Download from: (Windows live gallery)

Recent items - An age old feature residing in our start menu since forever deserves more credit that it has earned. The assumption here is that most of us work with the same set of files and directories (hereon referred to as items) most frequently, and thus these items deserve some dedicated screen real estate.

Can we leverage our usage history to get to the items we are looking for in a more efficient manner? The Vista sidebar seems to be a good way to test this simple idea.

Peyush Bansal and I have been looking into breathing new life into features like "history" and "recent", under the presumption that they have great potential but have been presented at the wrong time and at the wrong place.

The gadget allows you to access your most recent items, sorted by their location. This gadget can be downloaded here: (Windows live gallery).

Pin your recent items to the list so that they never disappear! This was the most requested feature in the 5 click feedback. Thanks to all those who provided their feedback!

Your Feedback

Existing users: Send your feedback using this questionnaire (can be completed in 5 clicks): Recent items feedback.

Known Issues

• Broken links show a box icon with a square dot centered in the middle: If an item in the list does not exist anymore, or is unavailable, you see a weird icon.
• Gadget does not respond for about 5 seconds at times and freezes up: Only when the items in your list point to files on your network that are not currently available, the gadget will lock up for about 4 seconds per file that is unavailable.
• The full path of an item shows up as a tooltip only sometimes, but predominantly doesnt show: A tooltip showing the full path of an item will show up only if the gadget is in focus. This is a gadget issue, but a workaround is being figured out.