Workspaces UI bugged, doesnt work in a logical way

first of all great work, been using this excellent software for some years, the fact that I;m posting this after all this years speaks of the high quality you have achieved.

TL;DR

Workspaces UI is clunky, doenst always give the expexted results , need refactoring.
tried in 5.7.7 also 5.8.3RC


analysis and symptoms:
1. if I am in a workspace, say "Workspce2016", and I make a change in a different one say "Workspace 12" ( editing its name or something..), when I exit I get a message "Saving Worspace12"
2. sometimes no matter if I choose in the preferences automatic saving of workspaces or not, workspaces all always saved on exit
3. I think that if I change the program options while in one window, any other open window has the settings as they were when it was originally opened ( which might be days ago..).


4.a this is very bad, because I want to be able to have an inpermutable set of sites, tha I can reliably open every time. instead

4b. if I open two different workspaces at the same time it seems totally random which one the program tries to autosave .

I may try to exit the window of Workspace B and I get a popup saying it will save Workspace A.
I just tried to exit the window of workspace A and I got a popup saying it will save Workspace C ( which is not open, but I think at some point (.. 2days ago?) I might have edited by deleting one of its hosts.

Upon further reflection it seems the program might be trying to save changes on the last workspace edited while on that current window, regardless of the actuall workspace the window contains

I am just trying to exit workspace A ( added two more servers while working inside it..), and the program asks me to save Workspace C.
If I answer no don't save, I lose the change.
If I answer yes , the wrong workspace is saved ( overwritten essentially)
to test things, I went and deleted Workspace C ( while in A), and yet when I press the exit button I'm asked to chose to autosave it.


5. Proposal

A. there should be an option to deny the automatic saving of a workspace when exiting that works...
1. sometimes said option appears
other times a different popup dialog appears "Workspace X will be automaticall saved, {OK|cancel|Help}
> this means I can either accept the autosaving, or stay in the program without exiting.
2. other times it appears with the option to not save the workspace, but then again it is not reliable.
ie options are {Yes|No|cancel|Help} / Pres no to enable automatic saving of the workplace
ie. I might choose not to save it but it is saved nonetheless.
this might be tied with {3}, ie windows remmbers options as they were when it launched, not as they are now.


B. there should be an option to explicitly save a workspace while you are in it, which will give control.
this way you can add some servers, save the workspace as you want it,
and be sure it will have the servers you want and not some random one you opend to do a one-time job.

C. currently you can only enable autosaving when exiting a workspace, not explicitly save THIS session without activating autosave. this should not be the default option, or it shouldnt be there at all.

D. the option to have a default workspace name is good but it should not be mandatory if someone enables automatic saving.
it works nicely only if you regularly work with a single workspace.
otherwise you end up with overwritten workspaces

the way it works I may be in Workspace "2016-web", when I exit, IF i have workspace auto-save enabled with say, default name "everyday-servers", my current workspace:
i) will not be saved in its proper name "2016-web"
ii) will overwrite the "default one: "everyday-servers"

I hope you can find the time to make this work, workspaces really helps a lot when dealing with multiple servers.

I f I may be of any assistance re these issues, please contact me.

N.

Thanks for your report.

Though there are too many issues contained in your post and I have problems reproducing them.

Can we start with the first one?

1. if I am in a workspace, say "Workspce2016", and I make a change in a different one say "Workspace 12" ( editing its name or something..), when I exit I get a message "Saving Worspace12"

Can you post step-by step instructions for reproducing this problem?

1. if I am in a workspace, say "Workspce2016", and I make a change in a different one say "Workspace 12" ( editing its name or something..), when I exit I get a message "Saving Worspace12"

Can you post step-by step instructions for reproducing this problem?

Ok,here goes.

I have two workspaces saved

1. "XenServers" has 3 servers
2. "web2016" , has 8 servers

in the Preferences Window >> Envirnment > Window the settings are:

"automatically save workspace on exit"
"Def,WS name" is Web2016 ( not sure why, I didnt select it, probably has soemthing to do with the order the WSs were created?"

I open WinSCP , load the 1st Workspace, it opens all right.
I open a fourth server, which I want to add to said WS by the way ( forgot it firs time)
Caveat A: I can find a way to save it... other than automatic saving
searched menus, right clicked WS nam,e maybe expecting a menu, I cant see way to modify WS

I decide to close WinSCP , hence forcing it to save the WS.

I close it and get a pop up , telling me that the Workspace "web2016" ( the other one..) will be autosaved.

and it gives me 3 options:
Ok, cancel, help.

if I chose Ok it overwrites the other WS
If I chose cancel.. I cant exit.
____

only solution when this happens, is to go to the preferences, disable autosaving, and exiting. but then I cant add a new server to an existing WS.

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more:
IF I have a single WS, everything works fine...
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I open winscp


Another issue:

when creating a workspace there is an option:enable autoamtic saving of this WS, which make sme think it is possible to have autoamtic saving disabled, but defined as affirmative during creation

I cannot reproduce this with neither 5.7.7 nor 5.8.3.

Basically, when you are closing window, the last opened workspace is saved (if no workspace was opened, the default workspace is used).

My understanding of your steps:

- I have two workspaces (A and B) created in previous runs of WinSCP.
- In preferences I have B as the default workspace (but this does not really matter).
- I start WinSCP, select workspace A and open it.
- I go to Session > New Session and select an additional session to open.
- I go to Commands > Quit, and I get a prompt "Terminate all sessions and close application? Workspace 'A' will be automatically saved." (as expected, but different than yours).

What am I doing differently?

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Btw, to save a workspace, go to Session > Save Workspace.