[m a d r a]

an old chestnut revisited!

i remember posting in the past about how the "recent places" in open and save dialogues made no sense to me, as it seemed always to contain a seemingly random assortment of places i may have visited over the past month or so.

well, the other day i suddenly realised [forgive me if i'm a bit slow here!] that the "recent places" popup is not [as i had previously assumed it was meant to be] 'system-wide' but is in fact 'application specific'. in other words when accessing an open/save dialogue from within an app, the "recent places" popup will show the recent places visited while using that particular app, rather than the recent places you have visited using all apps.

with me? - OK. now, the reason why i think this is a stupid [dare i say windows-like?] way of doing things:

if i'm a boring PC-using drone working in my office, the app-specific "recent items" works fine. i open microsoft turd and type my report and hit 'save' and "recent places" shows my 'reports folder'. i open excel and do a "file > open" and "recent places" shows me my 'spreadsheets folder' - since those are the folders i regularly use with those apps. all well and good.

consider however, the humble mac user. more likely to be employed in the creative industries, he is pretty likely to be working on "projects" rather than repetitive document-based work. so what happens then? let's say i'm working on a website:

i open photoshop and create some web graphics. when i hit 'save' my "recent places" menu shows me the last few places i accessed from photoshop - fair enough, so far. i create a new folder to house my new site and save there.

next i fire up my text editor and start coding my pages. i hit save and... "recent places" shows me the last few places i accessed from my text editor. so i have to navigate round until i find the folder i saved my images in, so i can save my HTML files there to. if the "recent places" was system-wide, rather than app specific, "recent places" would already have listed this folder.

open up my stylesheet editor to create the stylesheet and the same thing happens.

open up flash and create some SWFs for the site - ditto!

same with every other app i use to create bits and pieces for my site. because "recent places" is app specific, the folder i am saving all these bits'n'bobs into will never appear in that apps "recent places" menu.

surely a system-wide "recent places" menu would make far more sense?

[Randman]

Use a Smart Folder for the system-wide "recent places".

For managing lists of recent places, use FruitMenu.

[philm]

Stick the folder for your new project into the Sidebar. That way it's readily available to all your apps. When that project is done, move the folder out of the Sidebar and bring in the folder for the next job. That said, I am a put-it-on-the-desktop-and-sort-it-all-out-later kinda bloke. That way, command-D within every save dialog box and hit return. At the end of the day, you can move them from your Desktop to the project folder in one fell-swoop. Not as elegant, but more efficient for the way I work and the things I do.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by philm

Stick the folder for your new project into the Sidebar. That way it's readily available to all your apps. When that project is done, move the folder out of the Sidebar and bring in the folder for the next job. That said, I am a put-it-on-the-desktop-and-sort-it-all-out-later kinda bloke. That way, command-D within every save dialog box and hit return. At the end of the day, you can move them from your Desktop to the project folder in one fell-swoop. Not as elegant, but more efficient for the way I work and the things I do.

Try the Smart Folder in Tiger. So much easier to manage things (I hate desktop detritus these days). Also, it helps with incremental backups.

[loki74]

im using panther and i dont even use any recent this-or-that or smartfolders. I just have an organize d hierarchy for all my stuff. I do 3D animation, 2D graphics, HTML, Flash, and I dabble in programming... My most accessed folders are 3D and 2D. I have those in my sidebar. I can usually navigate manually to anywhere I need to be in about the same time it would take me to get it in a menu.

If it "sucks," just dont use it i guess. *shrugs*

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by loki74

... My most accessed folders are 3D and 2D. I have those in my sidebar. I can usually navigate manually to anywhere I need to be in about the same time it would take me to get it in a menu....

i have similar folders in my sidebar for "graphics", "sites", "3D", "photography", and "programming". unfortunately it still means a lot of navigating back and forward. for example, if i'm building a web page, i'll have all the PSD files i'm producing the graphics from saved in a subfolder of my graphics folder, but i'll be saving the finished PNGs, GIFs and JPGs to a subfolder of my "sites" folder. similar scenario with code and photographs etc.


the problem comes when i start working on my next project, which let's say is a PDF or page layout. again i'm working on all my various bits'n'bobs in theri respective apps; editng text, preparing photographs, creating graphics etc. i can sit there all day saving hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of text into the new folder i've set up for this particular project but then when i fire up a new app [eg photoshop] to work on the graphics, the "recent places" menu will show me where i was saving my files when i was working on the previous web project - which might have been days or weeks ago.

Originally Posted by loki74

.... If it "sucks," just dont use it i guess. *shrugs*....

well, i can't use it because it's rarely any use to me. that's why i started a thread asking if other people felt like i did, that "recent places" actually might be some use if it worked "system-wide" rather than "app specific"

i seem to remember that "default folder" under classic used a "system-wide" approach to "recent places" and it worked much better.

unfortunately "default folder" under OSX is pants!

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by Randman

Use a Smart Folder for the system-wide "recent places" ...

i'll have to look into this. "smart folders" is a feature os the OS that i've remained blissfully ignorant of thus far. this might be the incentive i need to finally get to grips with them.

care to give me a couple of pointers as to how you'd use 'smart folders' to do this?

