[jwthomas]

Originally Posted by troyb

Hello,

Just thought I would mention that it sounds like you had a snapshot of your workspace taken. If you had closed all the open windows then selected "Take Snapshot" from the workspace menu things probably would have gone back to normal for you.

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep it in mind in case I make the same mistake again.

[pgtratnyek]

This thread is close to what has been bothering me most about OW lately.

I am a very heavy user of Workspaces (apparently unlike the original poster). I almost always have one open that has at least 8 tabs. They sometimes take awhile to load, and there isn't much one can do with OW until they are mostly done loading.

This is a problem when one (re)starts OW and want to do something quickly. What one wants to do quick almost never has to do with what's in the Workspace that was open when OW closed, so waiting for the workspace to refresh is frustrating.

So, I want a global preference that says "when opening OW, always use 'start page = empty' (for fastest startup) no matter what the Workspace state was when it was last closed".

But, I can't seem to achieve this with any setting I've tried. I actually iterated with OW tech support on this awhile back, and their solution wasn't really a solution. (I don't think they fully understood the issue).

[owuser]

Originally Posted by pgtratnyek

So, I want a global preference that says "when opening OW, always use 'start page = empty' (for fastest startup) no matter what the Workspace state was when it was last closed".

This is entirely possible in OW, and there are two ways of accomplishing it, depending on if you have your Workspaces set to auto-save or not.

If they DO Auto-save:

When browsing, if you have a number of tabs open and you are going to quit OmniWeb, close all the windows before quitting. In other words, click the red button, (confirm that you want to close multiple tabs if OW asks) then when no windows are open, quit OmniWeb. The next time you start, it will open in a single window with just your homepage - where you can optionally set your homepage to blank in OW's preferences. The rule of thumb in this scenario is: If you quit with multiple tabs open then OW will open with those tabs the next time, but if you quit with no windows open OW will startup with only one tab open.

If you don't need OW to auto-save your workspaces:

Open OW's preferences, set the homepage to blank, start up a single window of OW and take a snapshot of the single blank page. Next, go to Workspaces > Show all workspaces and UNCHECK the option to auto-save workspaces. Then go back to OW's preferences and set the homepage back to where you want it. What you lose in OW saving your states between browsing sessions you gain in that no matter where you were when you quit, OW will start up with this single blank page.

[pgtratnyek]

Originally Posted by owuser

If the DO Auto-save:

Even if I used auto-save, this wouldn't be a real solution. Users rarely know, or have time to plan, what they will be doing next time they open their browser.

Originally Posted by owuser

If you don't need OW to auto-save your workspaces:

This sounds a lot like what support suggested, but it's pretty obscure, and doesn't work (for me, so far). Here's how I parsed the steps that owuser proposed:

1. Open OW's preferences, set the homepage to blank.

Check: This has always been my preference setting.

2. Start up a single window of OW and take a snapshot of the single blank page.

This isn't completely unambiguous, so I did what is most consistent with my workflow: With my current workspace active (two windows, 6-8 tabs each), I opened a new (blank) window and took a snap shot.

3. Next, go to Workspaces > Show all workspaces and UNCHECK the option to auto-save workspaces.

Check, this has always been my preference.

4. Then go back to OW's preferences and set the homepage back to where you want it.

No change here, I still want it to be blank.

Originally Posted by owuser

What you lose in OW saving your states between browsing sessions you gain in that no matter where you were when you quit, OW will start up with this single blank page.

Not surprisingly... When I restart I get the workspace I was working on, now with 3 windows, one blank one. :(

It seems to me that this is a fundamental interface design issue where OmniGroup and and users like myself are talking past each other. To me the most intuitive solution is that the start page preference setting should override ALL workspace settings.

Assuming not every one agrees, the obvious solution is the general preferences pane should have a check box option immediately below the start page radio buttons that allows one to specify which takes priority (the preference pane or the workspace settings).

[owuser]

pgtratnyek - please bear with me as I try to be thorough -

A snapshot and a homepage are two different things in OW. When you take a snapshot, it saves OW's current session at that moment in time including tabs, other windows, and all currently opened URLs. Homepages are loaded when OW opens a new tab and/or a new window. So knowing that, this means:

1. I can open a workspace to always start with (the snapshot of) Google, but when I open a new tab in OW, it will always load (my homepage of) Yahoo for example.
2. When I start a new workspace it loads my snapshot, not my homepage, unless...(see 3)
3. If I want OW to start with my homepage on startup, I will need to set that homepage in OW's preferences as well as take a snapshot of it - for each workspace.


A key thing to know is that each workspace has its own snapshot, and each workspace can have the option to auto-save sessions individually.

This means that if I take a snapshot of a blank page in workspace 1 (ws1), that when I start workspace 2 (ws2) that I'll be presented with whatever snapshot was created for ws2. WS1's blank snapshot has no effect on ws2's startup state, however they both will load the same homepage (set in OW's preferences) on new windows and tabs.

If you have several workspaces available to be able to switch around while using OW, but you always want OW to start with a single blank page every single time it's launched, you'll need to take a blank snapshot for every workspace individually.

[pgtratnyek]

Posts 11 and 12 (by brian and troyb) look like they could be adequate work arounds for me, even if they are just work arounds.

What appeals to me most is this: I will try creating a blank workspace, then assigning a Launchbar shortcut to the corresponding .owworkspace file. Then I should be able to tell OW to start with a blank page by typing something as quick as command-space, owb, return. I think I might like this. Thanks.

[pgtratnyek]

Originally Posted by pgtratnyek

I will try creating a blank workspace, then assigning a Launchbar shortcut to the corresponding .owworkspace file. Then I should be able to tell OW to start with a blank page by typing something as quick as command-space, owb, return.

Wow. This is really quite nice. I've set shortcuts for most of my workspaces (OWB for a blank page, OWN for news, OWM for webmails, OWW for website administration, etc.) and now I can toggle through them really fast without taking my hands off the keyboard (thanks to Launchbar). It's way better than the F-key short cuts built into OW.

Note one doesn't need to be opening OW for this. The shortcuts work to switch between workspaces while OW is open.

[Brian]

If you want to do something quickly, you can also hold down the shift key as OW starts up; that tells it to create and switch to a new, blank workspace.

[troyb]

You can also launch OmniWeb via workspace file:

~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5/Workspaces/

Double clicking on one of those will open OmniWeb up with that workspace rather than the last one used.