Author Topic: IDEA: reopen recently opened explorer windows, history, MRU (Read 41,400 times)

tmpusr · « **on:** September 05, 2006, 09:37 AM »

I've closed a window and I want it back. I need a hotkey popup list, with mousewheel support, that reopens the windows I've closed.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #1 on:** September 05, 2006, 01:10 PM »

Damn, that'd be neat, a bit like what happens with browsers, right?
Does anybody know any app that does this?
(it should be quite hard to code, though)

kimmchii · « **Reply #2 on:** September 05, 2006, 01:27 PM »

Maxthon, use it as window explorer.

AndyM · « **Reply #3 on:** September 05, 2006, 04:12 PM »

The Recent folder (\Documents and Settings\<username>\Recent) shows shortcuts to mru files *and* folders, even though the Start Menu "My Recent Documents" only shows the files.

Not elegant, but a shorcut to the Recent folder at least would give you a quick list.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #4 on:** September 05, 2006, 06:00 PM »

Quote from: AndyM on September 05, 2006, 04:12 PM

The Recent folder (\Documents and Settings\<username>\Recent) shows shortcuts to mru files *and* folders, even though the Start Menu "My Recent Documents" only shows the files.

Not elegant, but a shorcut to the Recent folder at least would give you a quick list.

You can also get to the recent folder by Start > RUN > Recent

tmpusr · « **Reply #5 on:** September 05, 2006, 06:13 PM »

Recent doesn't record opened and closed windows. Dunno what it records. Save dialog folders? Anyway, you'd need some 'show folders only', filtered toolbar app to make even Recent work a bit, because the Explorer toolbars display everything.

This Window History/Recent Windows app could simply record the window title. If full path is used in Explorer's title, it'd be easy to get the path.

Directory Opus has folder history.

AndyM · « **Reply #6 on:** September 05, 2006, 09:53 PM »

Quote from: tmpusr on September 05, 2006, 06:13 PM

Recent doesn't record opened and closed windows.

You're right. I played with this and I had to open a file in the opened folder to have the folder's shortcut appear in Recent.

A utility to show recent windows would be pretty useful...

gebeleisis · « **Reply #7 on:** September 05, 2006, 10:21 PM »

I want this app. Anyone knows AutoHotkey? I belive it could be done that way. I will try something, but I am just a noob...
Anywho, I think it's a great idea!

Peace out!

tmpusr · « **Reply #8 on:** September 18, 2006, 03:49 AM »

http://www.baxbex.com/folderpilot.html

ewemoa · « **Reply #9 on:** November 05, 2008, 05:06 AM »

Did anyone ever make progress creating (or finding) something relevant?

I thought about trying to make something with AHK but I haven't come up with what seems to me like a good way to do it -- not fond of polling windows explorer windows to gather path information and even if polling was satisfactory, I haven't thought of a way to decide what paths to count as associated w/ "closed" windows (may be tracking all paths would be satisfactory?).

Perhaps someone has some good ideas regarding this matter

lanux128 · « **Reply #10 on:** November 05, 2008, 05:18 AM »

i think this program has been mentioned before - Folder View.

Quote from: "website"

Recent Menu
And the bonus is: the recent folders menu. The toolbar and the three menus all contain a special 'Recent Menu', which remembers your most recently used folders. This menu makes it for example very easy to reopen a folder you accidentally closed. Or to save a file inside the last folder you opened. Or to move a file to the last folder you accessed. Very quickly.

another program you can try is RecentX.

ewemoa · « **Reply #11 on:** November 05, 2008, 05:22 AM »

Thanks for the pointers -- will take a look

yksyks · « **Reply #12 on:** November 05, 2008, 06:32 AM »

QTTabBar records the history of closed Windows Explorer windows.

RecentFilesView displays the list of all recently opened files and folders.

Both freeware and highly recommended.

ewemoa · « **Reply #13 on:** November 05, 2008, 07:34 AM »

@lanux128: I think somehow my system and FolderView don't get along so well -- RecentX I hope to try when I have enough resources to invoke VirtualBox

@yksyks: Thanks! RecentFilesView seems nice, but it doesn't seem to list everything (e.g. I used Windows Explorer to visit C:\Documents and Settings via My Computer but the former (as well as the latter) don't seem to appear). Regarding QTTabBar, this I also hope to try via VirtualBox

ewemoa · « **Reply #14 on:** November 05, 2008, 03:49 PM »

RecentX works better than some of the alternatives, but it doesn't seem to record things like "My Computer", "My Network Places", "Entire Network", etc. I suppose one might say those aren't folders, but they do show up via Windows Explorer...

I looked into QTTabBar a bit and unfortunately I'm currently in the no-.NET-if-possible phase of my life as I'm experimenting with trying to have as few non-portable apps as possible. If I grow out of this phase, I might consider it in the future

lanux128 mentioned GoneIn60s elsewhere and that happens to cover one of the main situations I wanted so I may just use that for a while. Perhaps studying its source will inspire a future tool or an enhancement

Thank you both again for your suggestions!

SirSmiley · « **Reply #15 on:** November 05, 2008, 04:35 PM »

My computer crashed over a week ago but, I did have folders and app's showing in recent document's. I'm pretty sure the app's options was a tweak I found at Kelly's Corner. Can't remember where I found the folder tweak.

