Bug 400103

Summary: Feature Request remember last used directory in places (Save as dialog)
Product: [Applications] okular Reporter: niet.giftig
Component: generalAssignee: Okular developers <okular-devel>
Status: REPORTED ---    
Severity: wishlist CC: aacid, fsteiner-board, johan.mittermeier, mysignup27, nate, truart, zephen
Priority: NOR Keywords: usability
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: openSUSE   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:

Description niet.giftig 2018-10-21 11:18:34 UTC
After downloading and opening a couple of pdf files with my internet browser, I want to save them somewhere on my datadrive.
With the save-as option i change the "save as path" to where I want to save the PDF files.
When I want to save the next one, the "save-as option" opens again in the browser download directory, because all the downloaded and opened PDF files are there located and I have to change the path again
It would be nice if one could choose the "last used save directory" in the places bar , without making a bookmark of every directory one wants to save to. (I have a lot data directories)  

Thanks for reading this
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2018-10-21 19:44:27 UTC
Yeah, most other KDE apps' save dialogs remember the last saved location, so Okular's probably should, too.
Comment 2 Albert Astals Cid 2018-10-21 19:54:41 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> Yeah, most other KDE apps' save dialogs remember the last saved location, so
> Okular's probably should, too.

Are you positive about that?
 * kate, open an existing file, press Save As, suggests where the file is
 * kolourpaint, open an existing file, press Save As, suggests where the file is
 * ark, open an existing file, press Save As, suggests where the file is

I can't really find any application that behaves otherwise.
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2018-10-21 20:10:04 UTC
Spectacle is one such example.(In reply to Albert Astals Cid from comment #2)
> (In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> > Yeah, most other KDE apps' save dialogs remember the last saved location, so
> > Okular's probably should, too.
> 
> Are you positive about that?
>  * kate, open an existing file, press Save As, suggests where the file is
>  * kolourpaint, open an existing file, press Save As, suggests where the
> file is
>  * ark, open an existing file, press Save As, suggests where the file is

The requested behavior is a bit more subtle than the above. Here's the workflow/steps to reproduce:
- Open a file. Call it file #1.
- Save file #1 to some location using File > Save As... 
- With the program still open, open a new file (or create a new one, whatever). Call it file #2.
- Save file #2 file using File > Save As...

The for the save operation on File #2, the save dialog should show the location that file #1 was saved to, not the current location of the file #2. Essentially it should show the Save As location that was previously used 

Kate, Spectacle, and Kolourpaint all behave this way. Ark does not though--which should also be fixed. :) Virtually all software that can save files will inevitably get requests for this behavior, which is probably why those other KDE apps already implement it.

It doesn't look too hard, so I can try to produce a patch.
Comment 4 Albert Astals Cid 2018-10-21 20:51:42 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #3)
> Open a new file (or create a new one, whatever)

No, that is a big difference, because if you create a new one, Save as doesn't have a place to suggest where to save, if you open an existing one, it does. 

In fact i don't see kate nor kolourpaint doing what you say when doing this

kate /home/tsdgeos/docker_howto
Save as to /home/tsdgeos/bla/docker_howto
kate /home/tsdgeos/foo/somefile.txt
Press "Save as"

I get /home/tsdgeos/foo/somefile.txt as suggestion in the save as box, not /home/tsdgeos/ and not /home/tsdgeos/bla/ either.

kolourpaint behaves the same way too.

On the other hand if instead of opening an existing file, you create a new one,  it suggests the new place to save, which totally makes sense, but since you can't create files with okular, that doesn't apply.
Comment 5 Frank Steiner 2018-12-19 15:54:49 UTC
Just moved from old acroread to okular and stumbled over this.

I've exactly the same workflow. Opening a bunch of PDF files downloaded in Firefox, then saving all of them inside a certain directory structure. Although they don't go to exactly to the same directory, they are all close together and 3-4 levels below $HOME.

So it's quite anooying that for every PDF I've to click or type myself through all the directories again until I'm in my target directory. Costs a lot of time. acroread indeed just started in the directory where the last "save as" was done, so sth. like "../xy<tab>" already brought me there (using GTK save dialogues).

It's argueable if for an existing file "save as" should default to the directory of the existing file or to the last used directory. Likely both have their justification.

So, if it isn't to difficult to implement, maybe it could be made an option in the settings? Then everyone can chose what's best for his/her workflow? I would appreciate such an option very much!
Comment 6 Michael 2019-01-09 12:44:54 UTC
voting +1 for this. Thunderbird remembers the last used directory for saving attachments. The next save dialog opens in the directory where the former attachment was saved. Very useful. Would love to see that in okular.
Comment 7 Johan Mittermeier 2019-04-16 08:44:58 UTC
Oh yes, could we have that please? Just created an account to add a comment here. I was looking for a replacement for acroread and okular seems to be the only alternative that has almost all the features acroread had. But saving always starts in a tmp directory of my browser and I need many clicks to get to the directory I want to save downloads. If I click more pdfs that go in the same directory I have to do all these clicks over and over again :( Please add this feature!
Comment 8 Nate Graham 2020-04-16 19:39:43 UTC
*** Bug 420139 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 zephen 2020-04-17 03:28:10 UTC
This should hopefully be an easy fix -- as I mentioned in the bug Nate Graham just merged with this one, Okular's "save copy as" used to have very acceptable behavior.

Thanks,
Pat
Comment 10 Frank Steiner 2020-07-30 09:47:30 UTC
Any chance we get that feature? :)