Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!talos!kjones
From: kjones@talos.pm.com (Kyle Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Saving/Restoring state in GNU Emacs 18.55
Summary: save-context + interval timers should do the job
Message-ID: <1990Jul16.182327.9731@talos.pm.com>
Date: 16 Jul 90 18:23:27 GMT
References: <9474@uswat.UUCP> <668@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM>
Lines: 38

Naim Abdullah:
 > I am currently using a machine that sometimes crashes and destroys
 > my carefully built state in GNU emacs (all the files and buffer
 > that I am editing).

Steven L. Baur writes:
 > What you definitely want to use is saveconf.el, but that is not much
 > help against system crashes (your state information doesn't get written
 > out).  Your best hope is to use saveconf, exit emacs periodically, and
 > restart it.

As someone recently posted, you needn't exit, just "M-x save-context".

 > [...] Maybe someone wants to add code to saveconf.el to periodically
 > write out window state?

No need.  Get a copy of my timer package, which consists of:

    timer.el: a library of Lisp functions that implement and
              support general purpose interval timers for GNU
              Emacs;
    timer.c : a small C program that accesses the system clock.

It's probably in the OSU archives and I can send it directly to
those without access.

With the timer package installed you can say

  (start-timer "context-auto-save" 'save-context 300 300)

in your .emacs file to cause window contexts to be saved every five
minutes.  Put:

  (setq save-buffer-context t)

in your .emacs also if you want the contexts of all buffers
saved, otherwise you will just get only those buffers that have
a window.