Re: [Gretl-users] saving session vs saving data
Allin Cottrell schrieb:
However, I see what you mean. If you do Ctrl-S in a reopened
session you get a message about being unable to write the data.
That's bad.
Yes it happened to me, too. (Please notice that I'm complaining only
some of the times I'm stumbling over something in gretl, even though
sometimes it may seem as if I do it every time ;-)
Perhaps, with a session open, Ctrl-S should be reinterpreted as
"save the session"? Either that, or you should get a "Save as"
dialog for the data. (Or does anyone have a better suggestion?)
The basic point is that when the session file is re-opened, the
data file that "belongs to the session" is no longer associated
with an external datafile that could be saved independently of the
session (as it was when the session was new).
I believe that currently for many (most?) gretl beginners the datafile
(.gdt) looks like the central file type around which gretl seems to
revolve. Then there is the additional session concept. IMHO this duality
is a little confusing for many people.
Therefore I think that it would be worth considering centering
everything on the session files (.gretl). In that respect I think Eviews
has got it right: just one workfile potentially holding all kinds of
objects that you may need. The datafiles (.gdt) would still be supported
of course as an export/import format, but the interface would make it
clear to the user that it's an explicit export (save data as...) and
that the active storage file is always the session file.
Of course that would be more like a medium-term plan I guess, so in the
short term I would suggest the following:
* when a session is opened, don't show any datafile name in the status
line just below the menu bar -- that's confusing precisely because that
file may not exist anymore or be altered in the meantime
* not show a dialog for ctrl-s (too annoying for real work)
* so probably follow your suggestion to interpret ctrl-s as saving the
session (though some people may be shocked when they don't find a .gdt
file afterwards)
cheers,
sven