I would like to request some further features and one fix for the "Sessions" feature in XnViewMP:
1.) I would like to be able to save 'custom' sessions of opened tabs. Exactly same way that Opera browser does it from a menu:
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2.) When a previous session is loaded, I would like for each of the opened tabs NOT to be added to the "Recent files"
3.) I think it would be good if saved sessions remembered that tabs were "Iconify"
4.) Sessions management in XnViewMP (I strongly think) needs to have it's own Ini file ".sess" in the MP program folder. I suggest the Ini .sess be named as "sessionsXnview-{date}-{time}.sess" where it would store all the user's sessions. These individual sessions file(s) could save to it's own sub-folder within the program folder.
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In XnViewMP it could go between a 'Separator' and look just like this (below);
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Some further explanation of how I propose Sessions Management in XnViewMP should work
• Ok, from the 'File' menu it will just be the entry Sessions... or Sessions manage... - with no sub-menu to 'save session' as saving the actual session with a session name etc would be done in the separate small program window that would get opened.
• As I myself and John have noted, if a file no longer exists and the Session is opened then a little prompt message telling the user that the file no longer exists would be useful to have. Something like "One or more errors have occurred in opening this session, Continue?" --> Ok/Cancel
• The sessions management could be named "Sessions manage" or "Sessions organize" and will open a program window to manage all the manually saved sessions.
• Support for the tabs of Browser, Batch Convert, Compare, About - should be supported as saving with this Sessions manager. However these other tabs (non View-tabs) would still not be supported in the standard already existing auto-session saver (the same session saver that already exists since XnViewMP 0.50).
• Saved sessions would be displayed in the Sessions manager with a Name, Date saved and Colour Label with options (buttons) to "Rename" and "Remove" each session. The ability to "Remove all" sessions would be done via right-clicking or using the DEL key so that to keep it safer from accidental deleting of all.
• Ability to save Overwrite a session of an already saved name. So "Session already exists, do you want to overwrite?"
• Any Session opened will Not recognize the "Maximum view tabs" feature.
• The default naming pattern for each session would be like Session-01 , Session-02 , Session-03 , Session-04 etc etc And the default name would already be highlighted ready for the user to begin rename it
• There will be an important option in the session manager to choose "Restore this session on startup"
• If the "Restore this session on startup" is enabled, then it would enable another tickbox beneath it called "Confirm when opening" <--- which would mean that a confirmation prompt will display telling the user that the 'Always open session' feature is enabled and that they can disable it if they want to. This is important to include.
• A hotkey shortcut could exist that would be able to access the command of Saving a new session through the session manager.
• The existing Sessions feature since XnViewMP 0.50 will remain and still work the same. This is because this new Sessions manager will be for saving specific sessions with names, whereas the existing sessions feature in XnViewMP (if enabled by user) will still be useful for on-the-fly saving/restoring of a last used Session upon program exit. So it would still be kept as a quick automatic method whereas the Sessions manager would be for saving and managing lots of different Sessions. Furthermore the existing standard sessions feature (when enabled) can also act as good confirmation to let the user know they are closing the program (much like a "You are about to exit this program") which is great.
• However if the "Restore this session on startup" for a user's session is enabled in the Sessions manager then it will override the standard session feature that is enabled by auto disabling it in the Settings (in the background) so that there is no conflict. It would have to do this because a user has already selected a session in the Sessions manager that will always restore on future XnViewMP startups.
• Sessions saved by the standard sessions saver will not be listed in the Sessions manager.
• I think just for now in the beginning a maximum of 20 sessions can be saved within the Sessions manager.
