Q: Disable autosave

     I am surprised that so many professionals have downloaded Lion without reading up about the changes in Lion. The forums have been running hot since July and still people risk their workflow by updating and then being shocked by the changes. So many people say their livelihoods and income are so dependant on their workflow and then jump blindly into a brand new OS. Personally I love it, but luckily for those who have updated they can downgrade with their Time Machine or CCC clone. As discuss here

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15699885#15699885

Thanks

Actually for me it was a tradeoff between what is positive and what is negative. I fortunately rely on tools which do not have autosave and probably never will have, since I am a programmer.

The tools i have use their own sane implementation of local and remote history. Hence I see everyday how bad Apples implementation of a rather simple mechanism is and how stubbornly stupid they ignored every knowledge gathered in this area for the last 30 years.

But fortunately for me it was more along the lines of having to deal with the dreadful icons and stupid autolock, but on the plus side getting the local snapshots as additional safety net.

For me the safety net was more important than having some annoyances. If I had to rely on tools which use autosave and versioning ala Apple then I probably already would have reverted to Lion via time machine.

I was an early adopter and for me this was the ultimate question after 4-5 days of usage. But having local time machine snapshots was for my workflow very important, so I stayed.

That does not mean I wont express my feelings towards the stupity Apple performed in those areas. Especially since I work with tools every day, which do exactly this mechanism right. So seeing Apples shiny but broken implementation hurts twice.

enamic5 wrote:

 

Wow - this has become quite a thread.

Now – yes, no matter how Save As and Versions and AutoSave really work, for me personally it doesn't work at the moment, as I am the guy (or one of them) with the large Keynote files.

 

Actually I think by now there are several types of users.

a) Typical Homeusers who write an email occasionally or a small document, for most of these the implementation is fine, or at least they have not noticed yet until they accidentally save something with an error and find out 3 months later. Then they start to complain but mildly.

b) Users who buy apple machines to actually get some work done, they did not buy the machines because they were Apple, but because of the combination of good hardware and Software. Those are hit hardest by the implementation as long as they have to rely on tools which use versions and autosaving.

Others of this group are hit by the autolocking which is a halfbroken workaround for the issues raised by the deficits of Apples version and autolocking. Those users do not have a problem with changing their workflow, but they have a problem with something which poses a risk to their work and reduces productivity.

c) Users who buy apple because they want the next shiny thing and pray at the altar of Steve Jobs every day. Those do not work at all with those machines but troll in forums regarding the valid complaints of user group a and b. And they basically swallow everything coming from Apple like it is the greatest innovation, but mostly because they do not use it anyway.

That makes good sense. Lion is a bit of a trade off I suppose, in that sense. I have mediocre needs in comparison to a lot of users, so I'm happy enough with Lion, but I can see where your coming from. Maybe a Snow Lion would be the perfect system for all at the moment!! lol

DChord568 wrote:

 

softwater wrote:

 

Alternatives:

 

Keynote -> obviously there's Powerpoint, the only free option I could find was OpenSong.

 

Pages/Numbers -> Libreoffice (free, google it), or MSOffice.

 

I know you're not replying specifically to me, but in my earlier query I challenged a poster who said we should simply not use apps that give one no choice about Auto Save/Versioning to suggest "a combination word processing/page layout program that matches Pages for capability and ease of use."

 

I hardly need to point out that Word (part of MSOffice) fails to meet these criteria. Assuming its Libreoffice equivalent is built more or less the same way, it would fail as well.

 

No, I wasn't replying to your challenge, nor was I saying they are equivalent. I was just trying to give people suggestions to look into if their main concern was a program that didnt' have Apple's autosave feature.

I would take you up on this point though

I hardly need to point out that Word (part of MSOffice) fails to meet these criteria. Assuming its Libreoffice equivalent is built more or less the same way, it would fail as well.

Well, yes, you do actually, because that's a matter of opinion. Personally, I don't find Pages any simpler (or harder) to use than Word. Try removing all formatting, for example, from imported text, in Pages, or changing the dictionary language. The first is almost impossible without one of Yvan's scripts, and the second is awkward at best.

Some things in Pages are more difficult to achieve than they are in Word, and vice versa. Ultimately, Word is a far more complex program than Pages, in that you can do more with it, but that need not bother you if you don't want to use those features.

What is that you can do in Pages that you can't do in Word?

softwater wrote:

 

What is that you can do in Pages that you can't do in Word?

Not donate to Microsoft. lol

softwater wrote:

What is that you can do in Pages that you can't do in Word?

(1) Like mulligan missus :

Not donate to M…oSoft (whose products aren't allowed to enter my machines).

(2) open Pages documents.

(3) I use LibreOffice when I'm asked to help somebody upon a Word or an Excel document because opening them in iWork and then exporting them in M…oSoft format drop a lot of formatting properties.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France)  vendredi 18 janvier 2011 10:30:43

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.2

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

Hmm...yes, aside from the childish partisanship for Apple over Microsoft (personally, its the products usefulness to me that I'm interested in, not the name of the company in the 'About' box), what practical reason is there for not changing to Word (or LibreOffice) if avoiding autosave is your main priority?

The two minor reasons are that meanwhile all of my documents are Pages, Numbers and Keynote files and that I would have to pay for Office.

The major point however is the design of the apps themselves. In terms of usablilty/design these three apps are unreaced. They make working so much easier and more efficient. Other apps may have more features and functions etc. but I find the "how" much more important. Try to place and arrange images in a Word document and compare it to how it works in Pages. It's just a different dimension.

