When Okular is started, documents in the 'Open Recent' toolbar item that are on a drive that is not mounted are removed from the 'Open Recent' menu. Could instead Okular check if the drive is mounted before removing files that it cannot find (and maybe hide the menu items of files on a drive that is not mounted)? Reproducible: Always
Are you suggesting exactly what we do?
Waiting for an answer
Say an external drive is not plugged in when I start Okular, all the recent documents on that external drive in the 'Open Recent' menu are removed. *Could Okular check if the drive is mounted* before removing files that it cannot find (and maybe hide the menu items of files on a drive that is not mounted)?
Oh i see what you mean, your wording is a bit reversed, at least in my mind. What you want is check if the drive is mounted and if it is not mounted not removing the files. This has a technical problem, given /some/random/path knowing if it belongs to an external drive or not is kind of difficult, so while i understand your user desire i don't see a quick & easy way to implement it.
In okular 0.20.3 I observe the following behaviour for a given file: A) 1) The file is present in the Open Recent list. 2) Close okular. 3) Delete the file. 4) Open okular. => The file is _silently_ removed from the Open Recent list. B) 1) The file is present in the Open Recent list. 2) Do not close okular. 3) Delete the file. 4) Click the corresponding entry in the Open Recent list. => A message box appears "Could not open [...]" and the file is removed silently from the Open Recent list. In case A) okular could act as in case B) but then _ask the user_ if the entry should be deleted. The silent entry deletion behaviour can also be observed in other applications like Callligra Words.
Not Okular-specific, moving to the right place.
IMHO, the recent files menu is not a bookmarks menu, it's supposed to be transient.