"Open" file dialog request

chileboy · Post by **chileboy** » Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:10 pm

I tend to accumulate a lot of configuration files (why, I'm not quite sure....)

Every time I go to Open -> File in RMIR, the first thing I always do is click the "View" icon at the upper right and change it from "List" to "Details". Then I click the "Date modified" - twice - to bring the latest config files to the top.

A minor thing I know, but is there any way to make that stick between sessions?

Post by **mathdon** » Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:44 am

chileboy wrote:A minor thing I know, but is there any way to make that stick between sessions?

As far as I am aware, the answer is no, that cannot be done. I too would like to change this, so if anyone knows how, please let us know.

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Tue Oct 13, 2020 7:52 am

The open dialogue in RMIR is effectively the Java Swing JFileChooser. As can be seen from the linked documentation, there appears to be no API call to select for example sorting files according to age. (Possibly it sits somewhere in the Look-n-Feel?). (I only checked Java 8, but I severely doubt that later versions are different.)

So it appears that the only way would be to use serialization, basically saving the different file selectors to disk (for example in the preferences file) between invocations. (See fileselectordirs in IrScrutinizer for an example.)

chileboy · Post by **chileboy** » Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:03 pm

I know nothing about Java, but isn't there some way to interface with the Windows API?

I was going to even take it a step further - now that I've started using icons, when you browse those available, it would be really nice to be able to access the image thumbnails, etc., as you can in the View dropdown in File Explorer...

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:10 am

@chileboy: Have you discovered the File -> Recent entry? It eliminates most use of Open.

chileboy wrote:I know nothing about Java, but isn't there some way to interface with the Windows API?

RMIR is a Java program that runs on "everything that has a JVM", so you are not allowed to call OS specific APIs. Besides, I doubt that a Windows API allows you to do that.

chileboy · Post by **chileboy** » Wed Oct 14, 2020 3:52 pm

Barf wrote:@chileboy: Have you discovered the File -> Recent entry? It eliminates most use of Open.

That does help, but right now I'm bouncing between 3 different remotes,with a few working configs for each, and by the time I peruse the paths and filenames (since they're all comingled), it's just quicker to use File -> Open.

RMIR is a Java program that runs on "everything that has a JVM", so you are not allowed to call OS specific APIs. Besides, I doubt that a Windows API allows you to do that.

Ok, that makes sense - as I said, "I know nothing". Excel, for instance, seems to remember those settings between sessions. So probably using a registry key or .ini entry or something.

File Explorer itself stores the current view in each folder's "desktop.ini" I believe - maybe that could be used somehow? Just a thought.

Again, it's just a minor inconvenience, so not really a big deal.

Thanks.