Xfce Forum

johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

hi

i cannot figure out why this file, called "my snippets", is not showing up in panel widget Places > Recent Documents.

any ideas?

thx

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arch xfce x86_64

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Which distro and which version of the plugin are you running?

Is there an entry for your "my snippets" file in the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file?

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johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Which distro

linux mint 17.x rebecca

which version of the plugin are you running?

how to determine? i'm using xfce 4.12

Is there an entry for your "my snippets" file in the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file?

nope

thx

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arch xfce x86_64

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Is there an entry for your "my snippets" file in the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file?

nope

Do other files that you open up show up in the recent documents?
What application do you use to open that file?
Are you opening that file as your user or as root?

Can you post back the results of:

ls -l ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

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johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Do other files that you open up show up in the recent documents?

yes, as shown in the pic.

What application do you use to open that file?

leafpad, or any other text reader.

Are you opening that file as your user or as root?

as me, not root.

Can you post back the results of:

ls -l ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

$ ls -l ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel
-rw------- 1 eggman eggman 14959 Jul  5 12:51 /home/eggman/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

i noticed some other files don't appear in recent menu. Some do, some don't. They are all on the same partition.

thx!

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arch xfce x86_64

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Hmm.
Can you open the "my snippets" file using leafpad (or whatever editor you used) and save it as "my snippets.txt"? Then see if it displays. Maybe its somehow related to recognizing the mime type.

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johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

i did your test. Saw same result, with or without the extension.

and some more tests, with some interesting results:

- right-click inside a folder in thunar. Pick "Create > Empty File".
- open the file in your text-reader (leafpad in my case).
- type something, and quit your text-reader, saving the file.
- the file will NOT be found the Places > Recent Documents menu.

- copy a text file from another folder.
- open the copy. type something, and quit your text-reader.
- the file will NOT be found the Places > Recent Documents menu.

- open your text-reader from it's program launcher.
- type something.
- quit, saving the file.
- the file WILL be found the Places > Recent Documents menu.

Last edited by johnywhy (2015-07-06 02:03:35)

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arch xfce x86_64

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

While doing these same three tests, can you check whether the file you saved gets listed in the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file?

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johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

While doing these same three tests, can you check whether the file you saved gets listed in the ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel file?

as expected, the only one that gets listed in recently-used.xbel is the one created in leafpad, ie the only one in my test above that shows up in the recent documents menu.

thx

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arch xfce x86_64

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

If the file isn't showing up in the recently-used.xbel file, then it won't be displayed by the places plugin.

I just tested leafpad, mousepad and gedit and only leafpad doesn't create an entry in that file for your first two scenarios - the others did. I think the issue is with the text editor that you are using, in this case, leafpad.

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johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

reported here

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1472376
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12050

i could not find a bug tracker for leafpad itself.

thx

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arch xfce x86_64

Sharky

Member

Registered: 2014-08-16

Posts: 51

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Hi Toz, others,

Hopefully this is ok to necromance; I've got some more info which will hopefully assist in decrypting this bug.

I have a similar issue. I use mousepad which adds things to recently-used.xbel just fine, including recently-used.xbel itself. However, libreoffice files (xlsx & docx for sure, probably others) aren't added if opened via Thunar nor via the libreoffice menus. HOWEVER: once I extended my list of recents to 25, an docx file was there from yesterday. I opened this in thunar to check it but ALSO attached it onto an email in gmail in Firefox.

My original thought was that recent documents entries would be created when files are opened through a number of ways, including double click in Thunar, and since this wasn't happening for a number of file types, I assumed Thunar was to blame. But maybe it's not handled by Thunar at all and thus the programs themselves are to blame for not creating the 'file opened' notification? I'm feeling in the dark here as I don't know how recently-used.xbel and its friends work.

Similarly jpg files (and presumably others) clicked in thunar and opened in Geeqie don't trigger a recent document entry. BUT, having just checked, attaching the same file to an email in gmail on firefox DOES trigger a recent docs entry.

So:
1. Firefox has it's shizzle together.
2. IDK if Thunar is *supposed* to trigger RD entries. If so, it isn't doing so for various file types. But it's probably not responsible. It seems like
3. The responsibility lies with individual programs and they're not doing it right. Including but (probably) not limited to:
- Geeqie
- LibreOffice
- Leafpad

Taking this forward: Toz/anyone can you corroborate my guesswork on how this process is supposed to work? Is there documentation for what programs are supposed to do to trigger RD / recently-used.xbel entries? Can this thread serve as a working doc / megathread for people to post programs which aren't working, with a view to reporting as bugs in the relevant places, with a standard explanation and instructions to developers for how to remedy it?

johnywhy

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 288

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

Taking this forward: Toz/anyone can you corroborate my guesswork

not a necropost if it's still a bug, which it still is.
Plz add your comments here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1472376

https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12050

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arch xfce x86_64

Tabespe

Member

Registered: 2019-12-04

Posts: 129

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

It's a pity, that this will not be fixed. When I open a *.png in thunar or when I open a txt with featherpad, then this files do also not appear in "recent used documetns".

So for me, this plugin is absolutely useless.

KBar

Member

Registered: 2021-11-05

Posts: 689

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

I've started facing a similar problem since today. Mousepad can't read the recently-used.xbel file. All other applications are working fine but Mousepad refuses to read it. It registers every file that it opens in this file but cannot read.

I'm pretty it started after I increased the number of entries Whisker Menu's Recently Used category (from 10 to 30). Resetting this doesn't help.

I also reset-recursively org.xfce.mousepad. No luck.

Edit:

A-ha! So if I open any plain text file via Thunar, Mousepad correctly lists all recent documents. However, when started standalone, the list is empty. I have no idea how this could be possible considering that I've never had a problem until today.

Last edited by KBar (2021-11-09 19:21:48)

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CwF

Member

Registered: 2018-01-28

Posts: 305

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

I've never figured this out either. Any file type I open from thunar into mousepad always shows up in xbel. But I'd like *.ct files from CherryTree, and other self created things to show up too and they don't. So it's not Thunar or the app alone that seems to be reponsible for placing the entry in xbel?

I have no idea if this is program deal, or a message bus daemon setup? But is an old, annoying, minor issue.

KBar

Member

Registered: 2021-11-05

Posts: 689

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

I wouldn't say it's minor, but it's definitely annoying.

Edit: out of curiosity, I launched Mousepad under root and, lo and behold, the history is right there!

Last edited by KBar (2021-11-10 04:35:56)

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Remember to edit the subject of your topic to include the [SOLVED] tag once you're satisfied with the answers or have found a solution (in which case, don't forget to share it as well), so that other members of the community can quickly refer to it and save their time. Pretty please!

KBar

Member

Registered: 2021-11-05

Posts: 689

Re: File Not Appearing In Recent Documents

It turns out that the culprit in my case is the xfce4-appmenu-plugin.

Last edited by KBar (2021-11-10 16:00:25)

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Remember to edit the subject of your topic to include the [SOLVED] tag once you're satisfied with the answers or have found a solution (in which case, don't forget to share it as well), so that other members of the community can quickly refer to it and save their time. Pretty please!