“Recent Sketches” menu improvements (since v7-0134)

[yar]

The improvement to Recent Sketches is very cool!

BUT!

I’ve already said that it lacks the ability to use the Sketches folder to its full potential. I have a fantastic dump in that folder right now. Let me explain: I see a ‘problem’ or ‘bug’ on the forum, I immediately create a file and… it asks me to save the file in the Sketches folder. This is the quickest way to create a file to test or demonstrate something. This is also what I often do to test some Nuget or hypothesis. But I still can’t access the folders inside that folder.

The improvement in itself is very good, but I think it would be cool to be able to access the Sketches folder in its entirety, with structure, from Recent. Is this really hard to do, or is it too controversial a request?

BTW! I’ve just realised that I’ve just lost quick access to the Sketches folder! Think about it. I wanted to open some patches I keep in there for quick access to unfinished ideas or tests.

[yar]

Check this out. Yes, it’s a slightly different application, but it illustrates the idea I’m talking about.

Maybe this could be used eventually (when your new package manager is ready) to distribute packages with examples or blanks, templates. I can find a thousand examples of how this could be used. But most importantly, it would make life a lot easier for me personally, especially in the part where I am constantly experimenting and illustrating bugs. Don’t get me wrong, describing bugs in the forums is not as easy as it seems. Such an improvement could greatly enhance that experience.

[TremensS]

Just to add my different workflow to the thread:

I personnally hardly use sketchbook.
It’s just the place where I would save quick drafts (for instance for forum debugs, like you mentionned).
But as soon as I want to later get back to it, or just keep it safely, I would from the start put it inside my usual work folders, either on synced drives (Dropbox or the likes) or Git.

Though, I share the essence of your intention in that a quick access to “hot work folders” could be handy. Maybe being able to favorite these folders, like you would favorite repos or create workspaces (group of favorites) in GitKraken for instance? Workspaces are super handy for instance because in one-click you can open all repos in different tabs.

The notion of workspace in vvvv with a list of fav files that you can open all at once would be a real time saver.
For instance: you currently work on SecretProject_ROOT.vl, but are always working inside your MySuperDuperLib1.vl and MySuperDuperLib2.vl.
If you create a “SecretProjet” workspace and add these three files, “opening the workspace” would open the three .vl files all at once.
This saves a ton of time when you often switch projects and would like to have this feel of “resuming where you left off”.

Also, maybe I would find this feature more relevant to a launcher/dashboard (like in UE, Notch, etc.) and thus wonder if I’d not rather think of it as another are in Gamma Launcher than on vvvv itself, to keep the latter as vanilla as possible (for instance, in on-site deployments, I wouldn’t want to have an annoying splash app launcher by default like with all these other apps).
That’s why I like Gamma Launcher so much: a great (almost mandatory imho) comfort help for your dev workflow, but that you have the option to not use when deploying your app on site, where you would just usually embed your startup setting in a .bat.

I think this is a very interesting conversation though, as it seems UX / Quality of Life is a hot and very active topic these days.
So thank for feeding the think tank with this topic with these thoughts and would be curious to read others adding their own!

[yar]

@TremensS It’s as if what you’re talking about requires significant development effort. A lot of ‘what if’ or ‘we could do it like this’ ideas immediately go through my head. There is no clear-cut solution as to how best to do this or that function of this complex system. For example, it seems to me that this has a lot to do with what I’ve been talking about elsewhere - it would be cool to make an open tab manager.

And what I’m proposing is both very simple and very powerful. It’s also not a highly specialised problem, which gives flexibility to the use case. It’s simple and robust.

[TremensS]

@yar

My post was just to illustrate another workflow/habits/view than yours, rather than a request for “significant development”.

It is just to add to the bigger picture of mutual brainstorming by adding and calling for each other user’s own habits to see what would be the most universal, be it small or bigger initiatives

🫶