emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Dan Jacobson]

My icemw crashed and took emacs along with it.  What a great store of
things to complain about for my bad day not at the office.

Upon starting a new emacs, I wonder, might there be some #files#?  I
suppose I have to poke around for them myself. No spoiling emacs'
happy mood by it pro-actively telling me about them. Hmm, OK, I check
the newer files in ~/.backups, and sure enough in
/home/jidanni/.backups/.saves-636-debian~ there are lots of them.

OK, which are really there?
$ grep \# < .saves-636-debian|xargs ls
shows that indeed only one is really there.
OK, what changed?
$ diff -c makefile \#makefile\#|cat -v
! #	echo $(c84)|proj $p +ellps=aust_SA #found M-&M-(M-$j mistake
--- 5,11 ----
! #	echo $(c84)|proj $p +ellps=aust_SA #found M-^XM-*M-*M-^XM-&M-L mistake
ah ha, emacs has used its own format for the original big5 chinese.
ok, M-x recover-file indeed works but needs emacs to unlock the
'proprietary emacs #backup# file format'... ok, mentioned that
before. no big deal but do make emacs more forthcoming about what
happened bad last session.  Let's say the power blew and when you come
back to work next monday you have already forgotten to poke around
manually. you want emacs to quiz you that some #backups# exist.
In Recovering Data from Auto-Save in Info we dont see that emacs uses
its list of auto-save files to pro-actively notify the user... 
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

RE: emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Zaretskii Eli]

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> From: Dan Jacobson [mailto:jidanni@dman.ddts.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 2:56 AM
> 
> no big deal but do make emacs more forthcoming about what
> happened bad last session.  Let's say the power blew and when you come
> back to work next monday you have already forgotten to poke around
> manually. you want emacs to quiz you that some #backups# exist.

Does "M-x recover-session RET" do what you want?
 


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Re: emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Dan Jacobson]

>>>>> "RMS" == Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

RMS> Emacs normally displays a message at startup
RMS> when there is a .saves file that indicates that a session crashed.

RMS> Does this message appear when you start Emacs?

$ LC_ALL=C emacs --no-site-file -q -nw qqqqq
then hold down a key until you have enough chars that 'auto saving'
flashes in the minibuffer then hit C-z
[1]+  Stopped                 LC_ALL=C emacs --no-site-file -q -nw qqqqq
$ kill %
[1]+  Terminated              LC_ALL=C emacs --no-site-file -q -nw qqqqq
$ LC_ALL=C emacs --no-site-file -q -nw 
one sees just the cheery usual stuff, including the
   If an Emacs session crashed recently, type M-x recover-session RET
   to recover the files you were editing.
which is not good enough for busy Dan.

anyways, what I want is a yes or no querying the user if anything bad
happened that he hasn't fully acknowledged yet that he is aware of.

i.e. not just some message that will surely get covered up when his
xsesson file calls emacs -f gnus& next monday upon return to work
after the power failure and after he forgot what file he was editing
or that there ever was a power failure or that some file is messed up.

also he might have 3 emacs's open and already seen your warning but
didn't answer "yes" before he was called away and logoffed and now
logged in again [so he should be warned again].

P.S. I see there is a
$ ll -ta /home/jidanni/.backups|head
-rw-r--r--    1 jidanni  jidanni        62 2004-05-15 16:43 .saves-8856-localhost.localdomain~
file from year 2004 that somehow is there... maybe that is blocking
the action, I'll remove it

sorry, still didn't see anything. maybe what RMS is talking about
isn't enabled by default.  anyway http://jidanni.org/comp/emacs.txt is
what I use.

Eli> Does "M-x recover-session RET" do what you want?

Indeed, that does a great job.

What I want is "what about the user who left work on Friday when power
failed, and boozed it up over the weekend, and now its Monday, and
nobody has reminded him that one of the project files is in
trouble..." emacs know it but won't tell him unless asked.

Re: emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Richard Stallman]

    anyways, what I want is a yes or no querying the user if anything bad
    happened that he hasn't fully acknowledged yet that he is aware of.

I think that many users would find that too obnoxious.

Re: emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>     anyways, what I want is a yes or no querying the user if anything bad
>     happened that he hasn't fully acknowledged yet that he is aware of.
> 
> I think that many users would find that too obnoxious.

Suggestion:

(defvar try-recover-session nil
 "If set, emacs will call recover-session at startup if no file args are given.
recover-session will not be called in batch mode.")

The message
  Reading directory: no such file or directory, ...auto-save-list/.saves-*
at startup would get annoying after a while, so call recover-session
with an argument which means it should suppress that message.

Also, 'q' in the dired buffer should quit recover-session without
recovering any session, and the info message at the top of the buffer
should say so.

-- 
Hallvard

Re: emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Dan Jacobson]

>>>>> "H" == Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:

H> (defvar try-recover-session nil
H>  "If set, emacs will call recover-session at startup if no file args are given.

ok, but aren't you just gambling on luck that the user didn't use any
file arguments being the factor to decide if he should be informed or
not that file 34b of the dam design project is in trouble...

I mean during the day it is rare that I just start
$ emacs
for the fun of it, like I was going to play hanoi or something.
Usually I have some file arguments in mind.

P.S. a new emacs shouldn't quibble about another emacs' autosave file
if that other emacs is still indeed alive, unless of course they try
to edit the same file.
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

Re: emacs should quiz that #backups# exist by default

[Kevin Rodgers]

Dan Jacobson wrote:

> I mean during the day it is rare that I just start
> $ emacs
> for the fun of it, like I was going to play hanoi or something.


Me neither.  I usually do it once a month or so, for work.


-- 
<a href="mailto:&lt;kevin.rodgers&#64;ihs.com&gt;">Kevin Rodgers</a>