[chris v]

What you need is Default Folder Its recent items menu is system-wide. It also adds favorites, and open Finder windows, as well as a handy way to immediately click on any open Finder window to make it the save to destination.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by m a d r a

i'll have to look into this. "smart folders" is a feature os the OS that i've remained blissfully ignorant of thus far. this might be the incentive i need to finally get to grips with them.

care to give me a couple of pointers as to how you'd use 'smart folders' to do this?

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/finder/

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by chris v

What you need is Default Folder....

see my post two above yours.


default folder was a 'must have' for me under classic, but i cannae stand the OSX version. it's awful!

[Randman]

From the .Mac user guides/tips.

Excerpted from: Mac OS X Tiger Pocket Guide
(O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2005)

One of the things you'll notice with Tiger is that Smart Folders are everywhere—and
that's a good thing. Beyond using Smart Folders to organize your music in iTunes, you
can now use them to help organize files with the Finder. For example, let's say that you
want to keep track of all of the files you've modified today, probably as a means of
backing those up once your workday is done. To create a Smart Folder to track these
files, do the following:

• Open the Finder and go to your Documents folder
• From the File menu, select New Smart Folder; the Finder window changes
slightly, giving you options for setting the Smart Folder's filtering criteria
• Beneath the Finder's toolbar, you'll see a darker gray bar with buttons for
"Servers", "Computer", "Home", and "Others...". By default, this is set to
"Computer", but since we don't want system files included, click "Home" so the
Smart Folder just looks for files in your Home folder and its subfolders (such as
Documents, Movies, etc.). There's also a Save button to the far right, but don't
click on that just yet.
• Leave the first row of pop-ups set to "Kind" and "Any
• In the second row of pop-ups, change "Last Opened" to "Last Modified", and
change "Any Date" to "Today"
• At the end of the second row, click the + button to add a third row
• Change "Last Opened" to "Created", and change "Any Date" to "Today"
• Now click the Save button; you'll be asked to enter a name for the folder, so give
it a name that's something like "Created/Modified Today"
• Leave the Where pop-up set to "Saved Searches", and leave the "Add To
Sidebar" checkbox checked
• Click the Save button

The new Smart Folder appears in the Finder's Sidebar, and gives you quick access to
finding the files you created or modified today. Keep in mind that this Smart Folder's
contents will change daily, so if you're planning to backup the items in this folder, you'll
need to do that before midnight.

[m a d r a]

OK. i've created a smart folder which shows all folders opened within the last 3 days. [t'would have been nice to have the option to create a smart folder based on "folders recently accessed limited to 10 items" but it seems that finder smart folders cannae use number limits in the way itunes smart playlists can]

next i added an alias of this smart folder to my 'library/favourites' so it will show up in the 'favourite places' popup in open/save dialogues.... except that disnae seem to exist anymore?! anyone know why we've still got a 'favourites' folder in the library, but no 'favourites' item in either the finder's "go" menu or in open/save dialogues?

[i know this is probably old news, but sometimes you don't notice these things [or their absence] til' you come to find a potential use for them]


[edit: just realised i'm being even dumber [than usual!] here. i was forgetting the sidebar shows up in open/save dialogues, which was why i was doing all the faffing about trying to get my new smart folder into the [no longer in existence?] "favourite places" popup in said dialogues instead]

[philm]

So, what's the outcome here? Are you simply using the Sidebar from within the Open/Save dialogs? Did you shelve the smart folders idea? Just curious.

[m a d r a]

i'm using a smart folder [set to show folders accessed within the past 5 days] in the sidebar within the open/save dialogues. not an ideal solution, but a step forward.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by m a d r a

see my post two above yours.

I'm illiterate.

default folder was a 'must have' for me under classic, but i cannae stand the OSX version. it's awful!

What's the matter with it? I never used the OS 9 version, so I can't compare. It doesn't give me much grief. Once in a while, the little tab hat it adds on will get orphaned in space, but it's not a frequent enough thing to outweigh the benefits.

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by chris v

What's the matter with it? I never used the OS 9 version, so I can't compare. It doesn't give me much grief. Once in a while, the little tab hat it adds on will get orphaned in space, but it's not a frequent enough thing to outweigh the benefits.

well, that was pretty much what put me off it. under 9 default folder just produced a 'better' open/save dialogue, with lots more options. the OSX version has this fisher price-like toolbar which [in theory] attaches itself onto the standard open/save dialogue - although in practice, [as i once described it on versiontracker] the toolbar "pursues a dragged open/save dialogue round the screen with all the 'snappiness©' of a tortoise on mogadon".

admittedly, last time i tried defaultfolder, i was using a pismo. however, even tho i'm on a 1,33GHZ powerbook these days, i'm not exactly busting with a desire to try it again. just how many processor cycles must that bugger be eating behind the scenes, if a 500mhz processor wasnae pokey enough to allow it to keep a simple toolbar attached to a slowly moving dialogue box?

[chris v]

I know what you mean about the FIsher Price icons, and yeah, it still kinda chases the window around, but I've never seen it rear its ugly head running top or Activity Monitor, so I don't think it soaks any CPU when you're not using open/save dialogs.

(okay, it hit 3.5 % of CPU when re-sizing an open/save dialog back and forth long enough to observe it in top.)