Session Buddy | Feature Disappeared?

[trip...@gmail.com]

Hello, 

The latest (Dark Mode) update to Session Buddy is a long awaited one and a wonderful surprise. So first, I'd like to praise you and a job well done! and thank you for it the update.

I am having trouble, however, with locating the old "Overwrite with Current" feature. Was it discontinued? I used it frequently and would love to see it come back, so I thought I'd ask 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thanks again, 

Michael (just some user 🙂)

[Daniel Zigler]

Hey there, 

Im also a pretty tight user of that feature and would love to see it back.

been trying to look for where it might be hidden but with no luck.

i hope it has enough demand for it to return

[Daniel Zigler]

Well i know its a weird solution but till we get an answer (if at all).

then i came out with a temp solution(s):
Its Either 1. Save Session From Current and Merge with existing Session And then delete old folder(s) in session
Or 2. Save new session from current and delete old session (will have to rename session to the desired name *again*)

[Session Buddy Support]

Can you guys provide some insight on how you're using this feature? I'd like to understand the use cases to help inform a solution (with either current or new functionality).

Eg, if you just want to add tabs from the current session to an existing collection, you can select them, ctrl+c to copy, then paste them into the collection with ctrl+v. You can even paste into a specific location by right-clicking the desired folder/link insertion point and then clicking Paste.

You can use "Select duplicates" to clean it up if you need to.

Daniel, to make your current approach a bit smoother:

Select the collection, then select This browser, then Combine.

But I'm still curious, what is it you're ultimately trying to achieve?

Hans

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[Mik]

The way I was using the extension, I'd just save my latest session to be sure that I won't lose it. I'd keep just one session. The way you describe is too complicated for something someone does that often.

As it is now, you can still save the current session, but the difference is that the previous sessions remain and you must delete them, which, again, isn't difficult if you have to do it once, but it becomes annoying quickly.

[Session Buddy Support]

If I understand correctly, one use case "Overwrite with Current" is currently used for is to make sure you don't lose your current session. That is actually what the History feature was designed for. Is there something about the current implementation of History that doesn't work for this?

Hans

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[Mik]

I can't speak for other users, but I prefer to save my current session manually.

It's a mix of paranoia on my part and the fact that history is updated only every 5 minutes.

Whenever I make rapid changes to my session or open many tabs at once,

I want to be 100% sure that the current status of my session is saved, so I do it manually.

[Session Buddy Support]

Gotcha.

History is actually still intended to serve that use case... well, not the paranoia part, but the assurance that if things crash, your tabs will be saved... and without repetitive effort required on your part. Any time the browser closes (either by deliberate action or unexpectedly), SB will generate a "Browser closed" History item.

Hans

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[Bob Sterrett]

My use case is in software support.

As I work a case, I begin 1 new browser window per case.

The window gets 

the Google doc with my notes,

the Google search pages I opened looking for a solution,

the online doc pages I referenced

the pages from other similar cases I have reviewed

pages opened with the collateral / artifacts provided by the customer I have reviewed,

and so on.

In v3,

I just made sure one of the pages in the window had the case number.

I never closed the window during the day.

At the end of the day, I closed the browser before powering down the PC.

SB created a session that included all of the tabs from all of the windows.

The next time I needed to work the case, 
I pasted the case number into the SB search box.
I took the most recent save window that had the page with the case number.

I would double click that window and get back the whole set pages,

being able to continue right where I left off.

In v4,

searching does not search links in history collections.

(VERY salty about this feature regression.)

Plan B: Save the collection with a name like

CASE 18436572

Good news: v4 searching DOES find the case number
Bad news: When I have to update the contents of that collection because I have added new tabs to the window, the workflow is

- Save the window (creating an UNNAMED collection :( )
- Rename the new collection to CASE 18436572

- Delete the previous collection CASE 18436572

REALLY HOPING search scope (re-)expansion to History gets mentioned soon as a "Coming Very Soon" feature (instead of its current "Some Day" prioritization).

[Session Buddy Support]

Alright folks you sold me. Thanks for your patience.

Scoping out the effort to re-add now.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/77d304bb-3237-4638-8514-cab002a86042n%40googlegroups.com.

[Pero]

I have a session on my work computer called "Work". At the end of every day (sometimes more often, when I'm done researching something), I would "Overwrite with current" to have a snapshot of my current situation at work. It was like "Bookmark all tabs..." in Chrome, just much nicer. That "Work" session was my snapshot of current state of my Chrome.

Think of doing commit in git - that was my logic behind using "Overwrite with current". 

I hope this sheds some light.

[Session Buddy Support]

@tripleeye

Thanks for these detailed context examples! They definitely help to better understand how this feature can be and is being used.

> tagging function

Great idea. It's on the roadmap, although behind lots of other feature requests for now.

> Oh and...

Thank you for your very kind words.

Many of the complaints are understandable and we've done and are doing our best to address them. Big upgrades/roll-outs are always a challenge, and especially so when up against deprecation time pressures with limited resources.

