John,
I just "killed" a Firfox Portable RC3 session on purpose using the task manager.
When I started Firefox again it opened up all the tabs I had before. This is what this feature is supposed to do. But I wonder, might it not be a good idea to have this disabled by default in Firefox Portable to save "writes" to the flash drive. I know this is why disk cache and history are disabled. I assume that for Session Restore to work it must write the state of Firefox, all its windows and all its tabs to the drive so it can restore them. This, I assume happens over and over and over again.
Just a thought,
Tim
Geek w/o Portfolio
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https://portableapps.com/node/3223
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Session_Restore
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2536472#2536472
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
I had found the wiki article already and there seems to be some confusion in the 3223 node about which does what.
I was sure John did not need to be told about the feature. I was just meaning to put my vote in for the idea that this should be the default (disabled) in the Portable version. My understanding of Release Candidates is that it is a time for rounding off some rough edges. Since the feature was not disabled in RCs1-3 I thought I might lend my support to what I see as a good final tweak.
Tim
Geek w/o portfolio
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
Hey Tim,
I just thought the node that talked about this already might be a good place to post your idea. But you do make a good point.
I have already killed the session restore feature in my FFP 2.0RC3 because of the multiple writes. In FFP 1.5.0.7 I used Tab Mix Plus, but disabled the session restore there also.
In the end I am inclined to agree with you. I would recommend it be disabled in John's version or at least the instructions how to properly enable/disable it should be with FFP 2.0.
On the other hand a growing number of people are using FFP on a portable hard drive which would not need to have the feature disabled.
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
I agree. I use Firefox Portable on my Hard Drive at work and wouldn't mind the restore feature there. But for my Flash and U3 version I would not want it. I find that disk writes also slow things down, in additon to the wear on the drive.
Tim
Geek w/o portfolio
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
There are a few perfectly good extensions that allow session restore (I love Tab Mix Plus, personally), and it's a lot simpler to shut them off than the built in one. It makes it a lot easier for me to update a USB profile after making changes to a HDD one (or vice versa), if all I have to do is click some check boxes, rather than dealing with about:config every time. I vote for default disable in FFP, at least assuming John can get permission to do it.
... 8)
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
Is not currently compatible with FF 2.0. You could force it, but that would probably cause other problems.
As far as the ability to turn the restore on and off, I think you would either have it on or off permanently. I think most would not mess with it. I'm sure there might be an extension made for just such a feature or it might be added to FF in future releases. 8)
Life is about the journey not the destination!
The Kazoo Spartan
Double Post!
Anyway, the latest dev-build is compatible with Fx 2 (and 3).
http://tmp.garyr.net
Vintage!
I'll repeat Bahamut's mention of the latest dev build of TMP, which I currently use. It works perfectly, and should be released as the current stable build fairly soon.
Also, many extensions work fine if you force them to work in a later version of FF. I'm using 3 right now. The version check just checks what version of FF the author *said* it would be compatible with. That doesn't mean it won't work with others. Just means it *might* not work.
As for turning restore on and off, I don't on any one install, but I like copying my profiles to multiple installs, rather than reinstalling every extension, changing every setting, and reentering every password. The only problem is that PFF on a USB stick needs a bit of special treatment when I do this. I use TMP to shut off the session manager and undo close tabs, and I disable the FEBE and CLEO extensions, which don't play nice with flash memory for some reason. And I turn them back on when I copy a profile from USB to a HDD. That's why I like easy functionality in starting and stopping this feature.