[TC 11.51] Virtual folders that are not saved in the directory history on XP/2003

[Fla$her]

03.06.25 Fixed: Save the following virtual folder on XP: "Shared documents" (shell:Common documents) (32/64)
02.06.25 Fixed: Save the following virtual folders also on XP: Fonts, Administrative Tools, My Documents, and subfolders of My Documents (32/64)

Oh, great! Thank you! It's working!

The following problems remain:

1. After returning to such a folder by navigating through the directory history, an entry is not created, or the absolute path is written there.
2. The header for "shell:Common documents" differs from the path when you edit it (cm_EditPath). Can't it be fixed? It doesn't seem to be practiced anywhere.
3. My Pictures, My Music, My Video subfolders for "shell:Common documents" are not included in the history, although they can also be entered as virtual ones.
4. You can also enter the virtual subfolders inside "My Pictures\" and "My Music\", but after entering them, navigation through the history breaks even before restarting TC. Backspace works, Alt+Left doesn't.
   There is a virtual folder with samples for My Music and My Pictures, but their name is not in the registry.
   For My Music, the names of two virtual subfolders can be extracted from the values of these parameters:
   Sample Playlists: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\MyPlayLists
   Sync Playlists: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\MySyncPlayLists (short name)
   Sync Playlists: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\ObfuscatedSyncPlaylistsPath (long name, but in the parent)

just create id lists from the GUIDs and then compare the id lists

Good. But where do you get the folder names to write to the history?

[ghisler(Author)]

1. I don't understand
2. No
3. It's included as "and subfolders of My Documents"
4. Sorry, not possible

[Fla$her]

1. When you open any other folder after opening one of these virtual ones, and then return to this virtual folder through the dir history (Alt+Left/Down) and execute cm_ConfigSaveDirHistory or restart TC, there is no entry to the ini file and the virtual folder doesn't return. Either an absolute path is written in the ini instead of a GUID.
2. -
3. No. This is specifically about "shell:Common documents". This is as an addition to the previous point.
4. What exactly? Fix the navigation history in the current session or save it? There were no problems with navigation before solving the initial problems.
5. The bottom question is also waiting for an answer.

[ghisler(Author)]

The problem with shell:Common documents is that it's the only virtual folder which doesn't have a GUID. This breaks a lot and would take many days to fix, so I will not put any more effort in an XP-only problem, sorry.

[Fla$her]

It's bad. But your answer doesn't apply to points 1 and 5. I'm waiting for answers on them.

[ghisler(Author)]

A question about 1: Does this only happen with entries stored as shell: in [left] or [right]
I cannot find question 5.

[Fla$her]

1. It turns out this is a common problem. It's not related to specific folders. Only the folder opened by Enter or cd <path> is saved in the history.

1. Open C:\1\.
2. Press Enter on C:\1\2.
3. Press Enter on C:\1\2\3.
4. Press Alt+Left twice to open C:\1\.
5. cm_ConfigSaveDirHistory, cm_Exit
6. Open TC.

It opens C:\1\2\3\ instead of C:\1\.

Code: Select all

[RightHistory]
0=C:\1\2\3\
1=C:\1\2\
2=C:\1\

The same happens with other folders, including virtual ones.

5. >>

But where do you get the folder names to write to the history?

[ghisler(Author)]

1. It's called history thinning. Directories where you don't do anything usually get skipped. Also that command only saves the history, it doesn't save the current directory, which is saved in [left] and [right] via cm_ConfigSaveSettings.
5. I don't understand.

[Fla$her]

1. I have history thinning disabled. But I figured out the reasons for such behavior and the settings. Now it works as expected.
5. Are the folder names that you are writing to the ini initially stored in a list of identifiers? How do they get into history? I need this for scripting.

The problem with shell:Common documents is that it's the only virtual folder which doesn't have a GUID.

Still, I'm wondering: in terms of saving the component in the path, how does "shell:Common documents" differ fundamentally from "{GUID}"?
On the spur of the moment, it doesn't look like something that should lead to long debugging.

[ghisler(Author)]

1. What did you change?
5. The history stores virtual folders in two ways:
a) when you go there directly via command line or by going to subdirs, TC stores the id list and title
b) when loading the history from wincmd.ini, it only stores the titles+guids, and gets the id list only when the user goes to the history entry
This seems to be causing problems because the two aren't recognized as identical, and may appear twice in the list. I will address this in the next RC.

Still, I'm wondering: in terms of saving the component in the path, how does "shell:Common documents" differ fundamentally from "{GUID}"?

There are various locations in code where I check for GUIDs but not for the shell: prefix. I have changed that too in the next RC.

[Fla$her]

1. I jumped to conclusions. At first I thought that HistoryCut=0 would help me, but nothing has changed. The changes only helped for restarting and unlocked tabs, because paths are saved in the path key of the [left] and [right] sections, not [LeftHistory] and [RightHistory]. This creates certain problems. I think something needs to be changed here. In addition, cm_ConfigSaveSettings is too cumbersome an operation just to read the [left] and [right] sections. It would be better if cm_ConfigSaveDirHistory also saved them, since it's not possible to take into account the current path in [LeftHistory] and [RightHistory].

5. I wouldn’t say that it helped me much, but thanks anyway for the clarifications. Yes, there is a problem with repetition, and in the dropdown list (by Alt+Down) the neighboring entries may differ by the presence/absence of "::{GUID}\", which makes it look a bit strange.

I have changed that too in the next RC.

Good news.

[Fla$her]

TC 11.55 RC6

1. What do you think?
5. Duplication is no longer observed. Good.
6. o=shell:Common Documents\.. is saved in the history sections, but in the [left] and [right] sections the path key is saved as \:<Name>\.., which after reopening TC leads to a false attempt and opens the Desktop instead of the desired folder. You have to press Alt+Left in addition.
7. Another problem (HistoryThinning=0, HistoryCut=0):

1. cd ::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}\My video\WMR Recordings
2. Alt+Left opens \\My Documents\My video\ - OK.
3. Then enter on another subfolder.
4. Alt+Left opens \\My Documents\My video\WMR Recordings\.

That is, between the entries, "\\My Documents" doesn't appear. If you do c.-d. several times with other subfolders, then only these subfolders will be on top of the history list, and "\\My Documents" will be under them. As a result, you will have to press Alt+Left several times to return to the previous folder "\\My Documents".

[ghisler(Author)]

1. Sorry, for now I will keep cm_ConfigSaveDirHistory apart from saving current directories.
5. Great!
6. I cannot reproduce that, which folders are affected?
7. Why should "\\My Documents" appear in the history? You didn't go there.