Q: Disable autosave

One more thing on the elegance of Mac apps vs. what Microsoft turns out.

It's a small point I know, but it has always cracked me up that in Word, there is no keyboard shortcut for the Page Break command...yet, there is one for column break.

Now which of these two tasks do you suppose people working in word processing documents perform more frequently?

In the past, Shift+Enter was a page break in Word. Checking the list of keyboard shortcuts in Office 2011's documentation, it still is. But when I do that, the cursor just goes to the next line instead of the top of a new, or next page.

OK, I tried Shift+Enter in Word 2008, the newest version I have. It did successfully put in a Page Break.

However, this keyboard shortcut is not shown in the drop-down menu...whereas the keyboard shortcut for Column Break is. So what's with that? With all Microsoft's billions, don't you suppose someone on staff might have noticed that this is a little weird?

softwater wrote:

 

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?

 

OK, I'm reviving this just because I have to vent somewhere. I realize it's mostly off-topic — although it does speak to those who would smugly say "Well if you don't like Auto Save/Versioning in Pages, just use another program."

I created a document in Pages and then had it autogenerate a Table of Contents based on the first line title on each page. That worked very slickly; I then set up the Footers so that a page number would appear on each. However, I wanted the page numbers to correspond to pages with actual content on them — not to the Table of Contents page.

So I ended up, just as I intended, with a Table of Contents page with no footer showing, and the page immediately following it showing up as Page 1, the next one as Page 2, etc. Simple, logical and easy to achieve.

I then exported this document to Word, and when I opened it up, lo and behold — my first page of content was labeled "Page 2."

I then spent 15 minutes trying everything I could think of to get this document to appear as it did in Pages...all to no avail. And of course, I loved how I couldn't actually SEE the effect of what I had done in each instance until after I clicked "OK" in the dialog box. I finally gave up; I have better things to do than to waste my time with such a totally counter-intuitive interface.

There is a hot place in Hades awaiting the baboons who programmed Microsoft Word.

Apart for commenting here, and sending complain reports to Apple, it could perhaps help to have some poll in some web where mac users could express their wishes in this topic.

Autosave/versions is severely hurting my use of OSX. Fortunately I still have SL on my MBA, but I've Lion on my iMac and it's a pain whenever I double-click a document: the meaning of a double-click is different in Lion, and you must be aware of it.

If it weren't for autosave/versions, I could live with Lion, and I'd enjoy it, but currently I just cannot.

OK, I tried Shift+Enter in Word 2008, the newest version I have. It did successfully put in a Page Break.

Finally got it to work in Office 2011. The problem is likely caused by my use of a Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 keyboard. Once I got used to curved keyboards (quite a few years ago), I can't stand straight ones anymore. Anyway, Shift+Enter doesn't work with the normal Enter key for a page break, but does using the Enter key at the far right that is part of the numeric keypad.

I then exported this document to Word, and when I opened it up, lo and behold — my first page of content was labeled "Page 2."

Word defaults to page numbering, whether you want it to or not. To remove page numbers (from the help documentation in Office 2011):

Remove page numbers

1. On the View menu, click Print Layout.
2. On the View menu, click Header and Footer.
3. Select the page number, and then click the frame around the page number, so that the resize handles appear.
4. Press DELETE.

Note  To remove page numbers from part of a document, divide the document into sections. For more information, see Insert, delete, or change a section break.

cesarpixel wrote:

 

Apart for commenting here, and sending complain reports to Apple, it could perhaps help to have some poll in some web where mac users could express their wishes in this topic.

You can find what you're looking for by doing a Google search on petition and "disable autosave."

A rather modest showing so far. Perhaps others who've been a part of this thread would like to add their voices.

Won't get my signature! lol  I love versions, just saves my bacon again! I'm getting used to it very quickly, and will have forgotten 'Save As' in another few weeks. Great implementation IMO.

But poll away, just not here as it is against the TOU.

Thanks

mulligans missus wrote:

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"Won't get my signature! lol  I love versions, just saves my baconagain! I'm getting used to it very quickly, and will have forgotten'Save As' in another few weeks. Great implementation IMO."

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- I understand that if you need and want a feature it is great.

