Q: Disable autosave

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

 

Preview was named this way when it was just a viewer. Each new version adde several functions so now it's more han a viewer. I would not use it to edit picture but some user do that. Once again, if you are not sure to retain your changes, work on a duplicate on define your original files as template.

Who's talking about editing?  I have about 50GB of photos to look through -- I'm not editing.. I'm just inspecting.  I use preview for that.  Some of the photos are rotated wrong and others are a bit dark.  While I am looking through them I will rotate them or brighten them just so I can get a better look.  In Snow Leopard when I quit my preview session it would ask me if I want to save anything.  Now it just saves over my files.  Are you suggesting that I make a duplicate of all 50GB of photos just to view these files the way I always have?

So let's got to an alternate method.  Lock all the files so that Preview won't save over them.

But now when I try to make a change (again.. just to view.. not to edit) preview tells me that the file is locked and I need to duplicate or cancel my change.  Fine.  But now it opens the image up in a whole new window and I can no longer view the image in sequence with all of the others (order is important). 

So now I've got to find another application to do something that Preview was *perfect* for prior to Lion.  In other words.. Apple broke what didn't need fixing.

I'm all about change.. change is good. It's how we got to where we are.

What I'm *not* all about is change that reduces usability and increases chance of error and data loss.  The feature itself (autosave and versions) is fine. I've got no problem with it philosophically.  The problem I have is with how they *implemented it* (unsafely and incompletely).

 

It's really funny. The new features were perfectly described by Apple. Only users which bought new macs have no choice for their operating systems. Other weren't forced to buy an Operating system which doesn't fit your needs.

The world simply doesn't work that way.  Not for me anyways.  We have an office with 30 Mac workstations.  They are all running Snow Leopard.  We are no longer able to buy machines which run snow leopard.. the next time we buy a computer we will *have* to upgrade everything to Lion otherwise we would be in the position where some machines would behave one way and others would behave another way -- ie an IT nightmare.

Then there's the issue of my laptop.  It's 3 years old.  On its last legs.  I'm going to need to replace it soon.  So I upgraded to Lion on it so that I can at least be prepared for what will be coming when I need to upgrade.  What's more.. if I want to be able to enjoy the old features of Mobile Me on my iDevices by using iCloud then I do indeed need to upgrade to Lion -- not right away but certainly before next june when Mobile Me goes away.  So yes.. I am being forced to upgrade and deal with Lion.  It's either that or leave the platform.  I'm not going to do that without at least making my voice heard about how they've screwed up.  Hopefully they will come to their senses and realize that they need to fix it.

berj wrote:

 

I have about 50GB of photos to look through -- I'm not editing.. I'm just inspecting.  I use preview for that.  Some of the photos are rotated wrong and others are a bit dark.  While I am looking through them I will rotate them or brighten them just so I can get a better look.  In Snow Leopard when I quit my preview session it would ask me if I want to save anything.  Now it just saves over my files. 

A couple of things:

Why don't you use iPhoto for what you are doing? It would be faster and more appropriate for a 50Gb photo collection.

If Preview says "Edited" above the document, it means you need to make a choice, either save the edit or revert to a previous version.  If you just quit without saving, then you get the last saved version. I have always hit Cmd-S when I have a document as I want it. It's a habit that is no different now from any time in the past.

berj wrote:

 

So now I've got to find another application to do something that Preview was *perfect* for prior to Lion. 

Try Skim. It's free and has very much the same look and feel as Preview.

I switched to this because of Preview in Lion, but now I even use it in my SL install.

putnik wrote:

 

berj wrote:

 

I have about 50GB of photos to look through -- I'm not editing.. I'm just inspecting.  I use preview for that.  Some of the photos are rotated wrong and others are a bit dark.  While I am looking through them I will rotate them or brighten them just so I can get a better look.  In Snow Leopard when I quit my preview session it would ask me if I want to save anything.  Now it just saves over my files. 

 

A couple of things:

 

Why don't you use iPhoto for what you are doing? It would be faster and more appropriate for a 50Gb photo collection.

