NeWS used to have a way to record an event stream and play it back later, so you could record a start-up event stream to play from ~/.startup.ps when you ran the NeWS server, that would pop up menus and open windows, start apps, position them on the screen, type stuff into them, click on buttons, etc.
You had to be careful and not record setting up your desktop too fast, but then it worked pretty well! I would open up terminals on a bunch of different servers, start emacs in shell windows, set up my initial emacs shell window, etc. I'd just go take a dump and get some coffee while NeWS warmed up.
That was the best you could do in 1986, since none of the Unix programs or gui apps at that time had any idea about how to save and restore their state, and there wasn't a standard desktop framework (except what NeWS provided, which was hardly a standard).
I'm disappointed that 35 years later all window systems don't come with a standard built-in event recording and playback (and even editing) feature you can use to set up your desktop or execute repetitive tasks. Like visual Emacs keyboard macros.
You had to be careful and not record setting up your desktop too fast, but then it worked pretty well! I would open up terminals on a bunch of different servers, start emacs in shell windows, set up my initial emacs shell window, etc. I'd just go take a dump and get some coffee while NeWS warmed up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS
That was the best you could do in 1986, since none of the Unix programs or gui apps at that time had any idea about how to save and restore their state, and there wasn't a standard desktop framework (except what NeWS provided, which was hardly a standard).
I'm disappointed that 35 years later all window systems don't come with a standard built-in event recording and playback (and even editing) feature you can use to set up your desktop or execute repetitive tasks. Like visual Emacs keyboard macros.