Re: Suggested patch for desktop.el, and 'slothful' lazy file loading

[Davis Herring <herring@lanl.gov>]

> I have been using desktop.el in "lazy" mode i.e. with the settings
> 
> (setq desktop-restore-eager 10)
> (setq desktop-lazy-verbose nil)
> 
> This is supposed to make it load the first 10 files normally, then load the 
> rest "in the background" when Emacs is idle.
> 
> I have found that although the extra buffers are loaded in the
> background, after each buffer is loaded the display still switches to
> that buffer. This is very disconcerting - you are trying to work in 
> buffer A but you are constantly switched against your will to
> viewing buffer B, C, D, etc, as they are loaded.

I can't reproduce this (but I only have an old Emacs 22 to hand to test).

> The following trivial patch seems to fix this, and I have not encountered any
> problems so far with it.

I suppose that we use switch-to-buffer because it affects the buffer
list order, but I'm not sure; the reordering code is complicated and its
true goal is unclear.  If we can use `set-buffer', we can just use
`with-current-buffer'.

> Also, I have written an emacs extension called 'slothful' which allows
> true lazy loading of files - instead of actually loading the file, an
> empty buffer is created pointing the file, and it automatically loads
> only when the buffer is first displayed. I think this might be an
> interesting addition to desktop. I have tested it myself, just loading
> individual files.

A minor point: you can't restore point and mark in such a buffer, so
they would be lost at the next desktop-save.

Davis

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