- But why cannot Versions be turned off?

I consciously and expressly do not want several versions of my documents to be saved. I want to be able to save manually if and when I want several versions - but I do not want them unless I happen to work with something that needs that history. In most cases I do not want a history of the changes at all. I think I, as the owner and author of the document, should be the one who has the last word here.

So, why cannot we have the option to turn Versions on and off according to the need at the moment? That option is now acutely needed.

And I do not want system files and caches to be hidden from me either, but that is remediable and another discussion. The point remains however that it is the owner of the machine who is better qualified to judge what functions s/he needs.

Lastly, visual clues are very important in any interface. For this reason, scrollbars and other visual elements should be configurable with respect to size and color. Small scrollbars that are hard to see is an example of unfortunate design choices unless they can be configured, and symbols ought to be capable of being adjusted in size and color in order to tailor the interface optimally to the users' individual needs.

I understand your frustration, but if after 45 pages of debate and suggestion you have gained no satisfaction, then it simply up to you and others to harass Apple fedback and letting them know your feelings. Despite debates and arguments here, nothing has been produced in two updates to hint at it being reverted.

I do not like Dashboard on my computer. I did not like the way Spaces worked, and Spotlight drives me nuts. But I learned to live with them as far as I needed them, BUT admitably I had the choice to turn them off. So I understand where you are coming from. Hopefully, even though Versions seems as if it will be a permanant feature, lets hope that Apple does give the user the choice to disable this function if it affects their workflow.

Good Luck

DChord568 wrote:

 

cesarpixel wrote:

 

Apart for commenting here, and sending complain reports to Apple, it could perhaps help to have some poll in some web where mac users could express their wishes in this topic.

 

You can find what you're looking for by doing a Google search on petition and "disable autosave."

 

A rather modest showing so far. Perhaps others who've been a part of this thread would like to add their voices.

On the other hand if you just google for "disable autosave Lion" you'll get more than 7,000 hits from people asking if there's a way to do it. Hardly a "modest showing".

Tom in London wrote:

 

On the other hand if you just google for "disable autosave Lion" you'll get more than 7,000 hits from people asking if there's a way to do it. Hardly a "modest showing".

I just tried that and a large amount of the hits came back to these forums and most were repeat and reply comments from the same people. So I don't know what number that takes it down to and in contrast to over 7 Million downloads really doesn't warrent a response. But back to the OP's question, the work arounds at the moment are a bit sketchy to say the least from what I have read, a bit risky as well. But I hope for some people's workflows, as I said before, that Apple can implement an on/off option within the Lion code, if possible, in some future release. But at the moment it is a matter of relearning or going back to Snow Leopard, whichis fine but no further support will be imlemented within it, thus leaving SL users behind in the future.

Good Luck Anyway

I've been wondering about you since your sudden recent appearance in these forums, and your passion for instantly rebutting every comment that's critical of Lion's functionality. Why do you do it? I'd like to know.

mulligans missus wrote:

 

Tom in London wrote:

 

On the other hand if you just google for "disable autosave Lion" you'll get more than 7,000 hits from people asking if there's a way to do it. Hardly a "modest showing".

I just tried that and a large amount of the hits came back to these forums and most were repeat and reply comments from the same people. So I don't know what number that takes it down to and in contrast to over 7 Million downloads really doesn't warrent a response. But back to the OP's question, the work arounds at the moment are a bit sketchy to say the least from what I have read, a bit risky as well. But I hope for some people's workflows, as I said before, that Apple can implement an on/off option within the Lion code, if possible, in some future release. But at the moment it is a matter of relearning or going back to Snow Leopard, whichis fine but no further support will be imlemented within it, thus leaving SL users behind in the future.

 

Good Luck Anyway

Actually I googled for disable autosave lion and got 492.000 hits back this seems to be a big issue for a lot of people.

Btw. just another solution for people who might be plagued with Apples broken versioning, you can use a real versioning tool like mercurial or git underneath and then tag stable versions. This however means you have an extra bookkeeping step, but at least you then can mark versions of your files as stable and if autosave corrupts a version you can revert back to the stable state you need.

The advantage of doing it is simply that you have full control of whenever you commit a version and which versions are considered to be stable.