[I am reposting this to the list, as I'd intended. IOt turned out I'd responded only to the OP.] I posted regarding this problem in an earlier thread about losing relatively large and complex *remember* buffers that I had forgotten to save (C-c C-c). My usage has improved, and this has been much less of a problem; however, after another, particularly painful incident, I am again studying this problem. I have tested two solutions that were presented earlier, but neither one of them specifically solves this problem. Each of them is a workaround, and either one is acceptable as such, but requires certain adjustments, albeit this is only slightly annoying; I can learn to work around them if need be. I may not have elucidated the problem clearly in the original post. I use remember every day, and have at least 50 different templates. I have gotten used to saving the notes with C-c C-c each time; however, when I'm working late, am a bit tired, or the stress from work has gotten to me, I might---as I did yesterday---spend a couple of hours studying a problem and make a complex table of the partition structure of my machine, only to realize after I had changed buffers a couple of times, and used remember at least once more, only to discover that the I had failed to save the *remember* template buffer. Alas! I throw up my hands in despair, but remembering that the digital computer, I search for a backup file. Backups have saved me hundreds of hours, if not days, of work in the past. Need I say more? The *remember* buffer is not saved or backed up in any way. The ideal solution would be for this buffer to be automatically backed up---to actually exist somewhere and be backed up just as a textmode buffer is. Carsten earlier posted an at least partial solution to this problem. #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (defadvice remember-finalize (before org-save-and-detach activate) (when buffer-file-name (save-buffer) (setq buffer-file-name nil))) (add-hook 'remember-mode-hook (lambda () (org-set-local 'change-major-mode-with-file-name nil) (write-file "~/path/to/remember_backup.org") (org-set-local 'remember-buffer (buffer-name))) 'append) #+END_SRC He said he would not include it in org-mode because one would be "using remember out of its realm by making is a work buffer instead of a quick capture-or-note buffer." I admit I have used a wrench as a hammer at times, to the chagrin of the true mechanic. I have found remember a useful tool. I admit I haven't understood its mechanism: I have even been confused by it. I use the templates, but am still a novice: I have written fairly complicated org-remember templates, but I still haven't gotten my head entirely around what they can do. I have used it in whatever manner seemed useful at the time. So it is actually helpful to see how org-remember is intended to be used, that one should immediately file his notes. But I have found this tool so useful (and my wrench is always handier than my hammer!) in my own way, that I will continue to operate in my unorthodox mode. All's the same, I hope a convincing argument to include this solution. I would second the need to include a numbered backup mechanism to cover recursive calls to org-remember. That being said, I have also started using "%!" in some templates. It feels clumsy, but for the most part solves the problem, since I seldom use the refiling options on the remember splash header. It doesn't work as nicely with complicated templates with several prompts, and it is capricious: for example, I don't understand how to force the cursor to a particular position. This problem happens at such a low frequency, for me, that an automatic backup mechanism would be sufficient, especially if it recognized a second instance of the *remember* buffer. Something more transparent would be ideal. I'm not sure how to organize that the *remember* buffer would automatically be saved as a file transparently, with numbered backups for new *remember* buffers. Remember rocks! Alan On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 5:28 AM, Samuel Wales wrote: > org-remember -- use a file > > On more than one occasion, I have composed something using > org-remember, and mistakenly hit a key for killing the > buffer. With all buffers except org-remember, this kills a > buffer if it has no unsaved text, and asks what buffer to > kill if it does, at which point I quit. > > With org-remember, the buffer has unsaved text, but it is > not associated with a file, so it loses text. > > Text is probably lost upon a crash also. > > My suggestion is this. Perhaps org-remember can have a file > (this fixes the killing problem), and that file can be > autosaved (this fixes the crash problem).[fn:4] > > There is one more case in which text is lost. You might run > org-remember from org-remember and not undo. My existing > proposal is to allow calling o-r from o-r. I think that > solves it. In such a case, however, it will be necessary > to allow more than one such file. > > [fn:4] In principle, if the target location is known, the > file can be an indirect buffer into that buffer. This has > other advantages, including having all in-buffer settings > work, being able to isearch, having a crashed org-remember > stay where it is supposed to be (albeit unfinished) and so > on. But it wouldn't be necessary to get that fancy. Just > any file would work. > > -- > Myalgic encephalomyelitis denialism is causing death (decades early; > Jason et al. 2006) and severe suffering (worse than nearly all other > diseases studied; e.g. Schweitzer et al. 1995) and grossly corrupting > science. http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/What_Is_ME_What_Is_CFS.htm > > > _______________________________________________ > Emacs-orgmode mailing list > Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. > Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode > -- Alan Davis "An inviscid theory of flow renders the screw useless, but the need for one non-existent." ---Lord Raleigh (John William Strutt), or else his son, who was also a scientist. It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true. ---- Bertrand Russell