[Ext] SessionSaver .2d: new (rewrite)

ankh · Post by **ankh** » April 10th, 2004, 8:32 pm

Oops, never mind -- I backed up and found the pointer to current discussion at:

http://aasted.org/adblock/viewforum.php?f=4

Vigil · Post by **Vigil** » April 17th, 2004, 9:41 pm

My apologies if this has been mentioned in one of the other 25 pages, I haven't the stamina to read them...

This is a great extension, but one detail stops me from using it. If Firefox is closed, but opens because I click on a URL shortcut or another application requests a browser window, I don't want it to start up with the requested page <em>and all of the old session</em>. Nor do I want it to save whatever I clicked on as the new session.

In other words, I only want the saved session to appear if I open Firefox without the -url parameter; and if Firefox is opened with the -url parameter, then closed again without loading any other url, the session shouldn't be overwritten.

Would it be possible to implement this behaviour? Does this bother anyone else?

ajhubble · Post by **ajhubble** » April 18th, 2004, 1:17 am

It doesn't bother me. If Firefox starts up with a URL command, it becomes the 1st tab in the tab session - and the previous session is put just after it. Which is fine, because it still loads up fairly quickly. And you may want to start browsing from that point on anyway.

However, I've found that sometimes SessionSaver doesn't restore the tab order properly.

And when installing certain extensions, it forgets the restore the previous session on restart. But can more or less restore the previous session with the file menu option "Restore Session" - but doesn't appear to remember the previous session exactly (or maybe it was the session saved previous to that).

AnonEmoose · Post by **AnonEmoose** » April 18th, 2004, 3:52 am

i think it might have to do with the order of the extension listed in overlays.rdf in the profile folder overlayinfo\browser (assuming u installed to profile)... it might be cuz other listeners are being loaded and the order on which they load can cause some extension headaches.... i know i fixed a coupke of ornery issues by moving the order around

ajhubble · Post by **ajhubble** » April 18th, 2004, 4:21 am

Now that I think about it, extensions in Firefox are behaving exactly like extensions under the old MacOS's 6-9. For years, dealing with extensions under these operating systems became an art form due to the complex ways they could interact with the OS and other extensions. Extension management involved isolating which extensions were conflicting with which other extension - determined by loading them on start up one by one, and changing the order of loading (which made a difference in some instances).

Didn't think I'll be doing that with a mere browser years afterwards.

Edit: Sorry, this is off-topic. No need to reply. Though, with 25+ pages already, it probably wouldn't make any difference...

0dysseus · Post by **0dysseus** » April 20th, 2004, 11:01 pm

No idea if this has been mentioned in one of the many pages before (I haven't the patience to find out) but I've just started using session saver - a functionality I really appreciate - and I've already come across a quirk. If the last window you close is one of those pop-ups that sites use with the menu and toolbars stripped away then the menu and toolbars will be missing when you reopen the browser. If you can then pick a link and choose 'open in new window' you'll get your bars back on the next window but you've lost the session you probably wanted to save.

I don't know if there's any way of ignoring these child windows but if you can I'd really appreciate it.

-------------------------------------------
A truly useful tool will annoy you more when it doesn't work properly because you have come to rely on it.

Rowne Mastaile · Post by **Rowne Mastaile** » April 21st, 2004, 2:58 am

A partial workaround to this is to use TBE as it keeps other windows from taking prescedence over the main window by turning it into a single-window application. However, this doesn't stop those rare popups that escape TBE, nor does it stop Session Saver mistaking Download Manager and the DM popup for a window and blanking your session because of it.

I've found that the biggest cause of all this is 'save on shutdown', which for me proved to be very problematic. Now the only problem ironically with the current builds of Session Saver is that 'save on shutdown' can't be turned off. The option to disable it is buggy. So until that's definitely been cleared up in a new build and the ability to turn that off has fully returned, I'll be using an older build.

And that's my solution, turn off 'save on shutdown' and do a manual save whenever you want to close your browser or whenever you feel it's important to. That way you can be sure that only your main window and its state is going to be saved. And this approach has never failed me yet, not once.

