[Ext]Session Manager 0.7.6.1 - Aug 3, 2011

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Morac
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by Morac »

GigMormon wrote:Maybe it is time to have separate versions for Firefox 2, 3.01, and 3.1 for a while, then phase out the older ones after a while.


I do have Firefox 2, 3 and 3.1 specific code in Session Manager (not a lot, but some) so that's not really an issue. I like to keep older version compatibility for people who use things like Flock or Netscape, but testing with older version does become a pain at some point though. At some point I might just say use older versions of Firefox at your own risk.

One of the main problems is that the way Firefox stores internal session data is in a constant state of change. For the most part it is backwards compatible, meaning that Firefox 3.1 will take Firefox 2.0 generated session data, but the reverse is obviously not true. That will make things like implementing a Session Editor tricky if I want to support older versions of Firefox.

At some point though I agree that you can't support older versions. I still some people occasionally ask me why Session Manager doesn't work in SeaMonkey 1.x which still uses the extension interface developed for Firebird 0.9. :shock:
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Recall
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by Recall »

Morac wrote:
GigMormon wrote:Maybe it is time to have separate versions for Firefox 2, 3.01, and 3.1 for a while, then phase out the older ones after a while.


I do have Firefox 2, 3 and 3.1 specific code in Session Manager (not a lot, but some) so that's not really an issue. I like to keep older version compatibility for people who use things like Flock or Netscape, but testing with older version does become a pain at some point though. At some point I might just say use older versions of Firefox at your own risk.

One of the main problems is that the way Firefox stores internal session data is in a constant state of change. For the most part it is backwards compatible, meaning that Firefox 3.1 will take Firefox 2.0 generated session data, but the reverse is obviously not true. That will make things like implementing a Session Editor tricky if I want to support older versions of Firefox.

At some point though I agree that you can't support older versions. I still some people occasionally ask me why Session Manager doesn't work in SeaMonkey 1.x which still uses the extension interface developed for Firebird 0.9. :shock:


Well, you know your code is solid for backwards compatibility. So from this point on maybe you should just support the new gecko. It will make your a bit leaner to boot anyway and maybe a little faster.

Oh and lest headaches testing :wink:
Thanks for the explanation.
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zeniko
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by zeniko »

Morac wrote:For example, if you close the last Firefox window before the Downloads window, the "Save and Quit" prompt never appears and your window is lost. This is actually a Firefox bug that will be fixed in 3.1.

I'm afraid you're rather thinking of bug 354894 which doesn't look like it'll make Firefox 3.1.
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Morac
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by Morac »

zeniko wrote:I'm afraid you're rather thinking of bug 354894 which doesn't look like it'll make Firefox 3.1.


You're right of course. It's a shame that it won't make it in though. Though if all the bugs and enhanced that have been filed were fixed, there would be no need for the Session Manager add-on any more. :)
makondo
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by makondo »

Hehe, may be but then may be not. Look at the session manager built in - half baked. Spellchecker - half baked. Bookmarks management - half baked. I can go on if you want me to but i think we get the picture. I have an extension for every Fx function - to get it working right. Bugs or not, in my opinion, if you do something, do it right or don't bother at all.
q00u
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by q00u »

Session Manager failed to save my tabs in a crash. :-(

SM v 0.6.2.2
FF v 3.0.1

Browser crashed unexpectedly. I waited for it to completely shutdown (and then some) and then restarted. Chose to recover most recent crash, and it instead restored my crashed session from yesterday. QUITE frustrating, as my tabs had changed drastically in the intervening day.

Has anything in the crash-recovery part of the code been changed in the recent updates? Because this used to be a rock-solid part of the extension (the reason I use it over TMP sessions which would also fail to recover tabs in a crash).
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Morac
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by Morac »

q00u,

Did you choose to restore the "Current session" (the top most entry)? If not then that could explain why an older session was restored. If you did choose a different session, the crashed session will be backed up and show up in the Backup Sessions sub-menu with the approximate time it crashed.

If you did choose the "Current Session", please check the Backup Session sub-menu any way to see if the time reported on the backup of the crashed session matches the time that the browser actually crashed.

As for your second question. Firefox is in charge of making sure that the session data is up to date in case of a crash. All Session Manager does is read that data, make a backup of it and prompt the user to restore it. If the session data wasn't being backed up by Firefox, then that could explain why old data was restored.

There's a few bugs (410060 and 366509) that I'm aware of that can cause Firefox to stop periodically backing up session data but they seem to only occur if Firebug is installed. There is another bug that can prevent Session Manager from backing up the crash data (if the session is very, very large), but it would not prevent the crashed session from restoring. You'd see errors in the Error Console for either of these cases.
skyhighsmile
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by skyhighsmile »

Thanks for the extension - one of my must-haves for as long as I've been using Firefox.

