Reviews for Session Sync
Session Sync by Gabriel Ivanica
Review by FFxuser
Rated 5 out of 5
by FFxuser, 6 years agoUpdate:
Hi Gabriel,
I am glad that you have fixed the issue of tracking the closed windows, although it took form more time than expected (around a year). Thank you for the fix, it's a very important improvement one. I am changing my rating from 4 to 5. I can also see that your add-on is being used by more people and it is getting high rates as well. Congratulations!!!
I must say that there are some good Add-ons that are similar to SessionSync and they work pretty good. However, in my opinion SessionSyn's unique feature is that it supports storage of the bookmarks on the cloud at least using Firefox account feature and its is also reflected in the Add-on name (the "Sync" part).
So, please allow me to suggest that you append some slides/screenshots with instructions on how that works because I have noticed that there is nothing about this feature in your current slides. As an example, I remember that in a previous version when you right click one of the recent Auto-saved sessions, a popup menu with "cloud" icon on top used to appear next to next to "Save" command, but it is was not clear if it invokes the "Firefox Sync" feature or just a regular command to save a session as bookmark, .etc.
I also have some questions regarding this Sync feature:
1-Consider this scenario: If I used the SessionSync during a browsing session with FF Sync feature enabled, then I ended the FF browsing session and started another browsing session in another device with SessionSync installed and FF Sync enabled. Is it expected to restore the list of all previously saved Sessions.
2-How long it takes to Sync/Save all the saved sessions from/to the cloud. (Lets say 5 session with 200 bookmarks each).
3-What is the maximum number of sessions/tabs/bookmarks that could be Synced or stored in the cloud.
Please note that I am not an expert in FF, so these questions might be ridiculous.
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Hi Gabriel,
Thank you for sharing this great tool and following up the feedback and providing support based on users experience. I do have some comments.
Please let me go back to the feedback provided by "Panorama" as it includes a very important point regarding the issue when auto saving a session with multiple windows.
I faced the same issue and I think that it is related to the "Auto-Save History" feature and in order to replicate it I would suggest the following steps:
-Open Firefox and then add a couple of new tabs within the same window
-Open a second window and add 3 new tabs
-Now you have 2 windows with 5 tabs and the current session in the History list should include both windows
-Close the first window, wait for a few seconds (till the auto save interval period passes) and then close the second window which will exit Firefox
-Reopen Firefox application and go to the "Sessions History" list and select the previous auto-saved session (most recent item)
You will notice that it includes only a list of 3 tabs from the second window while there is no record for the first window and its 2 tabs.
I am not sure if this bug is related to Firefox or to the tool itself. Anyway I think that the "Auto-Save History" function should add a new entry (item) in the "Sessions History" list for each closed window otherwise it would be incomplete feature.
I also have a question, could you please explain where do you store the data of the "Sessions History" list because it is not included in the "SessionSync" bookmarks folder.
Thanks again for your work and support,
Hi Gabriel,
I am glad that you have fixed the issue of tracking the closed windows, although it took form more time than expected (around a year). Thank you for the fix, it's a very important improvement one. I am changing my rating from 4 to 5. I can also see that your add-on is being used by more people and it is getting high rates as well. Congratulations!!!
I must say that there are some good Add-ons that are similar to SessionSync and they work pretty good. However, in my opinion SessionSyn's unique feature is that it supports storage of the bookmarks on the cloud at least using Firefox account feature and its is also reflected in the Add-on name (the "Sync" part).
So, please allow me to suggest that you append some slides/screenshots with instructions on how that works because I have noticed that there is nothing about this feature in your current slides. As an example, I remember that in a previous version when you right click one of the recent Auto-saved sessions, a popup menu with "cloud" icon on top used to appear next to next to "Save" command, but it is was not clear if it invokes the "Firefox Sync" feature or just a regular command to save a session as bookmark, .etc.
I also have some questions regarding this Sync feature:
1-Consider this scenario: If I used the SessionSync during a browsing session with FF Sync feature enabled, then I ended the FF browsing session and started another browsing session in another device with SessionSync installed and FF Sync enabled. Is it expected to restore the list of all previously saved Sessions.
2-How long it takes to Sync/Save all the saved sessions from/to the cloud. (Lets say 5 session with 200 bookmarks each).
3-What is the maximum number of sessions/tabs/bookmarks that could be Synced or stored in the cloud.
Please note that I am not an expert in FF, so these questions might be ridiculous.
-----------------------------------------------
Hi Gabriel,
Thank you for sharing this great tool and following up the feedback and providing support based on users experience. I do have some comments.
Please let me go back to the feedback provided by "Panorama" as it includes a very important point regarding the issue when auto saving a session with multiple windows.
