Every time I restart LO, and see the whole set of my recent documents, including the set of several documents I had open, I wish I could select all those I had open last time. Instead I have to pick just one, then from its File>Recent Documents menu item, one by one find and select each of the others. Perhaps a UI change as simple as a checkbox below the thumbnail of each of the recent documents - that are spread out like a menu (from which you can currently select only one) - would suffice. Please consider!
I just realised the UX benefit would be slightly larger, as often times I have files open for weeks or even months, so several of the files I had open when I exited LibreOffice are certainly not in the Recent Documents menu items. It's even possible that some might not be visible in the set of documents displayed to choose from, when starting up with no file. So another UI solution might to record the set of documents that were open just before exit, and re-opening that same set?
Don't see this as beneficial. Automatically reopening some set of documents that had previously been open on LO close (or crash) would be problem prone. The thumbnail views are taken from the MRU list recorded to Histories:Info['PickList']/ItemListHistory in the user profile. Picklist size defaults to 25, but can be increased or reduced in 'Expert Configuration' by adjusting the "PickListSize" value. -1 IMHO => WF
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #2) Reopening one-at-a-time --File Open, or Recents list, or Start Panels thumbnail views--is always going to be the most reliable mechanism. We should not move the UI away from that reliability for a "convenience" feature.
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #2) > Don't see this as beneficial. Automatically reopening some set of documents > that had previously been open on LO close (or crash) would be problem prone. > > The thumbnail views are taken from the MRU list recorded to > Histories:Info['PickList']/ItemListHistory in the user profile. > > Picklist size defaults to 25, but can be increased or reduced in 'Expert > Configuration' by adjusting the "PickListSize" value. > > -1 > > IMHO => WF I meant an option to do so, of course.
In my original suggestion, I mentioned a checkbox to choose. There was no suggestion to make it automatic. I don't really understand why you're suggesting it would be automatic, or why you think opening the same documents you had open last time, and closed via Exit (or which were closed via Logout, system shutdown, or even a power failure), should be a problem for reliability? Maybe you're assuming that LO crashed? Surely that happens less often than a graceful exit? I don't see how either of my suggested approaches for the feature would affect reliability, as the user still has full control. I simply proposed two UI methods for being able to choose to open the same set of documents you had open last session. The main point of my suggestion is not to grow the picklist from which the user can select each file to open one by one, but an ability to select the same set the user had open last time. It's up to you, I just wanted to clarify my suggestion.
You open from the start center per double click which interferes with a selection (although the checkbox idea might work it's bad usability). What I could imagine is to restore the last "workspace". However, modules can be closed individually and there is probably no chance to know whether the user clicked Exit or Close. And this workflow could result in trouble when the application crashes. Mike, what do you think?
"Restore workspace" might be a ~reasonable feature on its own; however, I believe that implementing bug 77590 - i.e. making Start Center accessible when having documents open - would make the task outlined here much easier, since opening one document, one could return to the start center and continue opening documents (and even a mode could be implemented when opening a document from start center would not switch to the newly opened document, but stay at the start center). So my preference would be to implement that one first.
Sounds reasonable. And I have to admit that a right click on multiple selection is acceptable UX. That means you shift/ctrl click the documents and open it per context menu.
*** Bug 159811 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This ties into the discussion around single / double-click interaction in bug 158541, and the recent (24.2) removal of multi-selection for bug 158404.
*** Bug 160661 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***