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lucafrombrooklyn
Level 1 (18 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Disable autosave

Hello, anybody figured out how one can disable autosave? I just *don't* want it, and I have my reasons.

Thanks,

 

l.

Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 10:30 AM

by putnik,Solvedanswer
putnik putnik
Level 3 (795 points)
Mac OS X
A:

I don't think you are right. "Revert to Saved" just brings up the star wars thing with the versions listed, all of them.

 

Anyway, when I'm working on my best sellers, I used "Save As" at the end of each chapter and added a ch1, ch2 etc onto the file name. I can do exactly the same now, using "Duplicate". The versions thing is more of a recovery aid or for forensic analysis perhaps.

 

If they hadn't renamed "Save As" to "Duplicate", this thread would probably not exist.

Posted on Jul 25, 2011 11:48 PM

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lucafrombrooklyn

Q: Disable autosave

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  • by lucafrombrooklyn,

    lucafrombrooklyn lucafrombrooklyn Jul 23, 2011 8:02 AM in response to Steven W. Riggins
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 23, 2011 8:02 AM in response to Steven W. Riggins

    Thank you for your feedback Steven. I actually *am* a fanboy, to the point of being derided by my colleagues :-)

     

    http://psy.cns.sissa.it/perso/lucapapers/CrashBlindness.pdf

     

    I think I understand the reason behind many of the changes Apple introduced, including many in Lion, although surely less than you do. I have the highest respect for what Apple has done in terms of improving my daily life, which basically consists of constant interactions with the computer, and I know for a fact how smart people are there at Apple.

     

    But this is really a very clear one: write a 40 pages paper and sift through the changes. How are you going to find the one you are interested in? The only way to mark "significant" versions now is to save them as separate documents and go back to them manually. This is basic usability. To expand on the problem, although I cannot do it here completely, there are several other aspects that should have been taken into account and I don't see them considered with autosave and Versions. For example, I run psychological experiments for a living. When they run, it is crucial to have  a control of the computer processes, as much as possible. This this is in principle impossible in a preemptive multitasking system. However, my experience is that OS X behaves better than any other system in this respect. It is less intrusive and more careful about when it decides to interfere with your work. Even aggressive processes (e.g., spotlight indexing) behave very well, and can be suspended when necessary (for example, by excluding a folder from being indexed when you run an experiment). Now, I don't see how to do that with autosave. Am I going to be able to use Lion for my experiments? I am afraid, no. Because I can never predict when and how some experimenter has left some of the programs that implement autosave running in the background, thus risking to slow down the machine in critical moments of an experiment. That's not good, and again, it's very simple to just give people ways to decide how and when to use these features. Apparently, the decision has been made not to let people do this in Lion. Result: I won't upgrade my experimental machines to Lion.  

     

    (As for the magic trackpad: off topics, but it was a great idea. I had a full gesture keyboard produced by a company that suddenly disappeared some years ago. It was bought by Apple. That's where gestures comes from. I was left without an efficient way to type without having my hands hurting, but I was happy to see gestures entering within the system. This part is very well programmed in Lion, although even there, a bit inconsistently throughout the very same applications Apple ships. So you left-swipe two fingers to turn a page in iCal, but you cannot left-swipe to turn a page in Address Book).

     

    Oh well.  I stop. Promised.

  • by LantZie,

    LantZie LantZie Jul 23, 2011 9:32 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 9:32 AM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

    I started using TextWrangler instead, no way can I write scripts with this incredibly stupid "feature" auto-save...

    I want my templates to stay the way I wrote them and when I´m done I´ll save a new one... for every OS update I find myself using more third-party software components

  • by Alan Edinger,

    Alan Edinger Alan Edinger Jul 23, 2011 2:05 PM in response to lucafrombrooklyn
    Level 4 (1,627 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 2:05 PM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

    My Bad — I should sleep more.

     

    I use the Apple Term '"versions" when thinking about this feature and tend to think about the saving and restoring of windows as autosave. But Apple uses the term "Auto Save"  in conjunction with "Versions" to describe the complete feature.

     

    So sorry for stepping in on this conversation.

    -Alan

  • by Marc Troy,

    Marc Troy Marc Troy Jul 23, 2011 6:59 PM in response to lucafrombrooklyn
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 6:59 PM in response to lucafrombrooklyn

    I've tried Autosave for two days now, ruined at least a dozen documents and sent my client in two cases a broken version. Apple, please give us the option to turn "versions" off - system wide!

  • by Steven W. Riggins,

    Steven W. Riggins Steven W. Riggins Jul 23, 2011 8:20 PM in response to Marc Troy
    Level 3 (980 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 8:20 PM in response to Marc Troy

    Marc,

     

    Can you please explain which applications you were using auto save with?  Can you explain how the files became ruined?  Can you explain how you sent a broken version?

     

    Without info, we cannot help you.

  • by Marc Troy,

    Marc Troy Marc Troy Jul 23, 2011 8:37 PM in response to Steven W. Riggins
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 8:37 PM in response to Steven W. Riggins

    I don't really need help, just wanted to chime in: The only thing that can help me is to disable the enforced autosave. I've really tried to cope with this new feature, but I spend too much time being careful or restoring older versions. I had to buy BBEdit* to get things done where I used TextEdit before. Yes, TextEdit is unuseable. Try managing config files or viewing logfiles with it in Lion.

