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I'm looking for a way to save and restore groups of windows (I'm using the Cinnamon DE). I've already done some googling, but all I could find was saving and restoring windows on reboot. Now, this is kind of what I want, but then selective and without reboot.

Let's say, I'm working on a university project, so I need TeXStudio, Nautilus, Okular, Octave, Geany and maybe some more applications open (all with specific files/folders). Then I suddenly need some more information, which require me to go to the library the other day.

So I close all my windows (saving RAM → battery) and decide to work on my CV and put it to a new style. For that, I will need my old CV, the working document (new CV) and perhaps an example CV (all documents in LibreOffice).

In the evening, get tired and want to read some novel while my girlfriend wants to use the computer for her favourite game. So I close all windows again, although I'm not finished with the CV yet.

The next day, I go to the library, find the information I was looking for and want to continue working on my University project. Now I have to open all those applications again (TeXStudio, Nautilus, Okular, Octave, Geany) and find those files I was working on before. When I have a lot of literature an I forget to write down what I was reading on, I might even have a hard time finding the right PDF to open. Similar goes the situation when I want to work on my CV again: open all those documents again.

Now, this is just an example situation to explain my need. I could think of many more situations where I want to save the current windows with their respective files and restore them later.

If there is no application like this, it would probably already help me to have a convenient way to create launchers for several files at once (as they will all open with their standard application). It would be awesome, though, if there was an application that would automatically detect all files/applications that are open and allow me to choose those that I want to create a launcher for in order to restore them when I need them.

Best regards,

Hemanti

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    Use workspaces. Create one workspace with all of the apps for one project. Create another workspace for games, etc. Just switch between workspaces to see only the windows that you want.
    – heynnema
    Aug 4, 2017 at 14:20
  • Yeah, I already do that, but there are times when I have to reboot my computer when hibernation is no option (there seem to be solutions for that problem, though) or just have to save RAM (working memory) by closing some applications. Additionally, sometimes, some applications will just crash. My battery also drains really fast with so many applications open.
    – Hemanti
    Aug 6, 2017 at 13:00
  • You don't indicate the version of Ubuntu that you're using, but someone on this forum wrote a script to do what similar to what you're considering. Details are available at this link. There's also a github tool that might also be useful for your needs. Note that X is required in (at least) the latter case.
    – richbl
    Dec 25, 2017 at 0:06
  • Ubuntu 16.04 would be it for me. Thank you for the input, but I fear the interesting options you have us will not "remember" the files open within those windows. Correct me if I am wrong!
    – ed0
    Dec 26, 2017 at 16:11

1 Answer 1

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+50

That's exactly how I run on a 16 GB machine using a combination of:

  1. Workspaces
  2. CompizConfig Settings Manager's Place windows plug-in which will allow an application that isn't running to open on its particular workspace at its pre-defined X-Y coordinate,
  3. autostarting individual applications
  4. For individual applications opening individual files it depends on the application itself:

    1. Example for gedit
    2. Example for FireFox
    3. etc...
  5. Create multiple users on your machine so they each have their own sessions
  6. Hibernation

The more users and applications, the more RAM usage, though...

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  • Thank you for your contribution. However, we are looking at a workaround that does not involve keeping the windows open in RAM (workspaces) or saving the session through hibernation
    – ed0
    Dec 26, 2017 at 16:10
  • @ed0 That would be #1 and #2 only: look at the existing accepted answer for #2 for Thunderbird. You can also use the same module to place the window on a particular workspace. Hibernation is just the cherry on the cake and how I run my machine, but I've got 16 GB of RAM: Open applications take up a lot of RAM
    – Fabby
    Dec 26, 2017 at 17:23
  • What you're looking for is just #1 and #2= the more applications you need to fine-tune the more time it's going to take to set-up though.
    – Fabby
    Dec 26, 2017 at 17:35
  • Sorry @fabby, I didn't express myself properly. What I am looking for is a solution that enables you to have the very same files open within those windows, so aside from the position, I do need the content (same files/docs being opened again by the respective software)
    – ed0
    Dec 26, 2017 at 18:17
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    That's #3, unless you specify each and every exact application and that application allows for programmatically saving sessions and auto-opening them. If that's the case, you should ask multiple questions for each and every single application as your comments now indicate your question becomes too broad to answer within a single question. (I already had to link 3 separate answers to answer the original.)
    – Fabby
    Dec 27, 2017 at 11:45

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