Re: [ELPA] New package: activities

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 04:42:26 -0600
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>
> 
> >  From the user-facing POV, how is this different from desktop.el's
> > ability to save/restore Emacs sessions to/from separate desktop files?
> 
> As the documentation explains:
> 
>    How does this differ from the built-in ~desktop-mode~? :: As best 
> this author can tell, ~desktop-mode~ saves and restores one set of 
> buffers, with various options to control its behavior.  It does not use 
> ~bookmark~ internally, which prevents it from restoring non-file-backed 
> buffers.

This could be added to desktop.el as a (relatively simple)
enhancement.

> As well, it is not intended to be used on-demand to switch 
> between sets of buffers, windows, or frames (i.e. "activities").

Maybe I don't understand what this means, but desktop.el can be told
to restore a session recorded in a specific directory, which allows
the user to have several desktops recorded, and to restore each one
when necessary.  Are you talking about something else?

> In addition to that, activities.el provides a mode to automatically save 
> an activity's last window configuration in addition to its default.

Not sure what "in addition to its default" is about, but desktop.el
also saves the current session regularly and automatically (see
desktop-auto-save-timeout).

> And it provides integration with tab-bar-mode, as well as other
> conveniences and interactive commands.

Is that missing from desktop.el?  If so, can you tell what is missing?

> Finally, activities.el is designed to be independent of other
> features and co-exist with them, avoiding interference with other
> libraries.  It's only a few days old, but is based on another
> library of mine; I intend to continue developing it with user
> feedback to allow further extension and integration with other
> tools.

I wish people would extend existing features instead of reinventing
them from scratch.  Would you perhaps consider extending desktop.el to
add whatever you think is missing there?  If not, why not?

Thanks.