Fully Collapsed Sessions Tree

[Pete]

I was just playing with this and decided that the current behavior is pretty much the opposite of what I would want [...]

Oh, my mistake, I just discovered that the "last session" is the last one that I ran, not the last one that I selected in Home view. So the problem is not so bad then.

[Tim]

I'll likely never use the "Auto-Saved" or "New" branches of the tree. I'd like them to always be collapsed (or ideally not there at all)

You can get rid of the AutoSave branch of the tree. Select Tools | Options | Interface and set "max auto-saved sessions" to zero.

You might not want to eliminate the New (Edit session defaults) node. That's the most convenient place to examine and change session defaults.

[Pete]

Thanks, Tim. However, when I set the max auto-saved sessions to zero, BC crashes after a restart. I can send a crash report if necessary.

Also, I didn't realize that the "New" branch that's discussed in this topic is really the "Session Defaults" folder. I agree that I want to keep this visible.

[Aaron]

Thanks, Pete. This should be fixed in the next release.

In the future, when you encounter crash reports, you can just send one our way (they give us your settings and stack trace automatically to help us reproduce the issue in house).

[Michael Bulgrien]

[ ] Collapse New Session node
[ ] Never auto-select Auto-saved sessions

Tim, perhaps you will appreciate today's post more than the ideas previously discussed in this thread. Instead of an option to "Never auto-select Auto-saved session", how about an option to always auto-select the last session launched from the home view:

[ ] Collapse New Session node
[ ] Auto-select last launched session

Why? The main reason that I despise the current auto-select of auto-saved sessions is because my workflow often proceeds like this:

• Open a user-defined folder session
• Update files from one side to the other
• Perform a common edit on the pathnames on both sides
• Update files from one side to the other
• Repeat this pathname edit and file update cycle about 8 more times. Due to the number of related updates I am doing, it is easier for me to perform these minor pathname edits than to save a separate session for all ten folder pairs accessed during my workflow from this common starting point.

After I have applied all updates related to the first user-defined folder session, I return to the home window to initiate the same activity on the next user-defined folder session. In other words, I am about to do the very same steps above, but from a different starting point. However, when I close the first folder session, the auto-saved sessions tree is open and a new auto-saved session is auto-selected rather than the user-defined session I used as a starting point. I must then collapse the auto-saved session tree and locate where I was in my user-defined sessions to continue my activity with the next user-defined session I wish to use for a starting point.

I would prefer that the auto-selected session would be the last one I opened from the home view rather than the last auto-saved session created. If I happen to open an auto-saved session from the home view, then I would not mind if that auto-saved session were auto-selected when I return to the home view, but I still would not want any other newly created auto-saved sessions to be auto-selected. I think you will agree that this preserves the usefulness of the auto-select feature (something is always auto-selected) but provides the user with more control over what will be auto-selected.

[Michael Bulgrien]

P.S. If I launch a new session via the "New" session tree, this would be the only time that I would expect the auto-saved session to be selected when I return to the home view.

[Michael Bulgrien]

Tim, perhaps you will appreciate today's post more than the ideas previously discussed in this thread. Instead of an option to "Never auto-select Auto-saved session", how about an option to always auto-select the last session launched from the home view:

[ ] Collapse New Session node
[ ] Auto-select last launched session

Why? The main reason that I despise the current auto-select of auto-saved sessions is because my workflow often proceeds like this:

• Open a user-defined folder session
• Update files from one side to the other
• Perform a common edit on the pathnames on both sides
• Update files from one side to the other
• Repeat this pathname edit and file update cycle about 8 more times. Due to the number of related updates I am doing, it is easier for me to perform these minor pathname edits than to save a separate session for all ten folder pairs accessed during my workflow from this common starting point.

After I have applied all updates related to the first user-defined folder session, I return to the home window to initiate the same activity on the next user-defined folder session. In other words, I am about to do the very same steps above, but from a different starting point. However, when I close the first folder session, the auto-saved sessions tree is open and a new auto-saved session is auto-selected rather than the user-defined session I used as a starting point. I must then collapse the auto-saved session tree and locate where I was in my user-defined sessions to continue my activity with the next user-defined session I wish to use for a starting point.

I would prefer that the auto-selected session would be the last one I opened from the home view rather than the last auto-saved session created. If I happen to open an auto-saved session from the home view, then I would not mind if that auto-saved session were auto-selected when I return to the home view, but I still would not want any other newly created auto-saved sessions to be auto-selected. I think you will agree that this preserves the usefulness of the auto-select feature (something is always auto-selected) but provides the user with more control over what will be auto-selected.

P.S. If I launch a new session via the "New" session tree, this would be the only time that I would expect the auto-saved session to be selected when I return to the home view.

Tim,

I'm still waiting for your thoughts on this. Suppressing the "Auto-saved" sessions is important to me... And I believe the ideas I expressed in my last set of posts retain the benefits of your current design while allowing for removal of the Auto-saved clutter 90% of the time.

[Michael Bulgrien]

I'm still frequently annoyed because my manually saved sessions are off the screen!.
I've bumped this post a couple times now. It would be nice if it received a little consideration.

[Tim]

Erik is now working on a "Sticky session selection in Home view" tweak. It won't be in 3.0.3 which will likely be released yet today, but it should make it into 3.0.4.

It should be close to what you've suggested, although if you select one of the New session types an launch a session, it will come back to that New session item (not the auto-saved session spawned from it).

[xtabber]

I personally find the home screen to be tedious to work with. I have a very large number of saved sessions, some of which are used frequently and some quite rarely. Some have similar purposes, but don't appear together in a sorted list.

What I would really like is to be able to group sessions into named categories or subfolders rather than have one long list to scroll through, but at the very least, a session MRU list (as in BC2) would be a great help in quickly finding the most often used sessions quickly.

[Zoë]

Right click on the tree and select New->Folder, or press [Ins] to add a folder to the tree. You can then drag & drop the sessions to move them.

[Michael Bulgrien]

Thank you for the sticky sessions in 3.0.4

Now, if you can just add another tweak leave the New tree collapsed (when buttons are not on the home view) I'll be happy. Please, I want my personally saved session tree to have primary focus on the main view. I would prefer having to expand the New tree to start a new session from scratch than having to collapse it every time I launch BC3 and want to navigate my saved sessions tree!

[Erik]

In 3.0.5, we'll make the expanded state of the "New" folder sticky when the home view is tweaked not to include the new session buttons

[Michael Bulgrien]

Great! Sticky is even better than a tweak!!!

[xtabber]

Right click on the tree and select New->Folder, or press [Ins] to add a folder to the tree. You can then drag & drop the sessions to move them.

This is a very nice fature. It is not mentioned in the hlep file. It should be added to the page on managing sessions.

Any possibility of a session MRU list?