I'm not sure why my save as dialogue was pointing to the temp folder except I never completed a full cycle of stitching with Hugin but with more testing I see you were correct in that The save as dialog is using by default the folder of the first image. That behavior is fine withe me but the Add images... dialogue points to the last used folder and that is what I want to change. Unfortunately the Open... and Add images... dialogue boxes point to the same folder. the last used folder. If you use Open... to open the last project repeatedly you may want to keep the existing behavior but if you generally navigate to the most recent folder to add images and complete the project in one sitting you may want to change that behavior.
Below is a batch script that will change the Add images default folder location to the most recent folder in my file structure and open Hugin. You may need to make changes to work with your particular file structure but this is a start.
@title = "StartHugin"
@echo off
:: A batch script to change the default folder location for Load images... and Open... dialog boxes to the most recent sub folder in a folder and then open Hugin
:: set mydate=%date:~10,4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%
set myYear=%date:~10,4%
:: Find the latest folder used
FOR /F " tokens=*" %%i IN ('dir "S:\Digital Photographs\%myYear%" /b /ad-h /o-d') DO (
SET a=%%i
GOTO :found
)
echo No subfolder found
goto :eof
:found
:: Change reg value for actualPath to most resent folder in this Folder format: "S:\Digital Photographs\(yyyy)\(yyyymmdd)\" = "S:\Digital Photographs\%myYear%\%a%\"
:: We also need an extra \ at end to escape the \ character.
reg add "HKCU\Software\hugin" /v actualPath /t REG_SZ /F /d "S:\Digital Photographs\%myYear%\%a%\\"
:: Start Hugin
START "" "C:\Program Files\Hugin\bin\Hugin.exe"
REM echo.
REM echo.
REM echo.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
REM echo.
REM echo. StartHugin has run
REM echo.
REM echo.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
REM echo.
REM echo.
REM pause