Disable autosave

How was the switch to Lion applied ?

I installed on a blank HD.

Most of the problems which I read about are striking on system where Lion was installed upon Snow Leopard.

I'm quite sure that it make the difference.

During my long practice of macIntosh, I always saw the same kind of behavior.

I always installed major upgrades (the ones which must be paid) on blank HDs. I never got one of the numerous oddities described after EVERY introduction of such upgrade.

You have 38 macs running Lion but are you sure that they don't host a third party product playing the fool.

Such a tool was identified quickly : Better Touch Tool.

Not difficult to guess that some other tools may fool the beast.

I'm really puzzled because I never corrupted a file since Lion delivery so, no offense here, I incline to think that the culprit is somewhere between the chair and the keyboard.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 22 octobre 2011 18:06:06

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

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

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

It's a pity that when we say we dislike Autosave/Versions, it might look like if we don't like progress. I've enjoyed every bit of innovation in every new Apple product, and I continue to do so. But Autosave/Versions is not an innovation (or at least, not an enjoyable innovation).

Couldn't agree more. It were progress; or more accurately, useful progress, then that would be great. But a system change that increases the number of steps to do what you already had a function for; eats up system resources, slows down system response time, and basically cuts into your ability to do work at the same rate you could before is not an improvement.

OK, they wanted to bring iOS to OSX. That's nice, but do it well:

I'm not sure how they ever could. A desktop is supposed to be used entirely differently from an iPhone or an iPad. I have to keep things items separate and easily accessible for the work I do for various clients. Can you imagine an iOS as a desktop? You not only wouldn't have any control over where files you put on the device go, it would be almost impossible to find them in any reasonable amount of time to move, delete or copy them. You simply cannot use a desktop in an iOS manner. It will never work.

Think of this as an example. If I need to install a dozen fonts a client supplies for a project, how would I do that? In simple terms, you would likely drag and drop them onto some icon for the purpose of bringing in files, but what would the OS do with them? Since they're fonts, it would probably automatically add and activate them all. Okay, so what do you do when you have font conflicts, or fonts so badly damaged they make the system unstable? Then what? Since you don't have access to the file system, how do you remove the fonts?

And that's just one example. There is no way an iOS interface will ever be a workable for a production computer.

I have never thought about this carefully, but I have always lagged in adopting new operating system versions because of “bugs.” But the many changes and, frankly, disappointments brought on by Lion (and iCloud) have really forced me to clarify my thinking if I ever hope to upgrade from Snow Leopard. Eventually, if I stick with the platform, I will be forced to upgrade. So this stuff matters.

To upgrade, I need 1) to understand the new features and how they differ from the old ones at least insofar as workflow is affected. I need 2) to be able to reasonably predict the effect of my choices of settings and commands, so that I can troubleshoot if necessary and learn from my mistakes. Very basically, I do not think that I should routinely face disastrous data loss of a Big Mess if I make a small mistake. I need 3) for my family members and employees not to have to think about geeky stuff they don’t understand and haven’t been expected to understand in the past (that is why we have been Apple clients), and 4) I ultimately need for the sum total of the changes to be a net positive--even if modest.

To date I am far, far away from being comfortable with Lion/iCloud in most of these respects. I count messing with computers as a hobby. I like them and understand them better than most. I have been an Apple partisan since forever. I have never ever had this reaction to an Apple update in some 25 years as a Mac/Apple customer.

The keeping of just a few simple documents--calendars, addresses, media and a few other things--synchronized among family and small business machines has been effortless and trivial in the past thanks to Apple. With Lion and iCloud---versions and autosave (and if I understand correctly) the extension of these into iCloud these have become difficult if not, practically speaking, impossible even if we invest in all new equipment. Just the fact that are some 28 pages as of this writing on a thread entitled simply “Disable autosave” is a message that speaks volumes in and of itself.

Autosave is HORRIBLE. On paper, it looks good. In practice IT'S DANGEROUS.

I'm not just talking about the potential dangers of losing your documents when an outdated anti-virus program messes with versioning either.

I'm talking LOST MINUTES/HOURS in productivity: I had this Keynote presentation and it just had 3 crummy movie clips and a few measly photos -- im talking less than a handful of photos -- and Keynote would autosave everytime I tried applying a bullet or transition or when moving in and out of Keynote and onto the Finder. Each autosave cost at least 2 minutes!!!! RIDICULOUS because I had a team waiting on me and autosave was just there all the time slowing me down on a (then 4GB RAM) Quad-Core i7 Macbook Pro!! I've upgraded to 8GB RAM now and it's pretty much the same thing!! Albeit a bit faster but still -- the autosave everytime I do one little thing is simply ********!!

