[Geany-Devel] [Geany-devel] Separating session file lists from config (again)

[Thomas Martitz]

Am 10.09.2012 06:36, schrieb Lex Trotman:
> Hi All,
>
> Its about that time of year when we have our annual discussion on
> separating session data from config/project data :)
>
> By session data I mean the list of currently open files and MRU list.
>
> The advantages (that I can see):
>
> 1. Save config/project as its changed and not rushed at quit time (and
> the quit save doesn't happen in the absence of a working, portable,
> session management capability)
>
> 2. Save session data periodically, or as it changes, or whenever,
> without touching the config/project files.  So the config isn't at
> risk if the session save goes wrong.
>
> The only disadvantage for user config (that I can see) is that it adds
> one file, say geany.session.conf alongside geany.conf
>
> For project sessions just using another file in the same place as the
> project file is more of a problem since project files can be in the
> project tree and some people like to save them in VCS.  So users would
> have to make sure that their git.ignore (or whatever the other VCSes
> use) is edited each time so that the session file isn't saved in the
> VCS.
>
> A better option, especially since sessions are inherently user
> related, is to store them in the user config location (or subdirectory
> thereof).  But how to link these files to the project files?
>
> The proposal is that each project gets a UUID generated when it is
> created (or when its opened without one) which is saved in the project
> file.  This uuid is the name of the session file in the
> ${GEANY_CONFIG}/sessions directory.  That way, when a project is
> opened, it is easy to uniquely find the session file if it exists.
> Using things like filenames, project names etc will always have
> clashes.  Libuuid is used by GTK so it will always be available on all
> platforms we use and so making the UUID is one call. (Pity GTK doesn't
> expose it though)
>
> The number of session files can be left to grow like weeds, or can be
> trimmed to a (configurable) maximum number deleting the oldest when
> needed.
>
> This proposal isn't about a proper session management capability,
> there isn't one that works on enough platforms to be worth including.
>
> Any thoughts welcome.
>



Reviving this old thread because the annual discussion naturally came up 
again this year.

Your proposal lists issues that are rather orthogonal to separating the 
session file list, thus I think these should be dealt with later. As a 
first step I would propose we split out the session file lists to 
separate files (normal session: in the same folder as geany.conf, for 
projects in the same folder as $project.geany). This should solve the 
problem checking project files in as well as enabling to sync geany.conf 
across machines without affecting opened files.

If one made such a patch, would it be accepted? It should be relatively 
trivial, only complicated by backward compat code to read session 
informations from the old location.

Best regards.