Q: Disable autosave

Hi Matt

I think this is how it's intended to behave (bizarre I know!). As I understand it, the problem is that it's not a one-time setting. When you uncheck the box in the Restart or Shutdown window, it goes ahead and doesn't restore BUT ONLY for the next startup.

It doesn't remember your setting, and next time around it pops back up with the option box checked, forcing you to uncheck it all over again....and again.

At the very least it should have been done the other way around - unchecked by default so that you tick to invoke a Restore (or better still, let's have a proper preferences setting designed for grown-ups!).

Hope this helps

Ian

Maybe if you deselect the Restore windows when quitting and reopening apps will do the trick.  Don't you think? I haven't tried it but it may work.  This is in System Preferences>General.

Unfortunately... that option only prevents individual applications from opening with all the same windows that were active when they were closed.  What we're talking about here is the dialog on shutting down... which can not be permanently disabled.  It would be nice if these two things were clearly differentiated.  As a result, just about every post regarding the shutdown/restart dialog gets confused with the "restore windows" for apps preference.

THere are some interesting articles out there about Autosave. Here's a good one:

http://www.blueboxmoon.com/wordpress/?p=281

This post is interesting and describes peoples pain pretty well.

After working a while with this feature, I must say it brings nothing but a worsened workflow and more cluttering windows and files. Not good for a system that was known to be more prodctive than others.

I still don't understand the purpose of that all.

And why can't I rename those versions? Because they aren't really versons. It's just a stack of dublicates Finding the one I need is just impossible. So I end up making my versions as usual (manually), but now I have multiple dublicates ("versions") of them. You can put on a monk's coat and pray "safety first" but I call it selling disc space.

As a workaround forn now I work with the filetype "template". I set my keyboard shortcut to "save as template" on shift-cmd-S. These files behave just like the old usual files for exept that you'll have to use shift-cmd-S or any other one you like instead of cmd-S.

Apple should not presume to think all of us need a "computer nanny"!  Give us the option to use versions or not.  Please stop "dumbing dosn" the sole system.

papalapapp wrote:

 

And why can't I rename those versions? Because they aren't really versons. It's just a stack of dublicates Finding the one I need is just impossible. So I end up making my versions as usual (manually), but now I have multiple dublicates ("versions") of them. You can put on a monk's coat and pray "safety first" but I call it selling disc space.

 

Also it is interesting to note that if those files are password protected, what really happens to security - what do you have a stack of delta changes that may be potentially hacked? I keep financial documents in a file and that file is password protected - I don't need Apple to store 2000 versions of a password protected file.

Who knows - currently also back to MS as primary and Linux as secondary system. They can go crazy in Cupertino and do things like autosave and build a spaceship campus - maybe just waiting for the Timothy Leary end - floating bits of ash in space - they will not be missed.

Just adding my name to the list of people incredibly frustrated by the lack of ability to turn off auto save. As stated by multiple people in this thread, there are all sorts of usability problems auto save introduces. I find the following 3 particularly frustrating…

1. It forces those of us who are able to manage our own files into the same box as someone who has no clue how to manage 2 revisions of a file they are working on. As a mac user for over 10 years this is incredibly and unbelieveably maddening.
2. It causes every file I’ve worked on for longer than 2 hours to occupy around 10 times the amount of hard drive space it would otherwise. This is especially frustrating for those of us with SSD storage on our machines, because we make every effort not to clutter our hard drives with uneeded files. Auto save does precisely the opposite.
3. Over an entire day of work how do I save a version and actually disinguish it from the other versions that Lion auto saves for me? I have no problem with having to click Duplicate instead of Save As. I have a problem with Lion then continuing to save 50 more versions of that file throughout my day. Over the course of a week I end up with 300 revisions instead of the 3 I would have had in Snow Leopard.

Sending feedback to Apple right now. Hands down the most frustrating new “feature” I have ever dealt with in my 10+ years of using Apple computers.

The main problem IMHO is the philosophy behind Autosave, Versions, and many others of the "250 new features".

With Lion users must do what the OS wants. That could be ok for dumb users or for people coming from Windows (they face a new OS and may feel lost, so an help can be useful, even if it is intrusive).

In my case I expect my computer and its OS to do what I want. If this philosophy is now going to be changed (soon) I am just going back to Linux. And as me, I would expect many other advanced users.

I think it's simply that Apple users are so unused to having their machines dictate to them, that when it finally does happen in a strong and over-powering way, we find it surprising and distasteful. But this is how it should be! Send feedback to Apple about this. They've made changes before to elements that their user base became vociferous about.

Auto-save & versions just needs a whole lot of work and much more thought to make it viable. While they're doing that in the background, the company could give us the wherewithal to select ON or OFF.

Thats what i think too. Autosave in general is good thing. The way it is done right now is what I see as a problem.

First, there user cant do his workflow as before any more. The actual point I see here is that no information or help is provided for how and in paritcular why the user must change his practice. Users are humans and they dont like to change habits without a good reason. Autosave could also be done with the old way of working.

Second, one cant opt out.

I too dislike Autosave as not all files that I work on need to be saved. I feel that I want to be in control and decide what needs to be saved and when, not to have my Mac decide for me. I also find the 'save as version' and 'duplicates' confusing. I would prefer to have it back to how it was before - 'save' and ' save as'. Time Machine was automatically backing up all my files anyway. I don't need 'versions' of every document I create or work on. I have also noticed in Lion that the recents list (right clicking on an app in the dock) has disappeared and do not know how to get this back. If things persist to annoy me in Lion then I will revert back to Snow Leopard. I will be alot happier.

Totally support this topic.

Apple, give me choice  what to save and what not!

I totally agree that there should be an option to turn auto save + versions off.

For me one (there are some) misfeature in Lion is, that when you open a temp document (in TextEdit for example), never save it, quit the app, it will appear next time you open the app (even when "Restore windows when quitting an re-opening apps" is unchecked in Genereal prefs), of couse this is needed because the app does not ask if you want to save the doc when quitting. However an option to turn off auto save + versions should fall back to the old behavoir having apps to ask for saving changes when quitting.

I am currently looking for a way to kill the document store of version on a regular basis - any ideas?

Luca - your post has it in a nutshell.  I agree with all of your suggestions except #4, where you say "revert to saved" should be undoable.  I am not aware of any application where the "revert to saved" option is undoable.  And I think it would be hard to implement OS-wise, and also create a whole new version cascade of the very kind you criticize. 

But users definitely need a greater level of control over what gets saved, and when.  For me, it's not been a huge issue, because what I'm working on lately in Apple apps is not version-critical.  But I've DEFINITELY been putting off some other projects since installing Lion.  E.g., my audio stuff is all done in Logic Pro and related apps.  I haven't even started those up since going to Lion.

I think, like some others, I may have jumped on the Lion upgrade too soon because certain features appealed to me.  The fact that Lion's instantly downloadable from the App Store probably influenced me.  I've never before installed a new OS version on the first day of release.  Usually not until it's been out for 6 months or so.