     

    PS: I'm working with Windows, Linux and OS X and switching between them on a regular basis. Different saving methods adds a complexity for me that I am not willing to deal with. Yes, I do get the idea behind autosave and I guess many/some/a few people will like it, but it has to be optional.

     

     

    * BBEdit is more expensive than Lion OS, *smackhead*

  • by magisterpat,

    magisterpat magisterpat Jul 23, 2011 9:06 PM in response to Marc Troy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 9:06 PM in response to Marc Troy

    My problem is just the opposite. I can't find AutoSave or Versions. Spotlight search reveals several folders with those names, but their contents are unusable. So, I guess my question is: How do I enable AutoSave or Versions

  • by Marc Troy,

    Marc Troy Marc Troy Jul 23, 2011 9:09 PM in response to magisterpat
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 9:09 PM in response to magisterpat

    magisterpat, Autosave is enabled by default. Open TextEdit, type something, save the file. Change the text and close TextEdit. When you reopen the file you'll see that the changes got saved.

     

    You can access the older versions by clicking on the little arrow next to the title bar.

     

    As for your troubles with Versions, please start a new thread, you're very offtopic here

  • by Alan Edinger,

    Alan Edinger Alan Edinger Jul 23, 2011 9:17 PM in response to Marc Troy
    Level 4 (1,627 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 9:17 PM in response to Marc Troy

    Marc,

     

         I know that you don't want help, and that you have purchased the very fine BB Edit, but if you ever want to protect a script template (or other) in Text Edit there are two possible options for you.

     

         1. In Text Edit, if you hover over the document name (top dead center) you can 'Lock" the document from  further change.

     

         2. You can make it read only using the Format Menu / Prevent Editing function.

     

         3. Duplicating your finished template: You can use the 'duplicate' function that is found under the disclosure triangle to the right of the document name which appears when you hover there.

     

    F.Y.I

     

    -Alan

  • by Marc Troy,

    Marc Troy Marc Troy Jul 23, 2011 9:25 PM in response to Alan Edinger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 9:25 PM in response to Alan Edinger

    Thanks Alan, that's indeed helpful hints everybody should know who's used to the old way. (I figured them out on day 2, but so far I didn't have a single case where I'd want to autosave the types of documents I edit in TextEdit). I really don't get how Apple could have added this to TextEdit. Numbers/Pages is probably fine. Not sure. Still got that experience ahead of me hehe

  • by rsjm,

    rsjm rsjm Jul 23, 2011 9:28 PM in response to Marc Troy
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Publishing
    Jul 23, 2011 9:28 PM in response to Marc Troy

    My problem with Autosave is that it's slowly eating my hard drive space (on two computers) - so fast I can watch it go when I get info on the drive.

     

    I've been to the Apple store twice and their latest answer was to go back to Snow Leopard.

     

    Sorry, been a fan of Apple for years - and I still will be - but this release *****!

  • by tim ferris,

    tim ferris tim ferris Jul 24, 2011 7:16 AM in response to Alan Edinger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 24, 2011 7:16 AM in response to Alan Edinger

    Hello Alan.

     

    I just read your reply and you may have answered my issue for me. I posted a few pages back as i love and use Keynote (iWork) daily for pretty heavy media rich presenatations full of video and audio for my job. Till the upgrade to Lion it all worked like a dream, however lately every time i add a new video or file to a large keynote presetation, it auto saves the changes which can take a good minute or so of the spinning ball.

     

    It actually makes using keynote unusalble and stressfull. However on reading your post do i just select "lock" to stop this from happening? Or does that stop me from carrying on working on the presentation?

     

    Thanks in advance

     

    Tim

  • by Marc Troy,

    Marc Troy Marc Troy Jul 24, 2011 7:24 AM in response to tim ferris
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 24, 2011 7:24 AM in response to tim ferris

    tim,

     

    Lock also prevents you from editing. To be able to work in peace you need to do the following:

     

    1. Load a document or start a new one + save it once.
    2. Click on the document titlebar and select "Duplicate".
    3. Close the orignal document

     

    Now you got a 2nd copy that doesn't autosave for you and you'll get prompted when you close the window.

  • by tim ferris,

    tim ferris tim ferris Jul 24, 2011 7:26 AM in response to Marc Troy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 24, 2011 7:26 AM in response to Marc Troy

    thats great news, thank you very much

     

    I wish they would explain that so easily as you have.

     

    Tim

  • by lucafrombrooklyn,

    lucafrombrooklyn lucafrombrooklyn Jul 24, 2011 8:07 AM in response to Marc Troy
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 24, 2011 8:07 AM in response to Marc Troy

    Marc:

     

    so basically to get the behavior of files before Autosave was mandatory one has to start by making a copy of the file, work on it, and then decide whether to save it or not. Good, this is progress, thanks a lot.

     

    Of course the drag is that as soon as you save that copy, in case you decide to save it, then this becomes a normal file and then you have to restart the process over again (and throw away the original file, and change the name of the newly copied file, etc etc.).

     

    But thanks, there is at least a partial way out.

     

    l.

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