Recent Items in AW

[katherineblake]

I know how to set (through the Apple menu & System Preferences) the number of documents I want to show up in the "Recent Items" sub-menu, but they are being listed alphabetically as opposed to chronologically and it is driving me CRAZY. I can't seem to find out where to change this setting. Please help me -- a very green AW user. - Katherine

[Barry]

I know how to set (through the Apple menu & System Preferences) the number of documents I want to show up in the "Recent Items" sub-menu, but they are being listed alphabetically as opposed to chronologically and it is driving me CRAZY. I can't seem to find out where to change this setting. Please help me -- a very green AW user. - Katherine

Hi Katherine,

You're describing part of the Recent Items bug that's been a part of AppleWorks since the feature was introduced in AppleWorks 6.0. AppleWorks saves an alias in the Recent Items folder to every file you've ever saved, and never gets around to removing them. As you've noticed, the items are displayed in alphabetical order in the sub menu (and in the Recent Items pane of Starting Points, and the number of Recent Items you set in Preferences limits only the number that are displayed here, starting from the top of the alphabetical list.

A more significant problem caused by the growing collection of aliases in this folder is a huge slowdown in everything AppleWorks does, sometimes to the point that AppleWorks will quit or will fail to launch. The cure is to occassionally delete all or most of the items from this folder. You'll find the folder at
Users/yourname/Documents/AppleWorks User Data/Starting Points/Recent Items.

There are a number of scripts available that can help you with this task.

One is Trash Recent Items, Dale Gillard's extensive rewrite and improvement of a script I produced many years ago. Trash Recent Items is available from Dale's DMG Software site. Click the AppleWorks link in the Welcome paragraph. While you'r there, you might want to also check out Dale's AppleWorks add on, Sidekick. Sidekick includes Recent Items management as one of it's free features.

A second script is Jan Weijers's Keep 10, a script designed to delete all but the 10 most recent items in the Recent Items folder. The script is attached to the folder, and is activated each time a new item is added to the folder.

Regards,
Barry

[katherineblake]

I know how to set (through the Apple menu & System Preferences) the number of documents I want to show up in the "Recent Items" sub-menu, but they are being listed alphabetically as opposed to chronologically and it is driving me CRAZY. I can't seem to find out where to change this setting. Please help me -- a very green AW user. - Katherine

Hi Katherine,

You're describing part of the Recent Items bug that's been a part of AppleWorks since the feature was introduced in AppleWorks 6.0. AppleWorks saves an alias in the Recent Items folder to every file you've ever saved, and never gets around to removing them. As you've noticed, the items are displayed in alphabetical order in the sub menu (and in the Recent Items pane of Starting Points, and the number of Recent Items you set in Preferences limits only the number that are displayed here, starting from the top of the alphabetical list.

A more significant problem caused by the growing collection of aliases in this folder is a huge slowdown in everything AppleWorks does, sometimes to the point that AppleWorks will quit or will fail to launch. The cure is to occassionally delete all or most of the items from this folder. You'll find the folder at
Users/yourname/Documents/AppleWorks User Data/Starting Points/Recent Items.

There are a number of scripts available that can help you with this task.

One is Trash Recent Items, Dale Gillard's extensive rewrite and improvement of a script I produced many years ago. Trash Recent Items is available from Dale's DMG Software site. Click the AppleWorks link in the Welcome paragraph. While you'r there, you might want to also check out Dale's AppleWorks add on, Sidekick. Sidekick includes Recent Items management as one of it's free features.

A second script is Jan Weijers's Keep 10, a script designed to delete all but the 10 most recent items in the Recent Items folder. The script is attached to the folder, and is activated each time a new item is added to the folder.

Regards,
Barry

Thank you, thank you, thank you!