cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/9585677

My dream: I want a way to arbitrarily close and later open groups of applications including their states such as open files, window arrangement, scrollback, even undo histories etc. So working on a specific project I can close everything neatly and return to it later.

In my research/experiments here is what I come up with, do you agree?:

1. in the terminal-only environment this would be tmux or another multiplexer

2. But when you start including GUI applications (which I must), then it is something else that doesn't exactly exist

3. Applications store their current states in a variety of places and some of them don't really do restoring in any way so it would be hard to force.

4. the best option for this is something like xpra where you can have multiple sessions. If you had a machine that stayed powered-on all the time it might be possible to create sessions, log in remotely and use them that way.

5. Using xpra or similar the sessions are never really actually closed. You would only close the connection from the local machine. If the machine faces a power off then too bad. As far as I can se there is basically no way to accomplish this goal where power-offs are accommodated.

I have tried some remote-login options but they are too slow for normal use. I tend to have pretty low-end hardware running (because so far it works for most things) so maybe if I upgraded it would improve.

1. is it plausible?
2. how to estimate hardware/performance needs of host, client and LAN? anything else to consider?

I typically use manjaro + XFCE but would be willing to try something different to accomplish the goal. I only want to do this locally on LAN not remotely.

re XFCE session manager

XFCE has session management but the majority of programs don't totally work with. Like maybe the application will re-open when the session is restored but no files will be open even if they were when session was saved. Or distribution through workspaces, window size etc will not be restored.

My dream: I want a way to arbitrarily close and later open groups of applications including their states such as open files, window arrangement, scrollback, even undo histories etc. So working on a specific project I can close everything neatly and return to it later.

In my research/experiments here is what I come up with, do you agree?:

1. in the terminal-only environment this would be tmux or another multiplexer

2. But when you start including GUI applications (which I must), then it is something else that doesn't exactly exist

3. Applications store their current states in a variety of places and some of them don't really do restoring in any way so it would be hard to force.

4. the best option for this is something like xpra where you can have multiple sessions. If you had a machine that stayed powered-on all the time it might be possible to create sessions, log in remotely and use them that way.

5. Using xpra or similar the sessions are never really actually closed. You would only close the connection from the local machine. If the machine faces a power off then too bad. As far as I can se there is basically no way to accomplish this goal where power-offs are accommodated.

I have tried some remote-login options but they are too slow for normal use. I tend to have pretty low-end hardware running (because so far it works for most things) so maybe if I upgraded it would improve.

1. is it plausible?
2. how to estimate hardware/performance needs of host, client and LAN? anything else to consider?

I typically use manjaro + XFCE but would be willing to try something different to accomplish the goal. I only want to do this locally on LAN not remotely.

I am really struggling to replace facebook messenger / whatsapp for a few casual conversations. My friends and I are all wanting to move away. We are not heavy users of this but need it to work. I think the requirements are:

• floss client for android, linux, windows

• persistent history across devices

• reasonable security

• don't need to self host server

• can send a message to offline user, they get it when they come online

• not tied to or reliant on phone number / cell service

• ETA: end user documentation explaining how to set up and common troubleshooting

tried:

• matrix: the thing with having to keep track of room keys and stuff is too complicated. every time someone uses a new device it is a ton of issues and we could never quite get it ironed out

• signal: tied to phone number, no history across devices

• xmpp: similar to matrix the key situation is confusing, also no cross device history

• ETA: simpleX: a lot of people here are mentioning simpleX. It didn't come up in previous investigations so will give it a shot.

  • ETA 2: It doesn't seem to have persistent history across devices. Clarification?

I actually didn't think this would be such a problem but it is breaking us. we don't need a lot of sophisticated features like voice, video, moderation, 1000s of participants, spam protection etc that seem to be of concern to the projects. just simple text chat.

I really like comparison tables on wikipedia but find them hard to navigate.

For example: Comparison of web browsers > General Information

Say I want a web browser for Linux which has been recently updated. I can sort by the "Platform" column, or by "Latest release: Date" but not both.

Sometimes tables can be very wide and/or very tall. Once you get to scrolling it is impossible to see either the row or column headings. So then you can't tell where you even are in the table. Example: Table of AMD processors Also they can have complex structures with merged headings and content.

Ideally I would like to apply some basic spreadsheet-type operations like hiding rows/columns, filtering, sorting by multiple columns etc. Even if there was a way to easily get the table into an actual spreadsheet that would be helpful. I tried some extensions that export tables to other formats but nothing worked without a lot of cleanup.

Is there some kind of trick or tool or extension that makes these ginormous tables useful? I can't tell how people even add information to these things, they are so large.

I really like comparison tables on wikipedia but find them hard to navigate.

For example: Comparison of web browsers > General Information

Say I want a web browser for Linux which has been recently updated. I can sort by the "Platform" column, or by "Latest release: Date" but not both.

Sometimes tables can be very wide and/or very tall. Once you get to scrolling it is impossible to see either the row or column headings. So then you can't tell where you even are in the table. Example: Table of AMD processors Also they can have complex structures with merged headings and content.

Ideally I would like to apply some basic spreadsheet-type operations like hiding rows/columns, filtering, sorting by multiple columns etc. Even if there was a way to easily get the table into an actual spreadsheet that would be helpful. I tried some extensions that export tables to other formats but nothing worked without a lot of cleanup.

Is there some kind of trick or tool or extension that makes these ginormous tables useful? I can't tell how people even add information to these things, they are so large.

I really like comparison tables on wikipedia but find them hard to navigate.

For example: Comparison of web browsers > General Information

Say I want a web browser for Linux which has been recently updated. I can sort by the "Platform" column, or by "Latest release: Date" but not both.

Sometimes tables can be very wide and/or very tall. Once you get to scrolling it is impossible to see either the row or column headings. So then you can't tell where you even are in the table. Example: Table of AMD processors Also they can have complex structures with merged headings and content.

Ideally I would like to apply some basic spreadsheet-type operations like hiding rows/columns, filtering, sorting by multiple columns etc. Even if there was a way to easily get the table into an actual spreadsheet that would be helpful. I tried some extensions that export tables to other formats but nothing worked without a lot of cleanup.

Is there some kind of trick or tool or extension that makes these ginormous tables useful? I can't tell how people even add information to these things, they are so large.