Having a problem, though: The Session manager submenu won't show for me in the Tools menu, so to load an old session I have to change the options to prompt me for a session on startup, and then shutdown and restart FF.

The "Do not display Session Manager in Tools menu" option is NOT checked. I even tried checking it, saving, unchecking it again, and saving, but no change.

I'm running SM 0.6.2.2 and Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7pre.080816 under FF 3.0.1
Not using Veoh.

Are there any known issues with TMPlus v0.3.7?
Any ideas how to get the menu to show up?

Thanks!
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Morac
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.2

Post by Morac »

skyhighsmile,

I'm not sure why this would happen. Can you double check and make sure the the "extensions.sessionmanager.hide_tools_menu" preference is set to false in the about:config preferences area?
john27374
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.3

Post by john27374 »

Thanks for this great extension, it is a real life saver. I have one issue though:

I am absolutely terrified of new windows. I can spend weeks building up a collection of tabs, projects I'm working on, articles I'm reading, etc. Then I can click on some link that opens in a new window. Maybe the new window is only slightly smaller than my main window, so when I click the "X" (close) button, I close the main window. Oops. Weeks worth of data gone. Is there any way to prevent or restore this in Session Manager? I very rarely close firefox (I "sleep" my computer rather than shut down), so my sessions are rarely saved automatically. Maybe include an option in SM that requires a window to have at least X number of tabs open in order to be saved? That way a simple popup can't wipe out your session. Or maybe save a new session every X minutes?

Let me know if I'm missing something. Thanks :)
thinkstorm
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.3

Post by thinkstorm »

Is there a way to start a specific session from the store from the command line?

Cheers, Thorsten
Alan Baxter
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.3

Post by Alan Baxter »

john27374 wrote:so when I click the "X" (close) button, I close the main window. Oops. Weeks worth of data gone. Is there any way to prevent or restore this in Session Manager?

OMG, yes! The window can be restored from the Session Manager menu: Tools > Session Manager. Closed windows are saved for the duration of the session by default, just like closed tabs. If that isn't working for you, make sure Session Manager Options > Undo Close > Maximum number of remembered closed windows: isn't zero. The default is 10.
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Morac
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.3

Post by Morac »

thinkstorm wrote:Is there a way to start a specific session from the store from the command line?


From the Firefox command line? No there currently isn't any way to do so and I don't believe it's possible to do so. Looking at the code it appears that Firefox does not save allow extensions any way to access the command line arguments.

That said I could make my own URI handler (example: "session://test" would open "test" session), but I'm not sure exactly how useful that would be.
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WildcatRay
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.3

Post by WildcatRay »

Why not use the "prompt for a session" option at startup? :-k
Ray

OS'es: 4 computers with Win10 Pro 64-bit; Current Firefox, Beta, Nightly, Chrome, Vivaldi
al1984
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Re: [Ext]Session Manager 0.6.2.3

Post by al1984 »

Alan Baxter wrote:
john27374 wrote:so when I click the "X" (close) button, I close the main window. Oops. Weeks worth of data gone. Is there any way to prevent or restore this in Session Manager?

OMG, yes! The window can be restored from the Session Manager menu: Tools > Session Manager. Closed windows are saved for the duration of the session by default, just like closed tabs. If that isn't working for you, make sure Session Manager Options > Undo Close > Maximum number of remembered closed windows: isn't zero. The default is 10.


Hi, nice addon!

I do have a problem I cannot figure out that falls in line with this issue. I also have the problem with pop-ups in the background that I am not paying attention to. I just don't get it ](*,) When I have a session set to auto save, and there are multiple windows open, how do I exit and save all windows?

I have figured out that if I am on my toes and recognize there is a pop-up (no menu bar) in the background, I can save myself by opening a new window so I can get the menu bar to appear and then recover the closed window.

But like last night I spent four hours on the web planning my vacation and I had one window open with ~30 tabs. I was tired and when I closed the window, there was a pop-up and I closed it without thinking, BANG, entire session gone. No way to recover(!?!); backup session list only lists the pop-up (because it was the last one closed).

Just throwing out some jumbled thoughts here: Can we have a 'close all windows saved to one session button?' Can closed windows list be saved for several days, instead of only during the active session? If I choose not to use autosave, could you send a popup warning me to save this session when I close it? Or could you send a popup warning that if I close this window now, I will lose it because there are other windows open that will default as the saved session?

Note: I just closed this window to reenact the saved session and when I came back all of my form data was still here. Nice.
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