Automatically delete history on closing

[arthur-jacquin]

Hello, I love the work you've done ! Min is a great browser, its simplicity is just unmatched, and that matters very much to me.

One of the great feature I love is the !clearhistory bang (cleaning history is such a hassle with the usual browsers, and I don't like the idea of an ever-growing feed to be recorded unnecessarily). I use it each time I want to close Min. Consequently I think an "Automatically delete history on closing" setting could be great.

Thanks.

[PalmerAL]

Thanks!

I think it'd be fine to add a setting for this; there might be issues implementing it due to the fact that deleting entries from the database is a) slow and b) asynchronous, and interrupting shutdown to do that may cause issues. It might be better to check if the setting is enabled, and just never write history to disk if it is (but keep it in memory).

I will say that in response to the "ever-growing feed" issue, history in Min is only saved for 6 weeks anyway, and saving and searching through it should have fairly minimal performance impact, although I'm not sure if that addresses what you're concerned about or not.

[arthur-jacquin]

Thanks for the reactivity !

I didn't know the history was only saved for 6 weeks. I think this is a remarkable idea, because it prevents the history to grow uncontrollably whithout any need of configuration or managing. But we could go further.

My main concern isn't really about performance (even if I'm quite vigilant about it), it's more about purity and mental load. I understand that being able to access past sessions history when lauching a browser might be useful for some of us ; but it feels more like a confusion to me, as I don't see why distinct sessions should interfere with each other (in that way, your task management system is excellent). If I need to save a link for later, I can still bookmark it with !addbookmark bang (another great feature) or save it in a file.

Maybe you could let the user choose the period during which an entry will be saved in a dropdown menu : 6 weeks, 3 weeks, 1 week, or Until closing. If the Until closing option is selected, keeping history in memory instead of writing it to disk sounds like the perfect adjustment.

I understand this feature :

• might not be used by everyone ;
• might imply some in-depth changes in the code ;
• isn't essential (using !clearhistory each time I close Min isn't critical).

Thus if you don't want to integrate it I would understand, but if you do I would be very happy. 😄

[PalmerAL]

Another thing you could consider that might help with this and the other issue is to use private tabs for everything except sites that you want to stay logged into. You could re-map the keyboard shortcuts so that ctrl+t opens a private tab instead, and use shift+ctrl+t for regular tabs.

[benstigsen]

Maybe you could let the user choose the period during which an entry will be saved in a dropdown menu : 6 weeks, 3 weeks, 1 week, or Until closing. If the Until closing option is selected, keeping history in memory instead of writing it to disk sounds like the perfect adjustment.

I could try making this an option if it's something you want to be added @PalmerAL

[PalmerAL]

I'm inclined to wait and see if there are more requests to add this, but if it's something you'd personally want to use then go for it.

[JayKid]

I am missing the feature as well and I decided to implement it myself together with a "privacy and history" section in the settings page.

However, I encountered some blocker when it comes to calling the places helper from the settings JS file so I am a bit unsure how to proceed in a nice way.

Here is the PR: #1738

@PalmerAL what would be the proper way to access that functionality from the settings page?