Edit: Okay, I think the folder's are listed under Recent folder's but, not displayed in the start menu. MenuApp will show everything in the recent folder and instruction's are provided for setting up special folders. It may even be portable? The only annoyance is that it repeatedly replaces itself in the startup folder.

SleepingWolf · « **Reply #16 on:** November 05, 2008, 09:58 PM »

Doesn't the Skrommel meister have a "gone in 60 seconds" type program with roughly this functionality?

ewemoa · « **Reply #17 on:** November 05, 2008, 10:22 PM »

Thanks for the suggestion of MenuApp.

I'm taking a look now -- one thing that caught my attention is:

Quote

MenuApp configuration is controlled by an "ini" file called MenuApp.ini, which is created automatically when you first run the program.

The file lives in your LOCAL_APP folder in a subfolder called MenuApp.

On Windows XP this will be:

"C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\MenuApp".

This was sounding like bad news for my portable set-up. However, further reading turned up:

Quote

menuApp can be run from removable media like a USB drive.

To get this to work you need to put the menuApp ini file in the same folder on the USB drive as the menuApp.exe. menuApp will use this rather than the ini file in the LOCAL_APP folder.

Quote from: SirSmiley on November 05, 2008, 04:35 PM

The only annoyance is that it repeatedly replaces itself in the startup folder.

I was looking at the ini file and it looks to me like there is an 'AutoStart' setting under the [Server] section -- may be that can be used to disable this behavior.

As to applying to the issue of opening recently opened (closed?) Windows Explorer windows though, I'm not sure how I'd get that to work out:

Quote

MenuApp displays the contents of the folder in which it is run.

Although MenuApp does seem to have some way of listing Special Folders, this appears to be based on setting up a shortcut for each Special Folder beforehand:

Quote

MenuApp knows about some special folders which are displayed using a command line parameter.

The format for this is:

"C:\Program Files\MenuApp\MenuApp.exe" -X

where X is one of the following values: ...

If there were a folder on my system that continually got updated w/ shortcuts to folders (including Special Folders) I accessed recently it seems like that might be used toward the end in question, but I don't know of one. Or may be there is some way to apply this app appropriately that I'm not seeing...

ewemoa · « **Reply #18 on:** November 05, 2008, 10:24 PM »

Quote from: SleepingWolf on November 05, 2008, 09:58 PM

Doesn't the Skrommel meister have a "gone in 60 seconds" type program with roughly this functionality?

Indeed -- and cleverly hidden away using invisible digital ink in one of my earlier posts in this thread the master's work is subtly alluded to

lanux128 · « **Reply #19 on:** November 06, 2008, 01:57 AM »

Quote from: ewemoa on November 05, 2008, 03:49 PM

lanux128 mentioned GoneIn60s elsewhere and that happens to cover one of the main situations I wanted so I may just use that for a while. Perhaps studying its source will inspire a future tool or an enhancement

yes, as mentioned in the chat-room. i hope you get inspired enough to write this program by studying Skrommel's work.

SirSmiley · « **Reply #20 on:** November 06, 2008, 02:11 AM »

Quote from: ewemoa on November 05, 2008, 10:22 PM

If there were a folder on my system that continually got updated w/ shortcuts to folders (including Special Folders) I accessed recently it seems like that might be used toward the end in question, but I don't know of one. Or may be there is some way to apply this app appropriately that I'm not seeing...

Yeah, hadn't noticed that Special Folders aren't put until after I attached it to the context menu using Fast Explorer (just for fun). Definitely a useful idea if something contained everything.

SleepingWolf · « **Reply #21 on:** January 06, 2009, 08:14 PM »

Also check-out FileBox eXtender by Hyperionics.

SleepingWolf · « **Reply #22 on:** January 06, 2009, 08:17 PM »

Quote from: ewemoa on November 05, 2008, 10:24 PM

Quote from: SleepingWolf on November 05, 2008, 09:58 PM
Doesn't the Skrommel meister have a "gone in 60 seconds" type program with roughly this functionality?

Indeed -- and cleverly hidden away using invisible digital ink in one of my earlier posts in this thread the master's work is subtly alluded to

That stuff works every-time doesn't it! Back to wearing my blind-man shades for me I think...

MilesAhead · « **Reply #23 on:** January 23, 2009, 02:04 AM »

I have a freeware that fits the category. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles desired but it's a simple 10 Folder MRU list. The download also comes with a sort of Dialog launcher for launching multiple programs, but you can choose to only install the XMon explorer monitor. Here's the link:

http://www.favessoft.com/xmon.zip

(The previous design tended to flush out the MRU queue with similar entries as you clicked down into the folder chain. I modified it to use a weighting scheme to remedy the effect. Now folders are only reported if they are active for some time.)

MilesAhead · « **Reply #24 on:** March 17, 2009, 06:29 PM »

I updated XMon explorer folder monitor to v. 2.11
The new version has an automatic vertical scrollbar and
a spin button so that the user may adjust the maximum
number of folders in the MRU list. The range is from 4
to 64 folders.

Here's a new screen shot:

[attach]