RecentDocumentMenu
A RecentDocumentMenu control is a control that is intended to be used within a Backstage, or an ApplicationMenu as its additional content when recent document tracking is desired.
Recently-opened documents are listed in a sorted order and can be clicked on to open them. Mouse hovering over a document provides its full path.
Clicking on a document's pin button will toggle the pinned state of the document. When pinned, the document will not fall of the list if there are other unpinned documents that have been opened more recently.
A ribbon application menu with a RecentDocumentMenu control on it
Adding the RecentDocumentMenu to a Backstage
The RecentDocumentMenu can be added to a Backstage application menu in a couple places.
The first location is directly as an item of a Backstage control. In this case it is advisable to limit the number of items rendered (via the manager) to a small number such as 3 or 4 since a button will be rendered for each document in the left side of the Backstage, thus pushing down any other tabs or buttons after it.
When a RecentDocumentMenu is included in the content of a BackstageTab it should have its VariantSize property set to Large. This will enable it to render similar to Office, showing large icons and descriptions, all of which can be set on the IDocumentReference instances.
Adding the RecentDocumentMenu to an ApplicationMenu
The RecentDocumentMenu can be added to a ApplicationMenu via the AdditionalContent property.
The ApplicationMenu topic provides a sample of doing this.
Changing the Header
By default, the header of the control will read Recent Documents.
To change that text globally, change that field before any UI is instantiated. To change the header text for a specific control instance, set the RecentDocumentMenu.Label property.
Managing the Recent Document List
The recent document list is managed by the RecentDocumentManager that is assigned to the RecentDocumentMenu.Manager property. This object maintains a list of IDocumentReference objects.
See the Document Management topic for details on how to manage the list using the RecentDocumentManager, including the ability to limit the number of documents shown.
Since the RecentDocumentMenu is bound to the RecentDocumentManager to which it is assigned, changes to that manager will automatically update the menu. However, certain changes such as updating a document reference's last-opened date/time may not be picked up by the manager as a change. In these cases you must call RecentDocumentManager.RebindFilteredDocuments explicitly. This in turn updates the menu automatically.
Processing Clicks on Documents
When the end user clicks on a document listed in the RecentDocumentMenu, they are attempting to open the document. Therefore, we raise the standard WPF ApplicationCommands.Open command with its command parameter being the IDocumentReference that represents the document.
In your code, handle the ApplicationCommands.Open command and use the command parameter (a IDocumentReference) to determine which Uri to open. If no command parameter is passed, then you can assume the command was triggered by a menu item like on the application menu's generic Open menu item. In this case, you would want to show an Open File dialog.