[Ext] Session Manager 0.4 to 0.4.3

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Will Pittenger
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Post by Will Pittenger »

I ended up concluding I do want the session list in the menu after all. However, can it be placed in a submenu?

Also, now that FF is my default browser, it would help if when FF is not already running when I open a page from the command line that FF load only that page rather than all of the other pages in my typical session. As for saving the session created from the command line, SM should ignore it on restart -- unless FF crashed. In that case, ask the user.
Will Pittenger
Gary King
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Joined: September 5th, 2003, 9:27 pm

Post by Gary King »

zeniko wrote:@Gary: I've introduced a new pref in today's <a href="http://www.haslo.ch/zeniko/software/sessionmanager-dev.xpi">testing version</a> (0.4.0.6+) which allows to revert the behavior to what it was until version 0.3.9: extensions.crashrecovery.allow_empty_session (you'll have to set it in about:config). I haven't found a better alternative solution which wouldn't require second-guessing the user's intentions...
Excellent; it's perfect. It'll only save my session if I quit Firefox.
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

Will Pittenger wrote:I ended up concluding I do want the session list in the menu after all. However, can it be placed in a submenu?

Not without some hacking. What's wrong with the list where it is now?

Will Pittenger wrote:Also, now that FF is my default browser, it would help if when FF is not already running when I open a page from the command line that FF load only that page rather than all of the other pages in my typical session. As for saving the session created from the command line, SM should ignore it on restart -- unless FF crashed. In that case, ask the user.

This would introduce two types of sessions which the normal user won't be able to distinguish easily. Imagine: you open an URL from the command line, you do an hour of surfing, suddenly have to quit and now want to continue that session after a restart. Should you have to remember that you have to save that session first because after the restart the previous session will be restored?
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Will Pittenger
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Post by Will Pittenger »

zeniko wrote:
Will Pittenger wrote:I ended up concluding I do want the session list in the menu after all. However, can it be placed in a submenu?

Not without some hacking. What's wrong with the list where it is now?

Too much clutter. What I stated a while back.

zeniko wrote:
Will Pittenger wrote:Also, now that FF is my default browser, it would help if when FF is not already running when I open a page from the command line that FF load only that page rather than all of the other pages in my typical session. As for saving the session created from the command line, SM should ignore it on restart -- unless FF crashed. In that case, ask the user.

This would introduce two types of sessions which the normal user won't be able to distinguish easily. Imagine: you open an URL from the command line, you do an hour of surfing, suddenly have to quit and now want to continue that session after a restart. Should you have to remember that you have to save that session first because after the restart the previous session will be restored?

Try opening FF via a Windows URL shortcut or mailto:link in another program via a dialup connection. If there are enough pages, the servers will commonly "give up" on one or more. FF will still think that those pages are downloading, but the traffic will stop. How about a new solution: Opening a page from the command line when FF was not running results in a session with the prefix "Opened from Command Line:".
Will Pittenger
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

Will Pittenger wrote:Too much clutter.

There won't be significantly less clutter with a submenu - and it just gets more difficult to access a submenu of a submenu. This most probably won't happen.

Will Pittenger wrote:Opening a page from the command line when FF was not running results in a session with the prefix "Opened from Command Line:".

This will still make Firefox behave unexpected for many users. Your suggestion makes sure there's no dataloss - but I still find it questionable from a usability point of view. If you're on a slow connection, you'll either want to manually save sessions and have Firefox startup blank - or let yourself prompt for the session to restore at startup.
alta88
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Post by alta88 »

zeniko wrote:
Will Pittenger wrote:Too much clutter.

There won't be significantly less clutter with a submenu - and it just gets more difficult to access a submenu of a submenu. This most probably won't happen.


i think the barbarians will keep coming back to this gate, zeniko.... ;)

zeniko wrote:
Will Pittenger wrote:Opening a page from the command line when FF was not running results in a session with the prefix "Opened from Command Line:".

This will still make Firefox behave unexpected for many users. Your suggestion makes sure there's no dataloss - but I still find it questionable from a usability point of view. If you're on a slow connection, you'll either want to manually save sessions and have Firefox startup blank - or let yourself prompt for the session to restore at startup.


this is an interesting issue. the big picture of Fx command line options is muddy and implementation broken for valid usage cases with multiple profiles. bug 30876. session manager adds another layer, as it has become central to what happens when Fx is started. the most flexible solution would be one where a user could start Fx thusly:

firefox.exe -P 'profile' -url 'xxx' -smgrprofile 'sessionname'|'fully qualified session filename'

new url would be opened in pref according to Open links from other apps in..

however, one should probably not hold one's breath for this.
kirason
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Post by kirason »

Mac User Bug:
After installing this on my Mac Firefox, I opened up the Session Manager options to see what was available. There is however, no "ok" or "close" button to exit the manager. I found that cmd-w worked to get out, but that was after a bit of frantic experimentation :)
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dougeeebear
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Post by dougeeebear »

zeniko,
In the TMP style context menu function to rename a session, would it be possible to replace the current dialog with one like this?
(This is a screenshot of TMP's dialog).

Image
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

@kirason: Does this still happen with the current <a href="http://www.haslo.ch/zeniko/software/sessionmanager-dev.xpi">testing version</a>?

@dougeeebear: This is surely possible, but by far not that easily. TMP uses its own dialog box for that which you'd have to re-use or re-implement.