It's not a photo collection.  It's 3 days work of data gathering which is stored and used in other ways.  iPhoto doesn't and can't ever enter the equation.  In any case iPhoto is just making another copy which is what I don't want to have to do.

putnik wrote:

 

If Preview says "Edited" above the document, it means you need to make a choice, either save the edit or revert to a previous version.  If you just quit without saving, then you get the last saved version. I have always hit Cmd-S when I have a document as I want it. It's a habit that is no different now from any time in the past.

In a series of a few hundred or more photos that would mean I would have to go back to 40 or 50 photos to revert them. But there's no way for me to tell from the list which ones are which (edited or unedited) so I'd have to go through each of the photos yet again (after I've done all my work) and revert them all.

Surely you see that this is a ridiculous workflow.

softwater wrote:

 

Try Skim. It's free and has very much the same look and feel as Preview.

 

I switched to this because of Preview in Lion, but now I even use it in my SL install.

Skim seems pretty good but sadly it also seems to only work for PDF files.

I've used Xee for photo browsing before.  Quite nice.  For browsing + accepting/rejecting, I used to use Photo Reviewer, but now I just use Aperture instead.  Occasionally I think this is a shame.

berj wrote:

Skim seems pretty good but sadly it also seems to only work for PDF files.

Ahh. Sorry, I hadn't noticed that. Thx for the heads up.

I normally just use the 'quickview' feature in Finder (press spacebar) for fast viewing. but this has also become less functional in Lion than in SL (and of course you can't rotate or adjust anything with it).

I'll keep an eye out for other image viewing apps.

M. Hannemann wrote:

 

I've used Xee for photo browsing before.  Quite nice.  For browsing + accepting/rejecting, I used to use Photo Reviewer, but now I just use Aperture instead.  Occasionally I think this is a shame.

Trying both now. Thanks for the recommendation.

Sadly the problems with this feature go much deeper than any one app -- especially when other developers get in on the act.  It's just not very well thought out.  Doubly so when you think of collaborative environments with multiple users accessing the same files over network mounted devices.  Come to think of it does this (versions and autosave) even work properly on mounted devices? through.. say NFS?

berj wrote:

 

So now I've got to find another application to do something that Preview was *perfect* for prior to Lion. 

I can highly recommend Graphic Converter. It does all the browsing/ordering chores you describe, and many other things too. It is updated for Lion so includes the Autosave thing, but the Autosave thing is turned OFF by default.

There's a fully functional free trial version - with a 10-second startup delay until you pay for it.

One of its strong points is that it handles *all* graphical formats and lets you open/save in any one you want.

Not a toy for browsing through your family pics, but a serious professional application that not only includes a good browser, but also incorporates a good range of editing functions for 3-colour tone fine adjustment, contrast, sharpening, blurring, cropping, definition, rotating through any angle etc. One really useful feature is batch conversion. You choose all the settings you want and in seconds it will automatically convert an entire folder containing 100s of images to a different format, change all their names, etc.

Kinda confusing the first time you set all the preferences (of which there are many) but once you get used to it, it's quick and effective and you can do most things using keyboard shortcuts.

It costs about $40 US. I used the free version for several years until I realised it was worth the money, so I bought it.

I don't work for the maker of GC but I'm a fan!

I use it all the time in tandem with Photoshop because for some tasks it's easier to use than Photoshop.

The people at GC are based in Germany. They reply promptly to personal queries.

In a series of a few hundred or more photos that would mean I would have to go back to 40 or 50 photos to revert them. But there's no way for me to tell from the list which ones are which (edited or unedited) so I'd have to go through each of the photos yet again (after I've done all my work) and revert them all.

 

I'm not sure about your work methods, but why not just save or revert each in turn? Alternatively, backup the folder before you start editing, which may be be a good idea anyway.

Of course, bringing them into iPhoto leaves the originals intact as well. I can't see any function in Graphics Converter that can't be done in iPhotos.

berj wrote:

 

babowa wrote:

 

You can use one of those in your email - there is no need to use the one you changed.

And as I pointed out in my original post in this thread.. versions are lost when you move a file from one volume to the next so the only one that exists is the autosaved one.. there is no way to revert.

 

This feature is incomplete and poorly thought out from the beginning.  It needs to be fully functional from the Finder in order to at least ameliorate some of these issues.

The versions aren't necessarily lost.

I already wrote several times that I delivered a set of scripts allowing us to keep them if we want.