I faced the same issue and I think that it is related to the "Auto-Save History" feature and in order to replicate it I would suggest the following steps:
-Open Firefox and then add a couple of new tabs within the same window
-Open a second window and add 3 new tabs
-Now you have 2 windows with 5 tabs and the current session in the History list should include both windows
-Close the first window, wait for a few seconds (till the auto save interval period passes) and then close the second window which will exit Firefox
-Reopen Firefox application and go to the "Sessions History" list and select the previous auto-saved session (most recent item)
You will notice that it includes only a list of 3 tabs from the second window while there is no record for the first window and its 2 tabs.
I am not sure if this bug is related to Firefox or to the tool itself. Anyway I think that the "Auto-Save History" function should add a new entry (item) in the "Sessions History" list for each closed window otherwise it would be incomplete feature.
I also have a question, could you please explain where do you store the data of the "Sessions History" list because it is not included in the "SessionSync" bookmarks folder.
Thanks again for your work and support,
Developer response
posted 6 years agoUpdate: Sorry but I was not able to finish the update yet. I will update the message once it's done.
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Hi, and thanks a lot for the detailed information.
Sadly everything you mentioned is correct and the reason is that I implemented the saving mechanism without taking into consideration that closed windows should be saved. I realized that the behavior is not what is normally expected from a auto-saving feature. It should store all windows no matter how many are opened and closed and that's something that I quite failed to implement properly.
I will try to fix this ASAP (I should be able to fix it this weekend) and latest by Monday a new version to be ready.
Regarding saved location. Sadly the auto-saving functionality is not stored into Bookmarks. They are saved into the browser "localStorage" that is hidden from users. Most addons out there will store everything into this storage and you won't have access to the data unless the addon offers some kind of an export functionality. I decided to store what user would consider important data into "Bookmarks" because they users will be in control of it and not the addon and data will be there (visible) always. Please understand that not saving everything into bookmarks is not an issue but the other way around. I tried to offer something better by saving only those things that matter to you (every user) in the most transparent way possible (through bookmarks).
The reason why auto-saved data can't be stored in bookmarks:
- because it is saved periodically and saving into Bookmarks would create performance issues for many users as well as possible sync errors (bookmarks are not really intended to be changed that often, I mean not once every 10 seconds)
- bookmarks are usually intended for things that you want to keep for a longer period of time
- auto-saved sessions are usually intended only as recovery options/backup restoring: browser crashing, system crashing or getting back to a certain site that you know you visited a few hours ago/days
Because of this decision only bookmarks are synced across Firefox accounts. But I would say that is ok because you can always decide if you want to promote an auto-saved session to a synced session by saving it into Bookmarks.
Usually there are many things to consider when building such an extension and I tried to keep a good balance between functionality and features. It won't be perfect for everyone but as I receive feedback I try to improve it. Thanks again for feedback. Promise that I will have an update for this ASAP. I will update this comment as soon as the implementation is ready.
-------------------------
Hi, and thanks a lot for the detailed information.
Sadly everything you mentioned is correct and the reason is that I implemented the saving mechanism without taking into consideration that closed windows should be saved. I realized that the behavior is not what is normally expected from a auto-saving feature. It should store all windows no matter how many are opened and closed and that's something that I quite failed to implement properly.
I will try to fix this ASAP (I should be able to fix it this weekend) and latest by Monday a new version to be ready.
Regarding saved location. Sadly the auto-saving functionality is not stored into Bookmarks. They are saved into the browser "localStorage" that is hidden from users. Most addons out there will store everything into this storage and you won't have access to the data unless the addon offers some kind of an export functionality. I decided to store what user would consider important data into "Bookmarks" because they users will be in control of it and not the addon and data will be there (visible) always. Please understand that not saving everything into bookmarks is not an issue but the other way around. I tried to offer something better by saving only those things that matter to you (every user) in the most transparent way possible (through bookmarks).
The reason why auto-saved data can't be stored in bookmarks:
- because it is saved periodically and saving into Bookmarks would create performance issues for many users as well as possible sync errors (bookmarks are not really intended to be changed that often, I mean not once every 10 seconds)
- bookmarks are usually intended for things that you want to keep for a longer period of time
- auto-saved sessions are usually intended only as recovery options/backup restoring: browser crashing, system crashing or getting back to a certain site that you know you visited a few hours ago/days
Because of this decision only bookmarks are synced across Firefox accounts. But I would say that is ok because you can always decide if you want to promote an auto-saved session to a synced session by saving it into Bookmarks.
Usually there are many things to consider when building such an extension and I tried to keep a good balance between functionality and features. It won't be perfect for everyone but as I receive feedback I try to improve it. Thanks again for feedback. Promise that I will have an update for this ASAP. I will update this comment as soon as the implementation is ready.