Problems with new session support

[Milian Wolff]

On Wednesday 27 January 2010 22:56:28 David Nolden wrote:
> Am Mittwoch 27 Januar 2010 22:38:39 schrieb Andreas Pakulat:
> > On 27.01.10 22:12:39, David Nolden wrote:
> > > Well, on my work machine I have 3 sessions that don't have a name, and
> > > it is totally fine like that. What would I need a session name for, if
> > > the contained projects completely identify the session? We can leave
> > > the user alone with such unneeded overhead. "kdevplatform, kdevelop"
> > > identifies my kdevelop session perfectly.
> > 
> > The problem is that you can't start the session that way from the
> > commandline with the -s switch.
> > 
> > > We could also allow the user to pick a session using "kdevelop -s
> > > ProjectName" by contained projects if we want that option to always
> > > work.
> > 
> > That would force me to type much more letters on the commandline then a
> > short session name would. Or what happens if there's a session that has
> > two projects and another that has these two + a third one?
> 
> Well, I think that is a real extreme-case. The session-support already
> makes it very unprobable that this happens, by reminding that there
> already is another session with a specific project open when you try to
> open it.
> 
> > > What would an auto-generated session name, that would be completely
> > > unrelated to its contents, be useful for?
> > 
> > It allows to easily start kdevelop with a specific session, without
> > having to wait until its shutdown, restarted and the projects reloaded
> > completely.
> > 
> > And all this doesn't yet help at all if one wants to rename or delete a
> > session thats not the current one.
> 
> You mean using the command-line? Well, I think that only a very small
> amount of users will even get the idea to use the command-line to pick a
> session. And even if they do, for most the open above, aka. "kdevelop -s
> ProjectName" would work. Also we can simply say "If you want to pick your
> session from the command-line, you've got to name your session first",
> that really is no deal for advanced users.
> 
> But just for this _tiny_ convenience for advanced users (remember: you can
> simply start kdevelop, and pick your session through the menu), we
> shouldn't clutter our UI with "Session 13 - Project1, Project2, Project3",
> or even worse by forcing the user to name a session before he even has
> opened a project in it.

See below, as soon as you have multiple sessions it's a pita to start KDevelop 
(which is slow compared to other apps), go to the menu, pick a session, wait 
for startup again => now you can start to work.

> Btw. how should the user even know that "Session 13" is the one he wants?

By using the new --sessions switch ;-) But then one could simply copy the HASH 
as well, but well - the name would be simpler and wouldn't require 
copy'n'paste.

> Names only make sense if the user picked them manually, and forcing him to
> pick a name makes only sense if we really require that name, but being able
> to pick a session from the command-line is not a hard requirement.

I'm with you here, making it a requirement sucks imo. And I have to admit that 
probably mose users won't use the Session switch.

But I do think that they are a neccessity as soon as you use sessions 
seriously and have to switch between them constantly. Esp. for webdevelopers 
that work on several, completely separated projects, I'd prefer to have a 
quick way to switch between sessions, or have multiple open at once. And I 
don't think that having all the projects open at the same time solves this 
issue (esp. considering the initial slow-down during startup).

What would be really nice imo would be one of those Kate/Konqueror/Konsole 
KRunner or plasmoids that list the available sessions and make it possible to 
run KDevelop with one of these directly, quickly and integrated. But I do know 
that you hate Plasma David, don't you? ;-) Looks like I have to investigate 
that :D


-- 
Milian Wolff
mail at milianw.de
http://milianw.de
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