    QList<QUrl> selectedFiles() const override;
    QList<QUrl> dialogResult() const override;

private:
    inline IFileOpenDialog *openFileDialog() const
        { return static_cast<IFileOpenDialog *>(fileDialog()); }
};

So we would need to change the to use non-native file dialogs in Qt anyplace we did not want Windows to add to the list such as Plugin Loading or AddExisting... or ...

This "feature" seems to have no way to disable it on a program specific level.

A horrible design decision on Windows part.

[DiapDealer]

I'm still playing with QtWinExtras which might offer a fairly simple (if supremely silly) solution to this issue. If it works, there'll be more lines of code involved in getting cmake to find/link Qt5::WinExtras on just Windows (and getting the InnoSetup installer to make a new registry subkey) than there will be C++ added to MainWindow.

No promises, but I'll post something here if I get to the point where I have a beta for others to test.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by KevinH

. . .
This "feature" seems to have no way to disable it on a program specific level.

A horrible design decision on Windows part.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Windows default programs, file associations, etc have been a shambles since Adam was a boy.

And as Windows ages it seems to get worse… like my memory.

I use File Explorer's Send to feature quite a lot. It's dead simple to set up and use, which is probably why Microsoft and applications shy away from it, preferring instead to peek and poke the registry And it's under my control, just drop a shortcut into shell:sendto and edit if needed.

BR