Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Otto Maddox]

I use a lot of scratch buffers (which don't visit files), and I've lost
a lot of work due to accidentally quitting Emacs or killing those
buffers, because Emacs doesn't ask for confirmation. Is there a way of
configuring Emacs to treat buffers which don't visit files the same way
as file-visiting buffers, for this situation?

Thanks.

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Email service worth paying for. Try it for free

Re: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

"Otto Maddox" <ottomaddox@fastmail.fm> writes:

> I use a lot of scratch buffers (which don't visit files), and I've lost
> a lot of work due to accidentally quitting Emacs or killing those
> buffers, because Emacs doesn't ask for confirmation. Is there a way of
> configuring Emacs to treat buffers which don't visit files the same way
> as file-visiting buffers, for this situation?

I just create scratch _files_.

    C-x C-f scratch1.txt RET
         ^

instead of:

    C-x  b  scratch1.buf RET

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

Re: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Ralf Fassel]

* "Otto Maddox" <ottomaddox@fastmail.fm>
| buffers, because Emacs doesn't ask for confirmation. Is there a way of
| configuring Emacs to treat buffers which don't visit files the same way
| as file-visiting buffers, for this situation?

See variable 'buffer-offer-save':

Documentation:
Non-nil in a buffer means always offer to save buffer on exit.
Do so even if the buffer is not visiting a file.

HTH
R'

Re: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Andrea Crotti]

"Otto Maddox" <ottomaddox@fastmail.fm> writes:

> I use a lot of scratch buffers (which don't visit files), and I've lost
> a lot of work due to accidentally quitting Emacs or killing those
> buffers, because Emacs doesn't ask for confirmation. Is there a way of
> configuring Emacs to treat buffers which don't visit files the same way
> as file-visiting buffers, for this situation?
>
> Thanks.

Actually I also did but nothing important luckily, I always saved
somewhere before...

I can't find any but there should be a variable somewhere to set this.
And I also always thought that those scratch buffers where saved
somewhere in /tmp, but I can't find that either...

Re: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Jeff Rancier]

Can you configure 'desktop' to save these buffers?


----- Original Message ----
From: Andrea Crotti <andrea.crotti.0@gmail.com>
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Sent: Mon, October 25, 2010 11:28:07 AM
Subject: Re: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

"Otto Maddox" <ottomaddox@fastmail.fm> writes:

> I use a lot of scratch buffers (which don't visit files), and I've lost
> a lot of work due to accidentally quitting Emacs or killing those
> buffers, because Emacs doesn't ask for confirmation. Is there a way of
> configuring Emacs to treat buffers which don't visit files the same way
> as file-visiting buffers, for this situation?
>
> Thanks.

Actually I also did but nothing important luckily, I always saved
somewhere before...

I can't find any but there should be a variable somewhere to set this.
And I also always thought that those scratch buffers where saved
somewhere in /tmp, but I can't find that either...


      

Re: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Arnaldo Mandel]

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Otto Maddox <ottomaddox@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> I use a lot of scratch buffers (which don't visit files), and I've lost
> a lot of work due to accidentally quitting Emacs or killing those
> buffers, because Emacs doesn't ask for confirmation. Is there a way of
> configuring Emacs to treat buffers which don't visit files the same way
> as file-visiting buffers, for this situation?

There are lots of ways of implementing buffer-saving policies; quite
likely you don't want all
scratch buffers to ask to be saved (as per the buffer-offer-save local
variable).
Look up the command save-some-buffers in the elisp manual for the
route to solving your problem.

RE: Protecting buffers which aren't visiting files

[Drew Adams]

> I just create scratch _files_.
>     C-x C-f scratch1.txt RET
> instead of:
>     C-x  b  scratch1.buf RET

FWIW, me too, most of the time (but typically *.el).