[plt-scheme] saved window configurations

Robby Findler wrote:
> FWIW, I think that this would make a fairly easy tool to write (one
> that did a firefox-like thing and remembered the open files from last
> time). I'd be happy to help anyone if they try to write it and get
> stuck.

Just to introduce some scope creep, and in the interests of leapfrogging 
a full recapitulation of the history of IDEs, I think it'd be a good 
idea to make the list of open files a kind of first-class entity, that 
could e.g. be saved in a directory and reopened later.

This is a fairly simple enhancement which opens the door to some very 
useful possibilities.  A good example of these possibilities can be 
found in Mylyn[*], which is a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.

Mylyn allows you to associate a set of open files with a "task".  When 
you switch between tasks, a different set of files is opened 
automatically - whatever was open when you last worked on the selected 
task.  In big projects, this can be quite a blessing.

Mylyn takes this idea a step further and integrates its task abstraction 
with issue tracking systems like Bugzilla and Trac.  One of the things 
it allows is for the list of open files to be stored as an attachment on 
a ticket in such a system.  Again, just having the list of open files be 
manipulable at some level makes all these things possible.

Anton

[*] http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/

Articles about Mylyn, with lots of screenshots:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-mylyn1/
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-mylyn2/