Re: emacs.desktop non-functional

[ken <gebser@mousecar.com>]

On 03/18/2016 04:01 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
>> Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:05:59 -0400
>>
>> in ~/.emacs:
>>
>> (desktop-save-mode 1)
>
> This looks OK.  I have the same here, and it does work for me.
>
> Do you have a .emacs.desktop file created when you exit a session?  In
> what directories on your system do you have a file by that name?  And
> what happens if you invoke desktop-save manually from a running Emacs
> session -- does that file get created/updated somewhere?
>
> Also, what exactly does it mean the "functionality is gone" in your
> case?  What did you try to do and what happened?


https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Saving-Emacs-Sessions.html

"Use the desktop library to save the state of Emacs from one session to 
another. Once you save the Emacs desktop—the buffers, their file names, 
major modes, buffer positions, and so on—then subsequent Emacs sessions 
reload the saved desktop. By default, the desktop also tries to save the 
frame and window configuration...."

It doesn't do any of that.  Whenever I start emacs (not emacs-client) I 
get at most one file (buffer) from a previous session loaded.  So of 
course too the frame and window config is not reloaded either-- because 
there's just one buffer loaded.  Saving the multiple frames and window 
configuration has never worked for me in the entire history of 
session-saving... going back five (?) ten (?) years... since I've been 
using it.

Yes, I do have multiple .emacs.desktop files, this because I'm prompted 
for a directory when I do manually "M-x desktop-save".  I don't 
understand the merit in having multiple such files (and by extension the 
purpose of the prompting) if I have no way, AFAIK, to pick one other 
than whichever is the default when I load emacs.

Eli (or anyone), is there a way to get desktop-save to work 
automatically...? that is, to add to the listing in.emacs.desktop the 
name of a file when it's opened and, conversely, taken out when the file 
is closed (~= buffer is killed)?  That's the behavior I was expecting.

tnx for the f1