Re: [ELPA] New package: activities

[Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>]

Hi Eli,

On 1/26/24 01:45, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2024 18:59:42 -0600
>> From: Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>
>>
>> I'd like to add a new package to ELPA, activities.el.  It's hosted at:
>>
>>     https://github.com/alphapapa/activities.el
>>
>> Here's the description; please see the readme/manual for more details.
>>
>>     Inspired by Genera's and KDE's concepts of "activities", this library
>> allows the user to select an "activity", the loading of which restores a
>> window configuration and/or frameset, along with the buffers shown in
>> each window.  Saving an activity saves the state for later restoration.
>> Switching away from an activity saves the last-used state for later
>> switching back to, while still allowing the activity's initial or
>> default state to be restored on demand.  Resuming an activity loads the
>> last-used state, or the initial/default state when a universal argument
>> is provided.
> 
>  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.  As well, it is not intended to be used on-demand to switch 
between sets of buffers, windows, or frames (i.e. "activities").

In addition to that, activities.el provides a mode to automatically save 
an activity's last window configuration in addition to its default.  And 
it provides integration with tab-bar-mode, as well as other conveniences 
and interactive commands.  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.

Thanks,
Adam