persp-mode

Intro

Perspectives for emacs, based on the perspective-el by Nathan Weizenbaum.
But the perspectives are shared among frames + ability to save/restore it's state from/to a file.

Installation

The persp-mode is available from the MELPA. So if you use this repo then the installation is easy:
M-x: package-install RET persp-mode RET
Alternatively you can download the persp-mode.el from github and install it as a package:
M-x: package-install-file RET 'path_to_where_you_saved_persp-mode.el' RET

Another(oldschool;p) way:
Place the persp-mode.el file somewhere in the emacs' load-path and add (require 'persp-mode) (persp-mode 1) to your configuration file.

Suggested configuration

If you use the workgroups.el it is good idea to switch off the restore windows animation.
(it's clashing with the golden-ration-mode for example, sometimes erring when creating new frames and it is slow on remote network connections.)
You can do it with: (setq wg-morph-on nil).

When installing from MELPA

(with-eval-after-load "persp-mode-autoloads"
  (setq wg-morph-on nil) ;; switch off animation
  (add-hook 'after-init-hook #'(lambda () (persp-mode 1))))

When installing without generation of autoloads

(with-eval-after-load "persp-mode"
  (setq wg-morph-on nil)
  (add-hook 'after-init-hook #'(lambda () (persp-mode 1))))
(require 'persp-mode)

If you run emacs <= 24.3 the macro with-eval-after-load is not defined. You can fix it by adding to your .emacs(or .emacs.d/init.el or another init file that loads before the persp-mode) these lines:

(unless (fboundp 'with-eval-after-load)
  (defmacro with-eval-after-load (file &rest body)
    (declare (indent 1) (debug t))
    `(eval-after-load ,file '(progn ,@body))))

Dependencies

Ability to save/restore window configurations from/to a file for emacs < 24.4 depends on the workgroups.el which also available from MELPA.

Keys

n -- next perspective.
p -- previous perspective.
s -- create/switch to perspective.
r -- rename perspective.
c -- kill perspective. (if you try to kill 'none' persp -- it'l kill all opened buffers).
a -- add buffer to perspective.
t -- switch to buffer without adding it to the current perspective.
i -- import all buffers from another perspective.
k -- remove buffer from perspective.
w -- save perspectives to file.
l -- load perspectives from file.
o -- switch off persp-mode. (you can quickly switch off persp-mode after emacs start and before autoresuming previous perspectives state if you only need to edit a single file.)

These key sequences must follow the persp-keymap-prefix which you can customize(by default it is C-c p in older releases it was C-x x), so if you want to invoke the < s - create/switch perspective > command you must first type the prefix(C-c p) and then s(full sequence is C-c p s).
If you want to bind a new key for persp-mode, use persp-key-map:
(define-key persp-key-map (kbd ...) ...).

If you kill a buffer with C-x k(kill-buffer command) it will be killed only if it belongs to a single perspective, otherwise it'l be only removed from the current perspective and not killed.
But if you kill a buffer from the 'none'(nil) perspective -- it will be removed from all perspectives and then killed.

Customization

M-x: customize-group RET persp-mode RET

Custom save/load buffer function example

Suppose you want to save the *ielm*(M-x ielm RET -- elisp repl) buffers.
Then the save function would be:

(lambda (b)
  (with-current-buffer b
    (when (string= major-mode "inferior-emacs-lisp-mode")
      `(def-ielm-buffer ,(buffer-name) ,default-directory))))

You must prepend that function to the persp-save-buffer-functions list (before the standard filtering functions couse it filters buffers starting with the '*').

The load function:

(lambda (savelist)
  (when (eq (car savelist) 'def-ielm-buffer)
    (with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create (cadr savelist))
      (setq default-directory (caddr savelist))
      (require 'ielm)
      (inferior-emacs-lisp-mode))))

Add load function to the persp-load-buffer-functions list.
That's it. Now the persp-mode could save and restore ielm buffers.

Interaction with side packages

Speedbar

(add-to-list 'speedbar-frame-parameters (cons 'persp-ignore-wconf t))

Buffer lists

Universal

This must work for most buffer listing commands that internally use the buffer-list function, just wrap 'your function' with the with-persp-buffer-list:

(with-persp-buffer-list () (your-function))

bs-show

(global-set-key (kbd "C-x b") #'(lambda (arg)
                                  (interactive "P")
                                  (with-persp-buffer-list () (bs-show arg))))

ibuffer

(global-set-key (kbd "C-x b") #'(lambda (arg)
                                  (interactive "P")
                                  (with-persp-buffer-list () (ibuffer arg))))

And here is something ibuffer-specific: gist.

Hints

If you often launch emacs to edit a single file (some kinf of config for example) and you don't want to wait the persp-mode resuming process(and don't want to use the emacs daemon) -- you can create a script like that:

 #!/bin/bash
 emacs --eval '(setq persp-auto-resume-time -1.0 persp-auto-save-opt 0)' $@;

call it the editor.sh, save somewhere in $PATH, and add export EDITOR="editor.sh" to your .bashrc .

---

Troubles

If you updated or changed something or simply something goes wrong don't warry to lose/overwrite perspectives' state, remember that the persp-mode makes backups in `persp-save-dir' for you(3 previous states by default).

When you create a new frame(with emacsclient -c for example) the selected window of the created frame is switching to the *scratch* buffer. This behaviour is fixed in the emacs version >= 24.4(and in current emacs trunk). Alternatively you can save the server.el from /usr/share/emacs/${your_emacs_version_number}/lisp/ (or from source tree, or from somewhere else) to a directory in your load-path and edit it like that(this works for emacs 24.3 at least):
replace

(unless (or files commands)
  (if (stringp initial-buffer-choice)
      (find-file initial-buffer-choice)
    (switch-to-buffer (get-buffer-create "*scratch*")
                      'norecord)))

by

(unless (or files commands)
  (let ((buf
         (cond ((stringp initial-buffer-choice)
                (find-file-noselect initial-buffer-choice))
               ((functionp initial-buffer-choice)
                (funcall initial-buffer-choice)))))
    (switch-to-buffer
     (if (buffer-live-p buf) buf (get-buffer-create "*scratch*"))
     'norecord)))

and set the persp-is-ibc-as-f-supported variable to t.