The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

hobarrera · 2015-04-12 05:55:38

The file selection dialog (eg: save/open/etc) on gtk applications has a "Recently Used" option:

This has generally not shown any options for me (for some reason, firefox suddenly showed a single entry this time).

I find no use for it either, so rather than having it list recent entries I'd like this option gone (or at least stop being the default!), and the last-used (or maybe just my home) being shown by default.

Any hints on how to disable this? What about the "Search" option just above it (equally non-working, and equally undesired by myself).

Moderator edit: Converted over sized thumbnail to text. (Hint: Your img embedded in a url was perfect -- except the image should be a thumbnail, not the full sized image. Feel free to edit this post and remove my redaction if you want to use img tags with a small thumbnail)

Last edited by ewaller (2015-04-14 04:23:22)

hoschi · 2015-04-12 15:11:02

I'm afraid this is not configurable. I think the developers of GNOME should be made aware the defaulting to the "last location" or the "home directory" would be technical better and faster in most cases.

Personally I seldom to never use stuff from "recently". Either it's not containing what I need or I just skip it because it is probably not containing what I need and it is a bad trade-off searching their for a file and finally not finding it. So basically, it always faster to navigate on the filesystem.

Your mostly empty "recent" location is probably caused by two circumstances. Firefox is still using GTK2 (and it seperate caches?) and your not using GNOME (as it looks like).

Last edited by hoschi (2015-04-12 15:12:41)

thisoldman · 2015-04-12 15:31:31

At work, I find the recently used locations useful. At home, they are not.

Firefox Menu:
⁣ Edit >> Preferences >> General >> Downloads >> [radio buttons]

hobarrera · 2015-04-12 18:20:49

hoschi wrote:

Your mostly empty "recent" location is probably caused by two circumstances. Firefox is still using GTK2 (and it seperate caches?) and your not using GNOME (as it looks like).

No, I'm not using gnome. And this was actually the first time I saw this dialog non-empty. However, it's not related to gtk2 or gtk3: I see the same behaviour on gtk3 apps.

I all honesty though, I don't care about recently used being populated because I anticipate having the same results you've just described.

thisoldman wrote:

At work, I find the recently used locations useful. At home, they are not.
Firefox Menu:
⁣ Edit >> Preferences >> General >> Downloads >> [radio buttons]

Thanks, I'm aware of this, but this merely covers the firefox download option (firefox seems to actually remember the last used), not all gtk apps in general.

thisoldman · 2015-04-12 19:57:15

See this: https://alexcabal.com/disabling-gnomes- … etter-way/

hobarrera · 2015-04-12 20:04:21

thisoldman wrote:

See this: https://alexcabal.com/disabling-gnomes- … etter-way/

Not applicable. This would disabled updating the recently used entry list (which is always empty for me anyway), but does not remove the entry from the file selection dialog, or even un-make it the default.

hoschi · 2015-04-13 11:41:02

Hey! After reading the post on the blog and the various possibilites I was disappointed and afraid that GNOME is not offering a good solution.
But it does! There is at least in gtk-3.16 a key for this:

$ gsettings get org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser startup-mode # should print by default 'recent'
$ gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser startup-mode cwd # set to current-working-directory

If an application is started through the GNOME-Shell the current-working-directory will be the home-directory.
It is exactly the type of default which is expected

Bonus: I've you decide to use the 'Recent' location for some reason, it is still working.

Last edited by hoschi (2015-04-13 11:42:28)

hobarrera · 2015-04-14 04:06:19

hoschi wrote:

Hey! After reading the post on the blog and the various possibilites I was disappointed and afraid that GNOME is not offering a good solution.
But it does! There is at least in gtk-3.16 a key for this:
$ gsettings get org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser startup-mode # should print by default 'recent'
$ gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser startup-mode cwd # set to current-working-directory
If an application is started through the GNOME-Shell the current-working-directory will be the home-directory.
It is exactly the type of default which is expected

Bonus: I've you decide to use the 'Recent' location for some reason, it is still working.

Seems to work even outside Gnome-Shell (I only tested two apps).

Any tips for gtk-2?

hoschi · 2015-04-14 08:22:23

I didn't tested it, maybe. It looks like GTK2 uses it's own INI-File:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/134047

~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini

StartupMode=cwd

During the transition from GTK2 to GTK3 also the configuration system was replaced. The new DCONF uses binary files and its precursor GCONF uses XML files (yep: slow and awful). So not everything is automatically similiar and stored in the same way, seem like the complete GTK3-Stuff is now placed in DCONF.

// Update
Tested it with GIMP, which seems not to set the location by itself, and it works

Last edited by hoschi (2015-04-14 10:52:58)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-04-12 05:55:38

The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#2 2015-04-12 15:11:02

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#3 2015-04-12 15:31:31

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#4 2015-04-12 18:20:49

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#5 2015-04-12 19:57:15

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#6 2015-04-12 20:04:21

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#7 2015-04-13 11:41:02

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#8 2015-04-14 04:06:19

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

#9 2015-04-14 08:22:23

Re: The "Recently Used" entry in the file open/save dialog

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