Another thing you will find lurking under the big red A is the Recent Document list. This is a mixed bag too, but most of it is good. It differs from the traditional list that still lives under the File menu in several ways:
- Although the default maximum list length is 9 items, you can allow up to 50 items into the list by changing a setting in the Options command’s Open and Save tab.
- If the list exceeds the space available, a scroll bar appears. This has the same problems as elsewhere in the menu browser: more clicks are required and there is no auto-scroll.
- If you hover over a document in the list, it displays a preview image along with some other useful document information. Unfortunately, that preview image always has a white background, despite the fact that the first thing most of you are going to do in AutoCAD 2009 is turn the background black.
- The file and path names are ALL DISPLAYED AS UPPER CASE, NO MATTER WHAT CASE THE NAMES ACTUALLY USE. THIS HARMS READABILITY AND MAKES THE WORST POSSIBLE USE OF THE LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLE. SORRY, AM I SHOUTING? Is that better?
- Using the cute little push pins at the right of each document name, you can pin documents in place to prevent them being pushed off the end of the list.
- You can change the order in which the documents are displayed using this menu:
- You can also change how the documents display using this menu:
Using the last three features together, your document list could end up looking something like this:
It should be noted that it also shows Sheet Set DST files in the list, and they will always show at the top after restarting AutoCAD. So if you have opened a lot of Sheet Sets, every time you open AutoCAD your DWG files will be obscured by the DST files. To make matters worse, if you clear the history the DST files will re-appear after restarting AutoCAD.