iwork lost file, auto save?

fnauta,
I am in awe of those writers who have reprogrammed their flow to incorporate "cmd-S" into it. They are to be admired. However, I've never met one in real life. All of the professional writers I know are as disappointed as you are about the lack of an auto-save function with Pages. That's because being human they sometimes forget to hit save at the end of every paragraph - especially when they are in active pursuit of an idea. For those writers, and I maintain there are many, changing the program is a better idea than changing the writer. MS Word has auto save. By contrast, Apple has built its brand around intuitive design and operation. That means the machine conforms to the person not the other way around. With respect to lessons learned on a 1976 Amstrad computer - it is now 2008 and the lack of auto save on a word processing program today is simply "crappy programming". No excuses. I am going to give Pages one more try with Yvan's autosave applescript (thanks Yvan). If that doesn't do the trick it's back to MS Word.

SPD,

Welcome to Apple discussions.

In my circle of professional writer friends, I don't know anyone who hasn't developed a manual save habit -- regardless of the word processor they use. But then, they value their work and want to take responsibility for the time-between-saves.

If Apple implements all of the gotta-have features that people miss from Microsoft Word, they will have created another Microsoft Word.

Good luck with Yvan's script.

-Dennis

If you're losing data when the software crashes, I think it's entirely appropriate to blame the software developer first and yourself second. If you paid for that software, the onus shifts almost entirely on the developer. Selling a word processor without auto-save is like selling a gun without a safety.

I used to write technical documentation. If you're a professional writer and are relying on a ctrl/cmd-S twitch, you are still living in the 1990s. Get yourself a real word processor with an auto-save feature and a system which makes automated backups, ideally saving incremental changes. For example, if you don't need WYSIWYG document formatting, plain old emacs will solve most of your data loss issues (add CVS and a RAID for additional security).

Adding an auto-save option to Pages hurts nothing, and I'd love to see it. The comparison to Microsoft Word is disingenuous.

Hi Yvan,

I had the same problem today, 3 hours work data loss, didn't suspect that there is no auto save (I recently switched from Windows to Mac). Thanks a 1000 times for your script, this is a great help.
But sorry I still do not understand how I can install it in a way that it does not show up in the dock? I tried to set the "hide" mark in the "startup" preferences, but it is visible in the dock nevertheless. I checked only the third box in the script editor as was recommended. Any ideas? Maybe I just didn't understand some details in the thread. Can you help?
Anyway, thanks once more!

Hello

I really don't understand what I may add to my explanations.
I try to add two screenshots.

(*

Tired to press cmd + S ?

to autosave iWork's documents
paste this script in the Script Editor

menu > File > Save As…

uncheck screen at startup
check stay in background
save this script as an Application Bundle (Progiciel in French)

Install it as one of the applications launched at boot_time
from the Accounts PreferencePane (tab Login Items)


Every ten minutes, if Pages, Keynote or Numbers is in use,
the open documents would be saved.

If a document was never saved before,
the "Save" dialog will ask a name to save it.

CAUTION : The GUI scripting must be enabled which means that
in the "Universal Access" System Preference,
the box "Enable access for assistive devices" must be checked.

*)

At this time I don't know what to do to get rid of the icon displayed in the dock.

It never bothered me but as it seems that it is a problem for you, I will ask about that in my favorite AppleScript forum.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE samedi 24 mai 2008 19:56:34)

Yvan! Thanks a lot for your super-quick and detailed answer!
Yes, how to install the script is clear and I managed to make it run without problems. The point is in fact the icon in the dock...
I have constantly running VMware Fusion with a WinXP as well on my machine, as I need some Windows progs, and that adds already a couple of icons to the dock - would be a great plus not to double at least the "pages" one.
But I agree that this is not a question of existential importance.
Anyway, if you have some news or ideas concerning this more or less cosmetical "problem", I would be glad to hear about. If not - don't bother, just merci et une bonne journee / bon dimanche!

Yvan! I found the solution already. It is here

http://www.macgeekery.com/gspot/2007-02/hidingapplications_from_thedock


and it works perfectly. Thus, do not spend your time on this any more, please.

Maybe for other users of the script this could be helpful as well.

Hello

Problem solved.
It requires a bit of trickery so I added the already saved bundles in the archive available on my iDisk.

For those interested by technology, the feature required an added item of the bundle's plist as displayed on this screenshot:


If the bundle was never ran, it's sufficient.
If it was ran, we must inform the System that the bundle was modified because it uses it from a cache.

I wrote a simple script to do that:

set fichier to "Macintosh HD:Users:yvan_koenig:Desktop:autosave4iWork.app:"
tell application "System Events"
set modDate to get modification date of disk item fichier
set modification date of disk item fichier to modDate + (10 * minutes)
end tell

Of course change the value of fichier to match the location of your bundle.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 25 mai 2008 12:49:55)

oh! simultaneous postings, nearly...
basically, the plist modification is what I found in the URL cited, and what I did.
I tried to tell the system that the script is modified just by moving it to another folder (while it was NOT running), starting it, stopping it again (by stopping iworks), moving it back. Seems to work as well. your solution is more elegant, without doubts.
thanks one more for taking care of this.
Best wishes!

nalugu wrote:

stopping it again (by stopping iworks), moving it back.

Stopping iWork (with no S) doesn't stop the AutoSave tool.
It remains running in the background.
Simply, it does nothing because every ten minutes, when it is called, it "see" that no iWork's component is running.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 25 mai 2008 14:50:34)