session saving not enabled by default in Dapper

Thanks for your bug. Some users probably close their session with stuff open an expect to get a clean desktop next login. That would be a point to discuss on the ubuntu-desktop mailing list by example. Do you want to mail it about that?

Sorry for my late reply, I'll send an e-mail to the ubuntu-desktop list.

thank you for working on that

I like the current situation (save not enabled by default). Users probably don't expect their session to be saved... I have seen lots of beginners opening dozens of windows (15 firefox instances for example), and it's very fortunate that leaving the session allows a small automatic "clean up" to take place.

If you want your session saved, you can always switch the option on, but I believe that most people won't want this.

I like the current system as well (not saving session). Sometimes, if something goes wrong with tinkering, you want a clean GNOME to start up in, and using the "failsafe" option and then finding and deleting your session is just a pain.

Also, most people expect that if they log out of their computer, it will not save what they have done. "Switch User" is there for that. Perhaps the log out dialog text could be modified based on if the user has elected to save their session or not? Maybe the first time a user logs out, ask them their preference?

Seems that no one replied to my mail to the mailing list yet, and that the discussion is going to take place here, oh well.

I think that most people don't want it because they aren't used to Linux, after all they're used to Windows which doesn't have the session saving feature. IMO beginners opening 15 Firefox instances should learn that they shouldn't do such things. Manu and Athurva, you guys both talk about what behavior users expect. But is the behavior what users expect the best behavior?

When I first started using Linux I thought the session saving feature was great. When I shut down my computer I leave Epiphany (with about 6 websites opened in tabs), Gaim and XChat-GNOME running with session saving enabled. When I start up my PC and log in again, I can begin where I stopped immediatly, saves me a lot of time and makes me more productive. IMO users should be educated on useful features like these, you shouldn't hide it in the Preferences menu for them. If you hide it in some obscure place in the Preferences menu, most users will never know the option exists. No wonder that in the end nobody will care about session saving then.

Athurva, I agree with you. I think a good compromise would be modifying the logout dialog.

I remember that the previous logout dialog in Breezy (which was not modified by Ubuntu, but was the GNOME default) had a check box so you could enable/disable session saving.
IMO this checkbox should return in the new logout dialog. Maybe it should be unchecked by default because people don't expect session saving, as you two think.

If the user enables it though, the logout dialog should remember the preference (because when I was still using Breezy, I had to check the checkbox in the logout dialog everytime, because it didn't remember and was always unchecked by default).

I hope this can be included in the new logout dialog. however I fear that it might not happen because the mailing list posts about the new logout dialog constantly talk about 'simplification'. Simplification over features, that's probably the new trend.

I can understand all the pros for session saving, but I really don't think it's a good default (and other developers don't really seem to support a change about this). If you need the feature, it's fairly easy to set up auto saving in the preferences. Moreover, the logout dialog is already complex enough, and cannot bear another option (a checkbox).

However, we could use a feature, say pressing "Ctrl" while closing session, to automatically save the session. I'm filing a separate bug for that.