Bring back "Recent Places" in "Save File" and "Open File" common dialogs

[GitHubIsToxic]

Every day, I spend easily up to an hour just browsing around on my drives to locate, open or save a file into deep folder trees of various projects I work on.

When I first started using Linux Mint 13, every application I used had a "Recent Places" entry in the sidebar of the "Save File" or "Open File" dialog. This listed all parent folders that of files that were saved or modified by the user.
So if you're working on some file or folder with one application, opening it with another application subsequently was trivial and only one click away. No time-consuming browsing through folder structures was needed, which can typically take a few seconds to about a minute (for deep structures).

For me, having the "Recent Places" shortcut was a huge productivity improvement over Windows, easily saving at least an hour per day. The projects I work on have very deep folder structures due to their nature. But anyone ever opening or saving files on their computer (i.e. practically all computer users) would also benefit from this feature (i.e. practically all computer users).

However, in Linux Mint 18, this feature was disappeared, because a confused GTK developer removed it. There's more information here:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/commit/fe128b5b4d198a39c74a1a81b7a3e27f12262ff8
linuxmint/nemo#1238

I've deeply missed this feature every single day since 2018, and honestly has generally made my every day computing experience miserable since this regression. I develop productivity software for a living, and this has been the #1 problem in my daily workflow ever since. I'm nowhere near as productive as I was with Mint 17.
And as I age, my memory performs worse. I cannot constantly remember the dozen or folders locations I'm actively working in at any given moment. My argument: this was not only a productivity feature, it's also a accessibility feature, for those of us with poor working memory (the meaty brainy stuff, not the silicon kind).

Rebuttals for the crappy workarounds people have been using throughout the years:

1. Using bookmarks is not an option, this would require continuously managing bookmarks. I may typically work with a handful of applications on one folder for 5 minutes, then rename the folder and move it some other place before continuing my work, breaking the bookmark. So using bookmarks requires extra actions, breaks constantly, and is not what they are intended for.

2. Copy-paste the directory path into the dialog:

• "You can press CTRL-L in the dialog": this is an undocumented and undiscoverable feature, so users cannot know it exists in the first place
• this obviously requires extra user actions (more clicks, plus requires keyboard action which is always more wasteful than mouse operations)
• you need to keep open a few dozen of Nemo instances to copy the paths from, cluttering the taskbar
• in my daily workflow, Nemo crashes or hangs frequently (every hour or so), that equals a loss of all those locations one is working in
• operator error: user can accidentally copy/paste (incomplete) paths, or from the wrong Nemo window
• doesn't work if the user prefers "breadcrumbs" path bar mode in Nemo
• copying paths from file properties dialog in Mint doesn't now allow selecting the full file path (need to copy both 'path' and 'filename' separately to text editor to combine them) etc etc
• clipboard failures: in reality copy-paste is generally still glitchy between remote desktop situations, and some Wine applications
• mutilated percent-encoded path shenanigans on Samba drives, requiring path decoding via tools or manually

In general, these are unworkable non-solutions, and quite frankly; stupid, given that the "Recent Locations" feature once worked flawlessly for years. It worked, there was never a problem; it was taken from us for an undetermined reason, a clear regression.

So, my suggestion is to bring back this feature to Linux Mint, by patching or replacing the upstream GTK package that broke this very basic productivity feature. It would prevent thousands of hours being wasted by all Linux Mint users combined, every day.
I'd be happy to do or contribute to this myself to jump start this effort, but I have no idea how to approach it. And I don't want to fix this problem just for myself, every single Mint user will benefit from this. I'm happy to receive practical advice or hints on how or where to start.

Thanks!

[cplittlfield]

I wonder why more applications don't have this option. The GIMP has it, and it is very helpful.

[billyswong]

Welcome to join the long list of complaint / wish-list on the file chooser dialog
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/538
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/623
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/698
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/794
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/905
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/1039
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/1085

[GitHubIsToxic]

Thank you, those links are really useful, and illustrate pretty well there's more than a few shortcomings with the current file picker.

[Jopp-gh]

Wow?
Recent Places, where ?

I know there's recent files, under Menu > Preferences > Privacy. But, I don't use that "feature" bc it's unreliable: I see all kind of files and files I didn't even access, in short that's chaotic and straining, all other than a quick access.

Recent places instead, would be a much more condensed search result and show more context as well:
Since folders store files, similar files are grouped together and that's less complicate than to show a "chaotic summary of all kinds of files".

[GitHubIsToxic]

I also realized it would be very helpful to also list all paths of currently open Nemo window/tabs in "Recent Places".

[handkerchief333]

I feel the same way as the issue creator. The time it takes to click through the folders over and over again is frustrating and extremely time-consuming. Creating new bookmarks all the time would be just as time-consuming.

ALT+R displays the Recent folder, which appears to have been hidden specifically with GTK-3, see:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=1670051#p1670051

Why it isn't simply displayed as an option in the left sidebar is a mystery to me.

I have an additional idea that would be even more automated and would help me with 90% of folder navigation in the Save-dialog.

The option: Open the folder that was last opened in Nemo by default. In 90% of cases, I already have the desired directory open in Nemo, and then I have to manually select it again in the Save As dialog, copy it, whatever. This option would be the ultimate and would save so much time and frustration.

[GitHubIsToxic]

HOLY SHIT.

So this functionality was still there all along, just hidden by an undiscoverable keyboard shortcut???

ALT + R people, it's still there!!!

Thanks @handkerchief333

[GitHubIsToxic]

I still can't believe we've wasted years of our time on this stupid stupid 'design' decision (again, GTK developers fault, Mint developers are not to blame).

Well, at least this makes it easier to restore this functionality in the near future, all it needs is to have the shortcut added back to the sidebar. This should be a trivial patch?

Again, for anyone who missed it: the workaround for now is to press ALT + R when the file picker dialog is open, it shows a list of folders which contents' has recently been modified.