Example: I have contracts and letters I use on a daily basis. In Pages, I open the basic template, drag in the contact from Addressbook and hit "save as" (not anymore obviously). The letter was ready to go with the correct addresses.

Another example: I have a 8 pages Numbers document I frequently use as a evaluation of financial data for my clients. Its a mix of tables, text and charts. On the left side, I have my sheets and tables perfectly lined up. The layout is so simple, just drag the tables/textboxes/charts where you want them on the page. In other apps you can't even have two tables on one page. (Similar to the built-in templates in Numbers, it's hard to do that in traditional spreadsheets.)

In response to Luca and Papalapapp:

I'm sure that's all true, but you're arguing a point that is not in dispute. My point was that given there's no way to turn off autosave at present, and assuming that not having autosave is one's main priority, then your alternatives are those that I laid out above. I'm not arguing with you, I'm offering suggestions to help you.

I take on board the fact that you won't be able to open .pages or .numbers in any other program. However, as you no doubt already know, there's nothing to stop you exporting your .pages/.numbers files in .doc (or .rtf, .pdf)/ .xls.

The alternative is to live with autosave till Apple provide the option to turn it off (unlike others in this thread, I still maintain that this will come, eventually).

Another program worth mentioning at least for text processing is Scrivener (I think its in the app store but you can get it direct from their website). Scrivener has its own 'autosave' - and had it long before Lion - but one that works properly. You can change the interval, or turn it off. You also still have 'save' and 'save as..' options.

Also, Scrivener - unlike Pages, Word or even Libreoffice's .odt format - doesn't lock you into a proprietary file system. Scrivener uses .rtf which means you can open your files in just about any other word processor. It's very fast, light on processor use and pretty cheap (about $40 I think).

(Disclaimer: no, I'm not connected to the company in any way other than I received a free copy of the program earlier this year to write a review of it for a professional technical communication magazine. I have been thoroughly impressed by it and continue to use it as my main word processor/text drafting package.)

Ok I understand. I just answered on your question why not to change to other apps.  I am also convinced that there is still a good chance that Autosave/Versions will be modified somehow regarding people's concerns. As long as there is significant hope to heal the patient, I'll stick with it. Once it gets clear that they won't change it, I'll go for alternatives.

softwater wrote:

 

DChord568 wrote:

 

I hardly need to point out that Word (part of MSOffice) fails to meet these criteria. Assuming its Libreoffice equivalent is built more or less the same way, it would fail as well.

 

Well, yes, you do actually, because that's a matter of opinion. Personally, I don't find Pages any simpler (or harder) to use than Word. Try removing all formatting, for example, from imported text, in Pages, or changing the dictionary language. The first is almost impossible without one of Yvan's scripts, and the second is awkward at best.

 

Some things in Pages are more difficult to achieve than they are in Word, and vice versa. Ultimately, Word is a far more complex program than Pages, in that you can do more with it, but that need not bother you if you don't want to use those features.

 

What is that you can do in Pages that you can't do in Word?

The short answer to this question is "Get work done without the application getting in the way of what you want to do."

To be sure, much of this is personal preference, but as someone who used WriteNow up until the moment Apple finally did away with the Classic architecture, I'm used to a lean word processing program that does the work that I routinely do.

It has long been my contention that 95% of Word users never use the majority of its features. The two examples you give, in fact, are pretty esoteric tasks that one would hardly be called upon to do on a routine basis. (If I had to do the former, I would Export the document as Plain Text and then reopen it.)

The longer answer to your question above is that Word's interface is butt-ugly and overloaded with choices that again, one rarely has to make in the course of routine word processing. I like Pages' Inspector; it's very clean and gets me exactly where I want to go.

I would also single out Pages' implementation of Tables as superior. To be honest, I almost never work in Word; if I receive a Word document I have to work on, I bring it into Pages, do the work, and then Export it again. The time it takes to do this is more than worth it. I bring this up because just now I did open Word 2008 (the latest version I have). I see the Tables feature has been improved from the previous version I'm more familiar with (which was truly awful). But it still doesn't compare with the overall ease of use I find in Pages.

I could go on, but I'll end by citing another poster's example of doing simple page layout (i.e., integrating graphics with text). I can't imagine doing in Word the things I’m easily able to do in this realm with Pages.

The bottom line is I shouldn't have to imagine it. I'm very happy with Pages, and as I've said, I use it every day of my working life. I would normally be an early adapter of Lion, but the forced Auto Save/Versioning has absolutely caused me to stick with Snow Leopard here at work. As I've also said, the prospect of teaching my far less-savvy co-workers (not to mention my Type A boss, who has zero patience for anything) what they now have to do to accomplish a simple Save As fills me with terror.

So the final answer to your question of "What can you do in Pages that you can't do in Word?" is "work easier, more efficiently, and in the way I've become accustomed to working for the past several years." I hold out hope, as you do, that Apple will eventually see the light and give us the option to disable Auto Save/Versions in iWork. If that doesn't happen, I'll stick with Snow Leopard for as long as I can, then I suppose switch to MarinerWrite or some other alternative. Word would be my very last choice.

Where do I go to share ideas with Apple?

I tried making a suggestion and they said contact developer support.

softwater wrote:

 

Alternatives:

 

Keynote -> obviously there's Powerpoint, the only free option I could find was OpenSong.

I downloaded OpenSong late last night and only had a couple of minutes to play with it. I couldn't see how it could be used in the way Keynote is, but I'll keep investigating.

However, as a musician who frequently has to make lyric/chord sheets, I was astounded to see that I could put lyrics and chords in to a song, and then transpose the chords to any other key with a simple click.

This will be very useful to me. Thank you so much, softwater, for putting me on to this app! I had no idea it existed.