13. A computer system comprising: a computer processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions executed by the computer processor and causing the computer processor to perform operations comprising: providing a first dialog control specific to an application executed on the user device to a display on the user device; outputting an indexing preferences dialog control to the display of the user device in addition to the first dialog control and responsive to an interruption of normal processing of an operating system associated with displaying the first dialog control, the indexing preferences dialog control being a different dialog control than the first dialog control and displayed with the first dialog control; receiving, from the indexing preferences dialog control displayed on the user device, a user selection of indexing preferences specific to a file type associated with the application, the indexing preferences including: options for indexing events, each event comprising a user interaction with an article of the file type using the application; an indication to index events associated with articles of the file type; and an indication as to a maximum storage space an indexed event may occupy; and generating an index of the events based at least in part on the indexing preferences selected by the user, wherein at least some of the events are indexed and stored in real time upon the occurrences of the events.
13. A computer system comprising: a computer processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions executed by the computer processor and causing the computer processor to perform operations comprising: providing a first dialog control specific to an application executed on the user device to a display on the user device; outputting an indexing preferences dialog control to the display of the user device in addition to the first dialog control and responsive to an interruption of normal processing of an operating system associated with displaying the first dialog control, the indexing preferences dialog control being a different dialog control than the first dialog control and displayed with the first dialog control; receiving, from the indexing preferences dialog control displayed on the user device, a user selection of indexing preferences specific to a file type associated with the application, the indexing preferences including: options for indexing events, each event comprising a user interaction with an article of the file type using the application; an indication to index events associated with articles of the file type; and an indication as to a maximum storage space an indexed event may occupy; and generating an index of the events based at least in part on the indexing preferences selected by the user, wherein at least some of the events are indexed and stored in real time upon the occurrences of the events. 14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the indexing preferences include an indication of content within an article to index.