Manage Recent Files List - It's useless if you run a Book operation!
The Recent Files list gets FILLED UP with chapter files if I run a Book operation. All my other projects get pushed off the list, even though all I did was re-paginate a book. This makes the Recents list useless! Please fix this!
The Recent Files list MUST BE MANAGEABLE if it is to be useful. Files get "touched" for very trivial reasons, sometimes just to look at something in the file. This results in an almost random listing of Recents. Please understand how a Recents list can be useful -- don't just blindly list files by "changed date".
Anonymous
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David's suggestion is a good one -- just list the BOOK FILE, and don't list the chapter files that it references, since the book file itself serves the same purpose (much more usefully) as the Recent Workspace.
Unfortunately, this still requires maintaining some metadata on the chapter files, since they may be opened individually and not through the book file. The programming required to do this would be better applied to improving the overall functionality of the Recent Workspace itself. So many file management features are missing that the whole panel is little more than just a huge version of the original drop-down recent file list.
We need to MANAGE recent files, sort by date or project or client, honor the file system so files can be organized, handle more than a few dozen files, group by key-words, etc.
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I agree that David's solution to the book problem is simpler than what I'm requesting. But file management by project or by client (or anything else if keywords are supported) is a basic need for anyone working with large numbers of files, projects, or clients. So I would be very grateful if David's solution were implemented. But I'd still be in serious need for a really useful Recent Files facility. All it is now is a visually lavish equivalent to the old dropdown list of the last <n> files opened. Useful, yes, but only in a tremdously limited, unimaginative way.
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It would certainly help if ID just excluded books accessed via the Book panel, but (a) often one has to access those files outside the Book panel, and ID would have to check to see if a file is part of a book, (b) some files are used both in a book and as stand-alone files, and (c) file management is still desperately needed for organizing clients, projects, etc.
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David Forthoffer
commented
I heartily advocate for a solution to this Book problem, though I propose a simpler solution than "Manage Recent Files List."
I suggest that if a file is opened via the Book document (e.g., Book.indb), then do NOT include that file (chapter) in the Recent File List. Such files are already easy to access—through the Book panel.