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List:       kwrite-devel
Subject:    Kate Project -> Sessions
From:       Christoph Cullmann <cullmann () babylon2k ! de>
Date:       2005-04-08 17:38:48
Message-ID: 200504081938.48496 () cullmann
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<for kde-usability>

hi, I crosspost this, as I want to have input if the idea I had (or stolen, as 
I don't think it's really new, not sure if any editor uses exactly the same 
concept, but for sure, this is known). For feedback: no need to crosspost to 
kwrite-devel, I am on the kde-usability list

</end>


hi,
just playing around with the project, guess was not the right idea for a 
texteditor. The problem in my eyes is that the kate project gui is bad (my 
fault) and that it is over complex, you have to deal with project, normal 
users don'T actually find them and advanced users needing projects use 
specialized tools better fitting for their project type (like kile, quanta, 
kdevelop, ....) which is a good thing IMHO as a ide we won't get with our 
limited man power, and as texteditor we shouldn't aim, additional plugins can 
still provide nifty coding utilities, like the symbol browser and so on, and 
won't annoy users not actually enabling them.

But, hey, new thoughts: As project seems not to fit the needs, I have 
thought bit about a different view on the problem I had, how to make kate 
better fit for people working on multiple areas with their editor. Just my 
use case: you play around at different projects (normally one at one time, 
but k, perhaps even some at once), for example, me:

 - kate part
 - kate app
 - kde.org and co
 - my homepage
 - misc.

now, everyday, normally I switch over from one to the other, or at least each 
day do something of them. What's the problem? I always have to go again back 
and get comfortable again, meaning: atm I code at the part, have 10 files 
open, but hey, I now am over with my bugfixes, want to play again with my 
homepage, I open Kate, but hu, my kate part files open, as I like session 
restore, what's to do? I must hit close all (or just hold the close button), 
browse my dirs back to the homepage (k, could use favourite entry, but, hey, 
than the list is overful soon ;), open my files I worked last at. Fine, not 
that much work, but now, day over, tomorrow want to work again at same kate 
part bugs, nooooo, same game, other way around.

Now the question is: how to solve that in any sane way? without over complex 
stuf like projects, where you need to add your files, create project files 
(which are in your way perhaps, or will be lost on cvs cleanups, not wanted 
in web dirs you load up, ...)?
I think a nice way out would be: Session, just like for the desktop. Atm kate 
already supports this, it can store your documents opened and the view states 
for the last used kate session (and for kde session management, but that's 
not of interest here I guess). Now, the simple way to solve all probs, allow 
in a simple way to store more than one default session!

How should that look like?

First: normal usage, kate behaves like atm, just allows to restore the default 
session

New Action in file menu "Save Session" or how ever it should be named, which 
will show up a dialog, prompting the user for a new session name and 
presenting already existing sessions to overwrite. after user gives the 
session a name (which is used to represent it later to him again), kate saves 
the session in ${kdehome}/share/apps/kate/sessions, the session will include 
the current opened document, view state, .... (perhaps some little config 
page for this matter to specify which stuff should be saved in a session, or 
just defaulting to the session restore options we have, not sure).

If Kate starts, and no session or file is specified as command line argument 
and more sessions than the normal default session are existing, kate shows up 
a dialog letting the user choose to work with the default session (or call it 
none or whatever), a fresh empty session or to load a previous saved session.

Sounds this concept like anything useful? Better than the borked project 
concept we have atm? Insane? ;)

cu
Christoph

-- 
Christoph Cullmann
KDE Developer, kde.org Maintainance Team
http://www.babylon2k.de, cullmann@kde.org
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