[Feture request] making "recently used files" configurable
When we open a file, we will then find the file in the list of recently opened files.
As this feature is not configurable at all, this leads to the following problems:
1) Important files are edged out by unimportant files or folders:
1A) I use the ‘places’ plugin. This plugin can be placed in the panel and displays the recently used files. In contrast to ‘recent:///’, folders are also displayed in this plugin. As I use a lot of folders, there are a lot of folders in there, which then edge out the files. I don't need these folders for quick access, but I would like to use the files that are edged out by the folders for quick access in this plugin. But I can't do that because they have already been displaced for a long time. It would therefore be good if we could configure it so that folders are excluded.
1B) There are files on my system that are more important to me and those that are less important. It would be good if less important files did not edge out the important ones. For example, image files are less important than document files. It would therefore be good if we could configure it so that file types are excluded. This means that they are not collected in the list of recently opened files. This could be implemented in such a way that the user can specify a list of file extensions that should be excluded. E.g. *.png; *.mp3 etc.
1C) There are also paths that contain files that are not important to me. So it would be good if we could configure it so that files in certain paths are excluded. All of them, not just files with certain extensions.
2) Privacy:
There are many people who do not want to have a collection of recently opened files for privacy reasons. Or they want to exclude certain files or paths for privacy reasons. The configuration options suggested above also cover the privacy problems.
Xfce could initially implement a configuration file that offers these exclusion options. Later Xfce could then create a GUI for this and offer it in the Xfce settings as an icon for starting.
Activity
1A) I use the ‘places’ plugin. This plugin can be placed in the panel and displays the recently used files. In contrast to ‘recent:///’, folders are also displayed in this plugin. As I use a lot of folders, there are a lot of folders in there, which then edge out the files. I don't need these folders for quick access, but I would like to use the files that are edged out by the folders for quick access in this plugin. But I can't do that because they have already been displaced for a long time. It would therefore be good if we could configure it so that folders are excluded.
Please file this against the xfce4 places plugin: https://gitlab.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-places-plugin
1B) There are files on my system that are more important to me and those that are less important. It would be good if less important files did not edge out the important ones. For example, image files are less important than document files. It would therefore be good if we could configure it so that file types are excluded. This means that they are not collected in the list of recently opened files. This could be implemented in such a way that the user can specify a list of file extensions that should be excluded. E.g. *.png; *.mp3 etc.
Not only thunar, but all gtk based applications can register files inside
recent:///via theGtkRecentManager. Afaik there is no possibility to exclude specific file-types. If so, that would need to be done on the Gvfs side. Here the right issue-tracker to request such a feature: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gvfs/-/issues1C) There are also paths that contain files that are not important to me. So it would be good if we could configure it so that files in certain paths are excluded. All of them, not just files with certain extensions.
Same as for 1B
2) Privacy:There are many people who do not want to have a collection of recently opened files for privacy reasons. Or they want to exclude certain files or paths for privacy reasons. The configuration options suggested above also cover the privacy problems.
Xfce could initially implement a configuration file that offers these exclusion options. Later Xfce could then create a GUI for this and offer it in the Xfce settings as an icon for starting.
Sorry, as well that is out of scope for Xfce, since files can be added by all kind of Gtk applications, not only Xfce applications. (Some apps already allow disabling the feature) Same as above, you will have to ask on the Gvfs issue-tracker for a more general tool.
Related: In thunar there is the idea to provide an easy way to clear GtkRecent, similar than web-history removal offered by web-browsers: #1349 (comment 88513)
One could think about a foreign recent-privacy-daemon, which runs in the background and constantly filters GtkRecent and drops files which don't match specific filters. However, that would be a rather poor approach, as the files would still show a short time in recent, and as such could be read by other services on the system. If somebody implemented that, it as well that would be a general project, not necessarily entangled with Xfce.
So sorry, I cannot help you with all that / it's not a thunar issue --> closing.
added 5. GVfs label