bug#41007: 26.3; desktop-save and reloading

[jan]

Hi,
this is trivial, feel free to ignore especially if it's just down to
my misunderstanding.

I saved my desktop using desktop-save. I could then find no way of
restoring it. I looked on the web and found a few others had the same
problem. Spent an hour browsing.
I then dug a bit more much later and found desktop-read seemed to do this.

Problem: I was looking for the obvious complement of desktop-save
which would be desktop-load or desktop-restore. Desktop-read is not
obviously named.

Other problem, and this is likely just unfamiliarity, but if you do
desktop-save it asks you where to save it. If you do desktop-read, it
doesn't ask. Docs say (desktop-read &optional DIRNAME) but that's not
exposed interactively that I can see.

Example of some confusion
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20438938/how-to-load-emacs-saved-desktop-configuration>

It seemed your're supposed to enable desktop-save-mode which I've
done. That's good, it works now, but having obviously named
desktop-load or desktop-restore, with an interactive prompt to ask for
the location would be good. It would also allow me to save and load
*different desktops*, *when I want* rather than at startup and just
give me the one it thinks I want.

Well, it may well allow that already, I just don't know.

Thanks

jan


In GNU Emacs 26.3 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32)
 of 2019-08-29 built on CIRROCUMULUS
Repository revision: 96dd0196c28bc36779584e47fffcca433c9309cd
Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 6.1.7601
Recent messages:
Warning: desktop file appears to be in use by PID 4996.
Using it may cause conflicts.  Use it anyway? (y or n) n
Desktop file in use; not loaded.
completing-read-default: Command attempted to use minibuffer while in minibuffer
s is undefined
d is undefined
Quit
Making completion list...
Auto-saving...done
Type "q" to restore previous buffer.

Configured using:
 'configure --without-dbus --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32
 --without-compress-install 'CFLAGS=-O2 -static -g3''

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND NOTIFY ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 ZLIB
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS THREADS LCMS2

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: ENG
  locale-coding-system: cp1252

Major mode: Apropos

Minor modes in effect:
  desktop-save-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
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mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums
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base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote threads w32notify w32 lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process
emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 139724 9752)
 (symbols 48 24352 4)
 (miscs 40 83 262)
 (strings 32 43608 1497)
 (string-bytes 1 1185734)
 (vectors 16 19101)
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