How this passed through Apple's Mountain Lion testing is beyond me. "If one edits a document, then chooses Save As, then BOTH the edited original document and the copy are saved, thus not only saving a new copy, but silently saving the original with the same changes, thus overwriting the original." Just goes to show: do not mess with my ability to save my stuff. There is no one-size-fits-all for this kind of delicate stuff.
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Member since:2010-03-08
+1
The point of Lion's auto-save feature is to abstract the intricacies of the memory hierarchy away from the user. You cannot edit a vulnerable in-RAM copy of a file for hours anymore, instead you edit a periodically updated on-disk copy that loses only a few minutes worth of work in the event of a hardware failure. That's actually a very good thing, as it voids the need for most people's hysteric manual saving disorder, replacing it with a superior versioning mechanism !
Really, I'd change a few details myself, but it seems to me that Apple got the big picture right for this feature.
Member since:2007-08-27
hmm, voids the need for, "hysteric manual saving disorder, replacing it with an inferior hysteric manual copy disorder" from what I can gleam, though saving rather than copying, before editing, I'd have thought more prone to tears-at-bedtime than power failure.
Bit puzzled about what's actually going on here...though losing an original document to save the possible loss of an edited version is counter-intuitive to how people actually think/work editing stuff. Can imagine a 'collaborative' document could end-up having little or no relation(unintended)to the original.
Edited 2012-08-06 16:39 UTC
Member since:2009-07-18
To me the best feature is that it's opt-in on the part of apps and that at least Photoshop and some other apps I use a lot don't opt-in. [Yet?] I really find it to be one of the most annoying things I've ever dealt with for content creation - having to now manually remember to revert all changes out of a file before closing the app or window if I actually want to discard them, or having to make duplicates ahead of time just to do temporary operations - otherwise having what are in many cases just tests or throwaway changes on graphics and 3d models overwriting the originals.
Most apps are stable enough to not worry about them suddenly quitting, and most already had a timed autosave that you could use to open the file with the changes that were in progress while leaving the original file alone. Much nicer for how I work.
Oh, and as a bonus - DON'T think that autosave will protect you if the app crashes, at least not any more than having timed backup/temp files written out. If the app hasn't autosaved your most recent changes yet, they're lost in case of a crash! Surprise!
Member since:2008-03-17
It works well in Apple programs. Unfortunately the crashiest and/or most critical programs mostly Office and Matlab ( Netbeans, Eclipse you get used to source control ) don't implement this feature.
This means that one cannot let go of the instinct to save meaning one has to keep two different paradigms in ones head at all times...
Edited 2012-08-06 18:20 UTC
Member since:2006-03-20
Member since:2011-05-13
Many people use Save As to construct a template that will be used as a baseline for several other documents. It's such a common practice where I work that nobody thinks twice about doing this.
That practice goes right out the window with this bug. So, how are we to create shared templates that won't get overwritten the first time someone tries to create a new document from a template?
Member since:2005-08-04
By "Locking" the file. I think this was a feature since Lion. It would auto-lock the file after not being edited for a while, and it would offer you to duplicate the file. I think you can lock / unlock the file at will, but I haven't tried.
But I agree, this is breaking existing workflows. May be good, may be bad.
Member since:2009-04-08
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2006-05-30
*le sigh*... all files are now versioned in OS X. If you autosave a bunch of changes, the versions of the previous document is saved. "Save as" is saving the current document under a different name. I've never used "Save as" under any OS to duplicate the functionality that we seem to be having issues with here? Why? Because I religiously hit save (ctrl+s or whatever) every couple of minutes. The current document on disk is the document I'm duplicating. Your usage may vary, obviously.
The issue here is the workflow. It's that people are lazy and rely on apps not crashing and losing your work. Having lived through Acorn, Amiga, Classic Mac OS and Windows 3.1, I don't think anyone should make that assumption. Nothing like watching the OS get a GPF and your work sailing in to the ether.