It's the movies. They're HD movies that weren't clipped aside from being 'cropped' inside Keynote -- but WOW. I've had movies play in Keynote presentations before Lion and I've NEVER felt THIS frustrated!!!

Dangerous is the right description. Some may argue, that every change is captured in the version history, but (a) finding something specific in the starwars mode is nearly impossible, (b) if you copy the file somewhere else, the history is gone. As you say therory vs. practical use.

I guess Apple wanted to slam another game changing feature in their manner of not looking and listening outside their idea. But in my oppinion it's a fail. The basic idea might be great but to make it workable they just have to analyse how people work. Not even that, they just have to watch themselves how they work. And I can't imagine that someone doing more than 1 document per year finds this way more intuitive, easier or more useful.

I urge all participants in this thread to send detailed descriptions of problems they have encountered to Apple via the Apple Developer bug reporter: http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/ . All you need to do is register...it's free.

papalapapp wrote:

And I can't imagine that someone doing more than 1 document per year finds this way more intuitive, easier or more useful.

I create documents every days and the new scheme doesn't create any problem for me.

Maybe it’s linked to the fact that for years I create every new document starting from templates.

I wish to say that in Preview we have Save As… as we had in the past. It's named "Export to…"

if you copy the file somewhere else, the history is gone. As you say therory vs. practical use.

The problem is the same if your document become corrupted for this or that unknown reason.

This is why I opened the thread

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3303794

which already allowed some users to retrieve a valid version of their corrupted files

but I know that I'm wasting my time and that some others, sticken to the past and their old habits, will continue to say that Versions is useless and Autosave dangerous.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 23 octobre 2011 17:21:43

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

Well you might find it nice, but I guess this is due to your addiction of protecting apple against all those dumb people who aren't 100% conform with you. And then you're still stuck with AW and protested against iWork since it was released, so don't tell me it's all perfect.

Losing the file versions when copying somewhere isn't a bug or any corruption. I'ts intended, otherwise - if you copy or send the file to someone else - the whole history would be still attached.

So this imaginary "security" only works on a single HD. As soon as you work with a second or third machine/device, you can trash the whole concept. Copy the file on a external HD, eMail, USB-Stick, shared file server (Webdav, mobileme, icloud or whatever) and all versions are removed. Good luck that your Mac didn't autosave something you didn't want to.

papalapapp wrote:

Well you might find it nice, but I guess this is due to your addiction of protecting apple against all those dumb people who aren't 100% conform with you. And then you're still stuck with AW and protested against iWork since it was released, so don't tell me it's all

May you show one message in which I wrote that everything made by Apple is perfect ?

You are just dreaming.

Losing the file versions when copying somewhere isn't a bug or any corruption. I'ts intended, otherwise - if you copy or send the file to someone else - the whole history would be still attached.

What you wrote prove that you never looked at the named thread.

As I know the behavior of Versions, I replicate the versions folder in a disk image with an other name (in fact just remove the leading period.)

Doing that, the versions aren't ruled by the operating system but by the user.

So this imaginary "security" only works on a single HD. As soon as you work with a second or third machine/device, you can trash the whole concept. Copy the file on a external HD, eMail, USB-Stick, shared file server (Webdav, mobileme, icloud or whatever) and all versions are removed.

You are describing the behavior of somebody which don't understand the behavior of the tool. I'm not surprised of that because lot of such users posted here. On my side, I know the way it behave and, as I keep the content of the versions in disk images, I may move files as I want. The versions are always available where I stored them.

Good luck that your Mac didn't autosave something you didn't want to.

It can't do that because as I wrote many times, I never create a new document starting from a standard one but from templates/stationaries.

I did that long before Lion and I have no reason to change.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 23 octobre 2011 18:44:36

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

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

I know that I'm wasting my time

I agree.

The users which retrieved their documents thanks to Versions and my scripts have an other advice.

But, I guess that you will quit Apple soon.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 23 octobre 2011 19:11:40

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

Yes indeed. He's not getting the point anyway.

Apple sold more than 6,000,000 copies of Lion.

50 users will drop it.

What a cataclysm !

Half the count of mac buyers in the late quarter are new customers which baught for Lion so I'm not sure that Apple will cry if you leave.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 23 octobre 2011 19:29:37

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

Yvan, your lack of empathy is mind-boggling. First I though you're just a troll, but you're actually serious. I don't even know how to cope with this.

Consider yourself lucky that your beloved workflow never got dramatically changed by others.

50 users will drop it.

What? You counted the number of users on these boards who said they're going back to SL, and you think that's the grand total?

Quite honestly, if these were my forums, despite how helpful you are otherwise, I would ban you from posting. Not a single thing you've said in this thread, or any similar ones has been the least bit helpful. They have in fact all been worded to deliberately annoy those who just want a very, VERY simple thing. Choice.