This program can save&load multiple named workspaces (or “workgroups”),

• Save all opened buffers, their location and sizes on disk to restore later
• Restore special buffers as: org-agenda, shell, magit-status, help, pdf-tools
• Users can set up to support any special buffer (restoring the page number and notes of pdf file, for example)

Fork it, add more special buffers support. Or even better - fix bugs.

Just install “workgroups2” from Melpa and activate it with

(require 'workgroups2)

Use M-x wg-create-workgroup to save save window&buffer layout as a work group.

Use M-x wg-open-workgroup to open an existing work group.

Use M-x wg-kill-workgroup to delete an existing work group.

Put below line at the bottom of .emacs,

(workgroups-mode 1)

Most commands are bound to both <prefix> <key> and <prefix> C-<key>.

By default prefix is: “C-c z” (To change it - see settings below)

<prefix> <key> <prefix> C-c - create a new workgroup <prefix> C-v - open an existing workgroup <prefix> C-k - delete an existing workgroup 

If you want to set up this minor mode further:

(require 'workgroups2) ;; Change prefix key (before activating WG) (setq wg-prefix-key "C-c z") (workgroups-mode 1) ; put this one at the bottom of .emacs

Use below code

(setq wg-session-file "~/.emacs.d/.emacs_workgroups")

Here is minimum sample code to support ivy-occur-grep-mode,

(with-eval-after-load 'workgroups2 ;; provide major mode, package to require, and functions (wg-support 'ivy-occur-grep-mode 'ivy `((serialize . ,(lambda (_buffer) (list (base64-encode-string (buffer-string) t)))) (deserialize . ,(lambda (buffer _vars) (switch-to-buffer (wg-buf-name buffer)) (insert (base64-decode-string (nth 0 _vars))) ;; easier than `ivy-occur-grep-mode' to set up (grep-mode) ;; need return current buffer at the end of function (current-buffer))))))

Simon Michael (AKA) has written a nice FAQ.

workgroups2 is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

workgroups2 is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

This extension is based on experimental branch of the original repo.