Session Management for Emacs

When you start Emacs, package Session restores various variables (e.g., input histories) from your last session. It also provides a menu containing recently changed/visited files and restores the places (e.g., point) of such a file when you revisit it.

To restore the variables, this package writes a session file (~/.session) when you exit Emacs. The file includes the values of variables which are automatically updated by Emacs during some editing operations:

• Histories of user input. For example, strings used in a find/replace command, names of files you have visited, etc.
• Contents of registers, whether they are texts or buffer/file positions. Buffer positions are automatically converted to file positions.
• List of recently copied/cut text blocks to paste, global markers to jump to, and other so-called rings.
• List of recently changed files with their places and some buffer-local variables.

To restore the places of a recently changed/visited file when you revisit it, this packages stores the places of a buffer in a special variable (the list mentioned above) when you kill that buffer (this includes exiting Emacs). Places are:

• Point (the cursor position) and mark (e.g., the opposite position when a region is highlighted). These places will be restored, but a region won't be made active.
• The position of the last change. A new command (bound to C-x C-/) can be used to jump to that position.
• The boundaries if only a part of a buffer was visible. Reopening the file will again restrict/narrow the editing operations to that region.
• Values of buffer-local variables. Useful for variables which control some temporary editing behavior, e.g., overwrite-mode.

As opposed to desktop.el and other packages, Session does not automatically revisits all files from your last session, most of which are not interesting anymore.

Check the details for new sub-menus and further explanations. Check the news for the newest version number, recent changes and installation instructions. At SourceForge.net, check the project summary and download the package.

You might want to try some other Emacs packages I have written: ANTLR-Mode, Template and X-Symbol.