I do have a version of the build I use uploaded here. I just hope nobody'll get too mad at me for uploading and linking to that, basically it's the first nightly rue released, when he'd just added the tab code. Just drop it in your chrome (with Firefox closed, course) and overwrite your current sessionsaver.jar then startup Fx, open the extension dialog and set the 'save on shutdown' to off.

That's what works for me.

Of course, it might be a pain in the arse to have to File > Save Session every time you want to do so, so I added the hotkey Ctrl+Shift+T myself. I also added Ctrl+Shift+R as Restore session. I know that's the 'reload from cache' shortcut but as I use Ctrl+F5 to do that it didn't really bother me, if it bothers you though I can change it and upload another.

I'm probably going to get someone ticked off at me for uploading that but... as this works for me I thought I'd share. I really do find the save automatically stuffs to be problematic. Do it manually and it'll be clear sailing. At least... my experiences, yanno? And you don't lose anything by trying this version, you'll just have to reinstall the newer SessionSaver again and it'll update all your stuff (including your current session info from the older version) accordingly.

Of course, if SessionSaver's 'save on shutdown' disabler has been fixed and I was just ignorant of the fact, try that instead. I think you're always going to find though that errors will creep in if it's done automatically... but that's just my two pence. Not the fault of rue, Pike or anyone... it's just the dynamic nature of browsing. It's hard to automatically account for.

ajhubble · Post by **ajhubble** » April 21st, 2004, 3:58 am

Is it easy for SessionSaver to distinguish Javascript popup windows and the Download Manager window/tab that most people will not want saved on shutdown? Maybe also an option to not save the about: tab either.

Maybe this is a suggestion for the SessionSaver forum then?

AnonEmoose · Post by **AnonEmoose** » April 21st, 2004, 10:57 am

i know it's hard to read through the whole 25 page thread...but it is a known bug (one which is holding back Nighly 23 i believe)
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 218#434218
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 132#435132
... BTW this thread was supposed to die ...lol

--- post here
http://aasted.org/adblock/viewforum.php?f=4

0dysseus · Post by **0dysseus** » April 22nd, 2004, 3:10 pm

Thanks AnonEmoose, I appreciate your patience with those of us who are new to the thread.

Rowne Mastaile · Post by **Rowne Mastaile** » April 24th, 2004, 12:47 am

Oh and I just want to correct an earlier post, then I'll say no more here...

I just tried the latest Session Saver and with this latest nightly I managed to wrangle a system where it doesn't save on every shutdown. What I did was used Tools > Session Saver > Preferences > New to create a new session and I called that Shutdown. Now in the Preferences (use the shift hover to uncover hidden options) I set the restore from to use 'Default' (not previous state or shutdown). Then I set the 'save session copy to' the new Shutdown session I'd created.

That way, when it restores it only restores the last session you manually obtained via 'Capture'.

Though it still has no keyboard shortcut for capturing, which is a shame. Maybe Rue will include one. I'll suggest it on his forum. Regardless, using this method, it's possible to stop the autocapture at shutdown... which for me was always kinda bad because the Download Manager could clear the tabs, changing theme (and having to restart because of a theme change) cleared the tabs every time, certain javascript popups cleared the tabs... x.x;

So whilst this is a brilliant extension and doubtlessly one of the best feats of extension coding I've ever seen, it does have issues with saving automatically. Maybe they'll figure those out eventually but I still say that until they've definitely got them sorted, save manually...

If you save manually you never lose anything and it works flawlessly. I can say this because I've never, ever lost a session when saving manually. Not once.

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » May 4th, 2004, 5:38 pm

Is this going to be updated any time soon to run with the latest version?

Rowne Mastaile · Post by **Rowne Mastaile** » May 4th, 2004, 9:56 pm

The best place to ask that are the official forums, which are here: aasted.org/adblock/viewforum.php?f=4 .

d_g · Post by **d_g** » May 5th, 2004, 8:27 am

I just want to know what number the latest nightly is. Can't seem to find that info anywhere.

sboulema · Post by **sboulema** » May 5th, 2004, 8:40 am

latest is 22
Session Saver

[Ext] SessionSaver .2d: new (rewrite)

SessionSaver quirk