And for those of you who haven't heard yet: I've decided to stop developing this extension (except from fixing bugs and probably porting changes from the code from bug 328159). There's a chance that desertfox will start working on it in June. Anybody else interested in the code, just PM me...
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dougeeebear
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Post by dougeeebear »

zeniko wrote:I've decided to stop developing this extension

I saw that post.
Sorry to hear it, but all the best in your new endeavor, and thanks for all the help and support you've given me.

I'm sure desertfox will do a great job with it.
********
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Joined: August 24th, 2005, 12:23 pm

Post by ******** »

thanks.

again, with finals just around the corner, i won't be able to start until early to mid June.

since zeniko's coding abilities far dwarf mine, development won't be as fast, though, especially with my other summer plans, and i'll surely need help, but i hope i will be able to continue and improve upon his great work.
shtraue
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Joined: April 27th, 2006, 10:47 pm

Post by shtraue »

Hello!
I would like to ask, if a feature can be added to Session Manager, so that text highlights made by TextMarker! Plus, Highlighter or other extensions, would be saved in sessions as well.
Thank you!
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

Session Manager already supports saving and restoring of (almost) arbitrary attributes. Instead of introducing hacks for individual extensions (which might break with new versions of those extensions), I've decided to leave it to the other extensions' authors to make their extension work with Session Manager/Crash Recovery. Please contact them about it.

They shouldn't have to change much. See this blog post (the English bits) for how to achieve this. The only extension which already does this (AFAIK) is ImgLikeOpera (by the author of the linked blog post).
alta88
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Joined: January 28th, 2006, 3:08 pm

Post by alta88 »

zeniko wrote:I've decided to stop developing this extension


best of luck with future things, you've built some excellent extensions here. thanks for them.
Muescha
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Joined: February 17th, 2005, 9:18 am
Location: Germany

Post by Muescha »

oh thats not good if you leave the development of session manager. but good luck for the future.



i have some open bugs for my session manager installation:




1) Mystic DialogBox


after crash: i get a dialogbox to choose a saved session? after choosing a sessign i get a mystic dialog box: no text: only "OK" and "Cancel" dialog box. maybe its a bug with language? (i use de-DE).
after some try out i get only a recovery after a crash if i select a session with only one saved window and then klicking at the mystic dialog the OK-Button.

I have the german language active.




2) no second crash recovery possible


after recovering a crash: it crashes while restoring of the crashed session.
i restart: again crashes. but in this second or thirt try some windows and tabs i get a "(undefined)" window. the crashrecovery.dat is overwritten and destroyd with the new opening "(undefined)" windows.

but i never get it 100% recovered.

(maybe this effect is now fixed in 0.4 but i have this in my bugfile for sessionmananger)

my workaround:
i wrote a java programm to seperate each window in a new .session file for each window and remove the not nessesary entry items. so i can open it seperatly




3) never can restore session with more than 1 window.


if i restore a session with more then 1 window i get the firefox startet with the amount of firefox windwows as saved but it stoped (but not crashed) in this recovering. some windows i see with complete with the firefox symbolbars and the right amount of the tabs but the tabs are named with "(undefinded)". some of this opened windows only complete white. only the blue application bar with " - Mozilla Firefox" is visible but no menu items and no symbolbars etc.



i can not control the crashed session:
- like open all window except the crashed one
- open it step by step (so i can find out the crashing window or tab)
- exclude one session.
- optional: make a delay between each window (maybe: restore the next window only if the first window is complete)



my workaround:
i wrote a java programm to seperate each window in a new .session file for each window and remove the not nessesary entry items. so i can open it seperatly




3) Time for listing Sessions


if you have many saved sessions: open dialog or the drop down list take to much time.


Reason:
in getSessions the code read for each session the full session file with gSessionManager.readSessionFile , but for sessions you need only the the first 2 lines with "^\[SessionManager\]\n(?:name=(.*))?".

Solution!?
it would be faster if you only read the first part of the file.

or you cache this this data saved in a seperate .session.info file with this information for faster access.




4) path for crashrecovery.dat / crashrecovery.bak


crashrecovery: why it is in the profile directory and not in the sessions directory?




5) Session Select Dialog after crashed session.


after a crash i get a solution to select my opening session.

but it does no matter what i choose. always i get also restored my crashed session. also if i choose a "empty" session.

i dont understand why i get a list of saved and crashed session: i chose a saved empty session with only a google window. but it additional restore the complete crashed session. i think this is not logic.




6) history length.


in options i can choose the lenght of saved sessions. i set it to 3 for saved tabs and 3 for saved windows.

if i look in the crashrecovery.dat and later in the restored .session i see much more (up to 50 Entry-Items) then this 3 history tabs.

it would be nice, if only this 3 history be saved with crashrecovery.dat



one bad effect of this undelivered Entry-Save is that if you run firefox with many windows and a long time it crashed because the script for saving the crashrecovery.dat runs into the "script-timeout" because every "Entry-Item" is saved.


my workaround:
i wrote a java programm to seperate each window in a new .session file for each window and remove the not nessesary entry items. so i can open it seperatly




7) Restoring Window/Tab with posting for data


sometimes i restore window/tab with posting data. but sometimes this a already send items. i only get the dialogbox ".... you would resend the posted data?". but i dont get a information to whitch URL this data would be resend, whitch data would be resend.

it would be better if i get a dialogbox with this informations for confirming this data and the option to go one step back in the tab-history to go to a page without sending data.
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