Hans

On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 10:24 AM trip...@gmail.com <trip...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh wow, I've missed a lot of updates! 😀

I am very very glad you are sold on this feature coming back 🙏🙏🙏😊🙂

If you are still interested, here are some examples of my use cases as well. These are lengthy examples and you are in no way obligated to go over them, I only share them as you requested. However, please make sure to read the sections titled "Side Note on the Search Function" and "Oh and..." (especially "oh and"). Thank you.

Workflow Overview

My use case is somewhere between Bob and Pero's, in a way.

I don't just use this for work, but I use it for work as well.

Let's say I'm researching some IT issue, or some new design technique for work. I would save a session name something like "Work | IT | Software | Microsoft 365 Office Word | Issue with File Preview on doc files crashing Explorer process on Windows 10" for example. Or "Work | Design | Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop | Guides | Best ways to approach designs for Crochet-based company". You get the idea... 

Context Example 1

I'll elaborate on the workflow:

Let's say I'm working on the IT session here. I would have several windows open, each of them tackling a different aspect or a different part of the process for me finding a solution.

The first window could be me researching other people who have posted about having this issue. The second window would start with a tab pulled from the first window, perhaps even duplicated from the first window, of someone who posted about the issue in some form or another, and the rest of the thread showed promise. The tabs after that in the same window would be either links that were opened from suggestions for Solutions in the first thread, or related content.

In the case of that specific session title, the solution was simple and the window hierarchy would end there, but in slightly more complicated IT problems, a third window could be the same as the second window but for a different promising looking thread from the first window. A fourth window could be either the same idea with a different thread, or a potential solution idea of my own, that came to mind while looking at the second or third windows, and was developed by my own searches in either Google or DuckDuckGo.

I then expand the idea until finding a solution in the last window in that session. I usually move the actual solution to the first tab of said window, assuming that I might have pinned it. Or maybe I didn't pin it but moved it to the first tab so it's clear to me later on when I look at the session where the actual solution was. The first tab of the last window in the session.

Along the way, I hit the override with current button plenty of times; usually when I reach a positive turning point in the process, and I think I might be closer to the solution, and divert my path, so to speak, towards a more narrowed down concept.

Sometimes after hitting this button, though not as often, I would also rename the session and add some concise information at the end like " | RegEdit required" or something hinting at the solution I deem most likely to work, or the one that actually worked at the end. This last section of the name changes and is not being appended to the previous leading solution. The idea here being that this makes it easier to search for the problem later on, get a quick reminder in the session title of the solution, look at the last window for the solution I used last time, and if the problem persisted or if this solution doesn't work this time work my way back through the process I went through and find where to take a different fork in the road towards a new, hopefully better, solution.

Context Example 2

Let's look at the second and more complex example, the design related session. I'd be working, for example, on several branding designs for a small family owned company that deals with selling their crocheted items and receiving requests for personally designed crochet items.

In the first window, I would open my already bookmarked folder with guides that I regularly use on how to approach designs for a wide aspect of branding as a designer. In the same first window, I will then group the tabs according to categories of the design. For example, there would be one group dealing with designing the logo, another group dealing with the different ways to expand a logo after it has been created, like icon, markup, black and white versus color versions, Etc. Another group of tabs in this first window would then deal with all aspects of creating the main Banner for the company's website, another group with designing a landing page for them to take requests through, another group with creating a marketing Banner of some campaign relating to the launching of their website, another group with creating a marketing Banner for a different aspect, another group would be dealing with creating specific social media graphical items, another group about a sign for the front door of their physical store if they have one, etc etc I think you get the idea.

The second window would then be me opening required resources specific to the process on this project, as opposed to the general guides and resource ideas I have in the first window

The third window would do something similar for the next aspect (grouped in the next group and the very first window), and so on and so forth.

Usually the last two or three windows are organized resources, shareable ones, with results to show the clients and several stages of the project.

Context on Cleaning & Finishing Up

When I have it in me, I name the windows individually. And if memory serves, before this was possible, the first tab in each window would be a title tab in which I simply Google what I want the title of said window to be. This helps with the search later on when the client asks me questions a month or two after the project is already over. Sometimes a year later.

I go about the project, as I add aspects of it I consolidate it all in this one big session.

This does not necessarily mean the whole session is open at all times, at least not when it comes to complex examples such as the design example above. That would be very resource heavy on my computer especially on top of work related software such as the Adobe design suit and font organizers, and so on.

In a meaningful way, this is exactly why I use Session Buddy to begin with, in a manner that alleviates this resource heavy process most of the time. Which... I mean, I am not sure it's completely clear here in my explanation, but that's exactly why the history feature does not work well enough for this type of workflow here. At least for me. I attempt to elaborate on this a bit later down the line here soon.

I also use The Marvelous Suspender for saving on resources (mainly R.A.M.), so before saving the full session in a significant moment like at the end of the day, I most often click the unsuspend old tabs on that extension as well. Might seem irrelevant here, but I cannot ignore this part of my work flow, personally.

Anyhow, in many other cases, I do indeed keep the session fully opened at all times. Such as private-use-cases that are not work related, or such as work-related uses that are more IT oriented, content-writing oriented, poetry oriented (both for work and privately for self-enrichment aka fun), or such as customer support oriented (back in the day).

