Custom titles for Windows 7 Jump List Recent items

Question

Quickie question: I'm toying with some of the new taskbar APIs in Windows 7 and have gotten Recent Items on my Apps jumplist to show up, but I would like to display them under a different title than the filename (most files my app will be opening will have very similar names). I don't see any way to do that with the IShellItem interface, though. Would I have to use custom categories and IShellLinks to accomplish this?

For reference, my current code looks like this:

void AddRecentApp(const wchar_t* path, const wchar_t* title /* Can I even use this? */ ) {
    HRESULT hres;

    hres = CoInitialize(NULL);

    IShellItem* recentItem;
    hres = SHCreateItemFromParsingName(path, NULL, IID_PPV_ARGS(&recentItem));
    if(SUCCEEDED(hres)) {
        SHARDAPPIDINFO recentItemInfo;
        recentItemInfo.pszAppID = MY_APP_USER_MODEL_ID;
        recentItemInfo.psi = recentItem;

        SHAddToRecentDocs(SHARD_APPIDINFO, &recentItemInfo);

        recentItem->Release();
    }
}

Answer 1

Figured it out. IShellItems are just a representation of a file, so they only will provide that file's information (no custom title, etc.) An IShellLink is essentially a shortcut, and is much more flexible in terms of display and actions taken when launched, so are more appropriate in this situation. Here's my new code:

void AddRecentApp(const wchar_t* path, const wchar_t* title) {
    HRESULT hres;
    hres = CoInitialize(NULL);

    // Shell links give us more control over how the item is displayed and run
    IShellLink* shell_link;
    hres = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_ShellLink, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, IID_PPV_ARGS(&shell_link));
    if(SUCCEEDED(hres)) {
        // Set up the basic link properties
        shell_link->SetPath(path);
        shell_link->SetArguments(L"--some-command-line-here"); // command line to execute when item is opened here!
        shell_link->SetDescription(title); // This is what shows in the tooltip
        shell_link->SetIconLocation(L"/path/to/desired/icon", 0); // can be an icon file or binary

        // Open up the links property store and change the title
        IPropertyStore* prop_store;
        hres = shell_link->QueryInterface(IID_PPV_ARGS(&prop_store));
        if(SUCCEEDED(hres)) {
            PROPVARIANT pv;
            InitPropVariantFromString(title, &pv);

            // Set the title property.
            prop_store->SetValue(PKEY_Title, pv); // THIS is where the displayed title is actually set
            PropVariantClear(&pv);

            // Save the changes we made to the property store
            prop_store->Commit();
            prop_store->Release();
        }

        // The link must persist in the file system somewhere, save it here.
        IPersistFile* persist_file; 
        hres = shell_link->QueryInterface(IID_PPV_ARGS(&persist_file));
        if(SUCCEEDED(hres)) {
            hres = persist_file->Save(L"/link/save/directory", TRUE); 
            persist_file->Release(); 
        }

        // Add the link to the recent documents list
        SHARDAPPIDINFOLINK app_id_info_link;
        app_id_info_link.pszAppID = MY_APP_USER_MODEL_ID;
        app_id_info_link.psl = shell_link;
        SHAddToRecentDocs(SHARD_APPIDINFOLINK, &app_id_info_link);

        shell_link->Release();
    }
}