Re: desktop.el: autosave?

[Juri Linkov]

>>> After about 30 hours, saving the desktop had accumulated about 50s of time
>>> this way. That seems a reasonable amount to me. I have 137 buffers in my
>>> session, and my desktop file is about 38,000 bytes long. Hence, I suggest
>>> that a simple feature "Auto-save desktop" which adds
>>> desktop-save-in-desktop-dir to auto-save-hook, would satisfy most people
>>> likely to use this feature. Furthermore those concerned about power usage
>>> and disk spin-up only have to worry about the same Emacs feature
>>> (auto-save-hook), and not add another hook or function to their list of
>>> things to tweak.
>>
>> For users with small desktop files this simple solution could be
>> satisfactory.
>
> How much bigger than mine do you think it's going to get?

Mine is ~700 kilobytes long with ~400 buffers and unlimited history lists.
So far I had no problems with such a large desktop: I rarely restart Emacs;
desktop reading is quite fast (a few seconds); desktop saving takes 0.2 sec.
I could try using auto-save-hook and see what problems it causes.

>> A separate question is whether to auto-save the desktop using
>> auto-save-hook by default or not.  Perhaps not if it can cause
>> potential problems for users.
>
> I think this is a nice default if desktop is active. Of course, desktop
> itself is not switched on by default. I don't think it will cause problems
> for many users; those who don't like it can switch it off, of course. It
> seems reasonable to have it on by defaut, just like auto-save for files is
> on by default.

In any case, there should be an option to easily switch it off.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/