Feature request: autosave current session

[giacomo.ciani]

As far as I understand, the current list of opened widows/documents is always saved a the "last used session" upon exit, and reloaded at startup if the corresponding preference is set.

This works great, but it is not solid towards unexpected shutdown of the program (crash), or even program shutdown requests from the OS (I just used the built-in bug-reporting feature to describe this behavior).

Autosaving of the "last used session" either at regular time intervals or every time the list of documents/windows changes would be far more solid, and apparently not very difficult to implement (but everything is easy seen from here).

Any chance this will be implemented in the future? Note looking at my past posts, I realized that I had already made a similar request for PDF Xchange Viewer (I had forgotten in the meanwhile): a ticket was opened, but then I don't thin it was ever acted upon.

Thanks

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi, giacomo.ciani

The reason we do not offer an "autosave" (and instead offer the "autorecovery" options) is because changes are only retained until the file is saved. Once saving is complete, you can no longer "undo" changes you previously made, you need to manually locate them and make a new change to manually remove them. And option like this, especially in the case of "timed autosaving" could potentially result in an entire document becoming a series of blank pages if the wrong button is pressed at the wrong time, and we would be completely powerless to help restore it.

Although you are correct that we have had feature requests for this in the past, they have all been rejected, and this one almost certainly will as well. I will still broach the topic to see where it goes however.

Kind regards,

[giacomo.ciani]

Hi Daniel,

thanks for your answer. I completely understand (and agree) with your point, but I'm afraid I've not been clear in my previous post. I'm not proposing to save the document(s) (i.e. their content, which already is taken care of by the autorecovery information), but jus to save the session, i.e. the list of documents and windows currently opened. Same thing that would happen if I select "file->open->sessions->save current session" (which indeed does not save the documents themselves), just in an automatic way.

This way, if the program crashes, when it is restarted the user will find the same document/windows that were opened before the crash. Of course, each document may or may not have some change lost (or it may have autorecovery information), but that is completely independent.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi, giacomo.ciani

My apologies for misunderstanding there. That does sound much more viable as an option. In the meantime, I know you mentioned it does not work well for crashes, but for normal closing operations this should suit your needs well:

Other than that, I have created the following feature request for you on this topic, for consideration by the Dev team in the future.
#5569: FR: Sessions - autosave file list
This is an internal ticket, so if you would like an update in the future you will need to contact us here for updates.

Kind regards,

[pdfxbob]

Hi Daniel,

I fully support this request from @giacomo.ciani: for the session to work as such for me, I need the auto save feature for the .xcesession file. Also, a default folder (for storing or opening files) should be attached to a session which would be defined at the session creation as the folder wherein the xcesession file lies.

Best regards

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi, pdfxbob

Thank you for the support! I have added your name to the ticket as well.

Kind regards,

[giacomo.ciani]

Hi Daniel,

thanks. Indeed, as I mentioned in my original post, the functionality is basically already there in the form of "autosave session on exit". Is just the "little bit" of implementing a timed autosave that is missing. I hope this can be taken care of soon.

Cheers

Giacomo

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello giacomo.ciani,

We do have the ticket - so it will be acted upon as soon as possible! Thanks for adding your interest for this specific feature!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[pdfxbob]

Any update on that request?

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello pdfxbob,

No update here either I am afraid!

Kind regards,
Stefan