bug#22025: Emacs 25 corrupts Emacs 24 .emacs.desktop.

[Drew Adams]

> > > I think (but I don't know for sure) that explicitly invoking
> > > `desktop-save' is quite rare
> 
> > I and other Bookmark+ users use it all the time.  We create
> > desktops as bookmarks, and switch among them - any number
> > of them - by "jumping" to them.
> 
> Thanks.  I didn't know about this.  As a matter of interest,
> where is the source for Bookmark+?

You can get it from MELPA or Emacs Wiki.  I upload to the wiki,
and it is pulled from there to MELPA (daily).

The description page (with info about obtaining the files etc.)
is here: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BookmarkPlus

Obtaining the files:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BookmarkPlus#toc3

> > > "- most desktop files will be saved at Emacs shutdown,
> 
> > Are you sure?  My guess is that most users who only do
> > that content themselves with a single desktop file, or
> > perhaps 2 or 3.  Users of desktop bookmarks might have
> > dozens of them.
> 
> I have just a single desktop file.  The idea of having lots of them, and
> switching between them is a new one to me.  A big problem with the
> desktop idea is that of gradually accumulating files which must be
> explicitly closed at some point.  I'm guessing that with lots of smaller
> desktop files, you can just delete an entire desktop when you've finished
> using it.

I don't follow you, about closing.  I don't think that having
more or fewer files should have a consequence wrt deleting.
And I'm not sure what you mean by being "finished using it".

Desktop files are, well, files, so they are persistent (just
like bookmark files).  Whether you have only one or a hundred
shouldn't make any difference wrt when you might be finished
with it.  If you don't use a file anymore (any file), you can
toss it.

Sorry, but I really haven't grasped what you mean here.

FWIW, the Bookmark+ command that saves the current desktop
as a bookmark is `bmkp-set-desktop-bookmark'.  And the
command that jumps to a desktop bookmark (i.e., switches
to its desktop) is `bmkp-jump-desktop'.

That uses function `bmkd-desktop-change-dir' to do the
switch, and that is accomplished by killing the current
desktop and reading the desktop file being switched to.
Killing a desktop means (1) saving it, if appropriate
and (2) releasing the lock.

(defun bmkp-desktop-change-dir (desktop-file)
 ...
 (bmkp-desktop-kill) ; derived from `desktop-kill'
 (desktop-clear)
 (desktop-read desktop-dir))

(Again, the code needs to convert arg DESKTOP-FILE to
DESKTOP-DIR, because of the way desktop.el is written.)

> > Another example:
> 
> > It is an unfortunate mistake that desktop.el is written in
> > such a way that it hard-codes an assumption that there is
> > only one desktop file per directory.  The code uses a
> > desktop directory (argument or global var) everywhere,
> > instead of a desktop file argument.  Yet the directory is
> > used only to find the file.
> 
> > The basic functions, such as `desktop-change-dir' and
> > `desktop-read', assume this, so they don't take a
> > DESKTOP-FILE as an optional arg.  I needed to write simple
> > wrapper functions for them, to let users have multiple
> > desktop files in the same directory.  There is no reason
> > why a desktop file must be associated with a directory -
> > users should be able to store the files anywhere.
> 
> Here, I begin to get a little sceptical.  How will being able to store
> desktop files "anywhere" actually be useful?  It seems to me that the
> typical desktop file of many will, in fact, be associated with a
> particular directory, the directory where work is actually being done for
> some particular topic.  Being able to store it "anywhere" would add
> complexity to desktop.el, and I don't think that extra complexity has
> yet been justified.

You are maybe thinking "typical" only in the sense of a user
who has only one desktop file, or maybe a couple.  In such a
case, yes, maybe s?he has one for a given directory.

But a desktop is a configuration that records lots of stuff.
There is no reason that you shouldn't want to have multiple
such configurations, and no reason that the configuration
files should be in different directories.

Where you store your desktop files is irrelevant (though
the desktop.el code does not particularly facilitate this).

There is no necessary connection between (1) desktop bookmarks
and (2) the fact that a desktop, being a configuration of lots
of stuff, is in general not related so some particular directory.

It just happens that Bookmark+, unlike the vanilla case, makes
it easy to switch among desktops, so the implicit fact that
desktop configs could be stored anywhere is freed up.
A bookmark doesn't care where a target desktop file is located -
the file name stored is absolute.

"The directory where work is actually being done for some
particular topic" means what?  Don't you use more than one
directory when you work on a "topic"?  Don't you move around?

And even if you don't, the state of Emacs - which files you
have open, in which windows/frames, what the values of given
variables are, etc. changes.  And you might want to record
and later restore some of those states, no?  IOW, even if
they are in the same directory, the states are different,
and what you were doing at different times is different.

A desktop records window/frame configs, a set of variables,
buffers, files,... - lots of stuff.  Think of it as a
particular _view_ of a particular state of Emacs.  It
doesn't matter whether your favorite views each concern
a different directory or some of them concern the same
directory.  They are just snapshots of an Emacs session
interaction (desktop) state.

The idea that a desktop file is used (or is usable) only to
record the _last_ state of Emacs (vars, buffers, frames,
etc.) for your last Emacs session is a narrow one.

Forget about Emacs a second.  Have you not used desktops
provided by your window manager?  Even if you have used
them only for different directories (one desktop per dir),
surely you did not have only one desktop and use it only
to record the config of the last session, before you
logged out.

> > FWIW, bookmark.el handles evolution of the bookmark-file
> > format across 3 versions in a way that is transparent to
> > users.  Dunno whether the format change for desktop files is
> > similar, but if it is, you might want to take a look at how
> > bookmark.el handles it.  Search bookmark.el for "IMPORTANT
> > NOTICE" to see a description of the changes and how they are
> > dealt with.
> 
> In the new desktop format, the central function `desktop-create' now has
> an extra argument.  Since `desktop-create' is written to the desktop
> file as a function call, it has too many arguments for the old version of
> desktop.el in Emacs <= 24.5.  There is no nice and easy way to deal with
> this.

OK.  Now I guess I'll have to look at desktop.el, to see
whether the changes break desktop bookmarking, and if so,
adapt. ;-)