Context on Overriding Sessions

In more complex examples, such as the design example above which deals with a full project, I have the full session opened when I start, then I hit the override with current several times along the way, and at some point I start closing windows and dealing with only specific aspects of the project.

Several points throughout that day, definitely at the end of the day, I would have 1 or three or so windows open dealing with a specific category, let's say a specific marketing Banner for example. I would then open the full session on a second screen, then close the one or two windows that are being replaced by these new versions, then hit the override with current, which is a simple one press of a button and does its job very quickly, then call it a day. The next day in which I work on this project, I will be able to refer back to the session and go back to the window in question as it was. While all the while having the full project detailed yet consolidated in one neat session.

Moreover, in some rarer cases, and depending on how big the client's organizational/ bureaucratic needs (and the pay they are willing to allocate), I am requested to show the full workflow overall, in order for them to better understand how my process works (has to do with their need to improve their timeline next time around).

They of course don't go into each and every tab or window, but they want to see them all open and it is unclear to them when it is simply presented as titles in Session Buddy, so I opened it in advance and let the computer load for a bit while I give them an intro for the workflow, then I present some examples to them going around the windows for an overview of the process. This was complicated to set up at first, but proves to being worthy effort in these rare (and slightly overbearing) cases.

I realize some of this can be done with the merge function, and my workflow might indeed change especially now that you have mentioned the copy paste thing, which somehow went over my head beforehand), but this is a sudden big change to a workflow that has existed for a while now and is very convenient and useful for me. In any case, it will nice to have the old way available to us.

In addition, some of these aspects cannot be replaced by the merge function. And in some use cases, such as IT work or many private use sessions that I save in similar ways, I keep the full session open throughout the whole process, and use the override with current button several times over; for example when I get up for coffee or when someone distracts me or asks for help with something unrelated, or when I need a break and decide to go and clear the dishwasher (if I am at my home office). In all these scenarios I hit the override with current button and have the full session ready for me if my computer crashes; which happens sometimes because of electric outages in the area (I know I know... I should have invested in a UPS years ago), or if I simply end up not going back to the task and decide to shut down the computer, or a slew of other scenarios.

The design example was a complicated one, but more often I do things in a session that is open at all times, and when saved is meant more for archiving reasons. For example, if I solve an IT issue at work I want to know that if it returns half a year later, I can go back to the session and see what went wrong and solve it quickly even if I do not remember before starting what it was all about. The history function is not as convenient for this as of yet. Maybe it's me misunderstanding it, but so far this has worked better for me.

Side Note on the Search Function

The search function indeed plays a key role in here even beyond what I have specified above. I think it's pretty self-explanatory and there's no need for me to elaborate further since this example is already quite lengthy.

As a side note, I don't know if you've noticed but I tag the names of my sessions in a way ("Category | Subcategory | Tag | Tag | Title | Likely Solution"), and a tagging function would definitely be beneficial here. And sometimes I tag the window names too.

However, I assumed it might not be something simple – to add a system of categories, subcategories, and loose tags that work in a hierarchical structure of sorts – therefore, and since a naming convention definitely does the trick, I never considered bothering you, as a developer, with this extra work that isn't completely essential for the extension.

I would feel like a fool if you now let me know that there is already a tagging system in place that I am unaware of. But in any case this is just a side note and not a feature request.

You requested to know more about our usage, so I figured this might be intriguing too. That's all. 

That being said, if you do ever do decide to create such a feature, may I recommend to add the option of auto-applying categories, subcategories, or tags, by utilization of user inputted syntax in a special search box, which will then take such a syntax and tag every session that includes the syntax, whether in the session title or a window title, with the appropriate tag.

Or... Place it in the appropriate category or Subcategory as defined by the user.

Again, a feature I never requested or suggested merely because I thought it might be a complicated and overbearing thing to implement. So I am sharing the idea here for you to having the back of your mind perhaps, but unless you request it I am not opening a feature request ticket.

Oh and...

By the way, if I may take this opportunity, I'd like to commend you for this latest update, actually. I think some of the added visuals and functionality are very nice. Like the fact that they are called folders and not windows now makes a lot of sense to me, the fact that you can retroactively mark a folder as incognito is a great addition, the overall spread and design of the presentation of data in the extension is more friendly on the eyes now, the dark mode is something that got me audibly cheering when the update first arrived, as I've been waiting for that specific feature for so long and I'm so excited it has finally received priority, the extension icon is a wonderful Improvement in my opinion as a designer, and in general I welcome this update.

I saw there was some backlash for it, and I think some of those people have overreacted to one or two changes they didn't like or perhaps didn't even understand. The only complaint I could possibly understand was people that want a wider more encompassing search ability maybe, but you deserve kudos for your work and I want you to know it is appreciated.

As I said before, thank you.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/4953c99e-625c-48fd-8006-f426edc7544fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Session Buddy Support]

To conclude this thread for anyone who encounters it in the future, "Overwrite with Current" was added back to Session Buddy in a follow-up release (v4.0.2).

Release notes: https://sessionbuddy.com/release-4-0-2/

Hans

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