Just need to read carefully.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16208616

Several users already revived documents this way when they discovered that Pages or Numbers saved a corrupted/unreadable version of their doc as they are prone to do for years.

Before Lion they used my Autosave script which already kept copies saved every ten minutes.

Those thinking that an autosave app like ForeverSave was better because it applied to every app discovered that the free version which they used was just replicating the last version which means that when the saved doc was corrupted, they had two copies of this corrupted file.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 11:48:42

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

berj wrote:

 

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

 

Preview was named this way when it was just a viewer. Each new version adde several functions so now it's more han a viewer. I would not use it to edit picture but some user do that. Once again, if you are not sure to retain your changes, work on a duplicate on define your original files as template.

Who's talking about editing?  I have about 50GB of photos to look through -- I'm not editing.. I'm just inspecting.  I use preview for that.  Some of the photos are rotated wrong and others are a bit dark.  While I am looking through them I will rotate them or brighten them just so I can get a better look.  In Snow Leopard when I quit my preview session it would ask me if I want to save anything.  Now it just saves over my files.  Are you suggesting that I make a duplicate of all 50GB of photos just to view these files the way I always have?

Is it so difficult to read carefully. No need to duplicate the stored files.

Open a file

Trigger File > Duplicate

Close the original

Make you wanted changes.

From my point of view, rotating an image is an editing task.

Apply other changes if you wish.

If you are satisfied, you may save the modified file as a replacement of the original one.

It's just your choice as it always was.

It's really funny. The new features were perfectly described by Apple. Only users which bought new macs have no choice for their operating systems. Other weren't forced to buy an Operating system which doesn't fit your needs.

The world simply doesn't work that way.  Not for me anyways.  We have an office with 30 Mac workstations.  They are all running Snow Leopard.  We are no longer able to buy machines which run snow leopard.. the next time we buy a computer we will *have* to upgrade everything to Lion otherwise we would be in the position where some machines would behave one way and others would behave another way -- ie an IT nightmare.

 

Then there's the issue of my laptop.  It's 3 years old.  On its last legs.  I'm going to need to replace it soon.  So I upgraded to Lion on it so that I can at least be prepared for what will be coming when I need to upgrade.  What's more.. if I want to be able to enjoy the old features of Mobile Me on my iDevices by using iCloud then I do indeed need to upgrade to Lion -- not right away but certainly before next june when Mobile Me goes away.  So yes.. I am being forced to upgrade and deal with Lion.  It's either that or leave the platform.  I'm not going to do that without at least making my voice heard about how they've screwed up.  Hopefully they will come to their senses and realize that they need to fix it.

Which workstations are you running ?

PowerMac Pro were not modified fo months so they accept Snow Leopard

The iMac delivered at this time are the same than those introduced in May.

They are delivered with Lion but may be used with Snow Leopard.

Only laptops were slightly modified this week at hardware level but installing a larger HD and a processor running slightly faster doesn't imply a change disabling Snow.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 12:09:20

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:

 

berj wrote:

 

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

 

Preview was named this way when it was just a viewer. Each new version adde several functions so now it's more han a viewer. I would not use it to edit picture but some user do that. Once again, if you are not sure to retain your changes, work on a duplicate on define your original files as template.

Who's talking about editing?  I have about 50GB of photos to look through -- I'm not editing.. I'm just inspecting.  I use preview for that.  Some of the photos are rotated wrong and others are a bit dark.  While I am looking through them I will rotate them or brighten them just so I can get a better look.  In Snow Leopard when I quit my preview session it would ask me if I want to save anything.  Now it just saves over my files.  Are you suggesting that I make a duplicate of all 50GB of photos just to view these files the way I always have?

Is it so difficult to read carefully. No need to duplicate the stored files.

Open a file

Trigger File > Duplicate

Close the original

Make you wanted changes.

From my point of view, rotating an image is an editing task.

Apply other changes if you wish.

If you are satisfied, you may save the modified file as a replacement of the original one.

It's just your choice as it always was.

Sorry.. but that's just a ridiculous workflow for me.  The whole reason preview is so great for me is that i can open up all the jpegs (sometimes hundreds) in a single window and go back and forth comparing them.  I'm not opening them up one at a time.  You can suggest alternate (and in this case very convoluted) workflows all day long but the fact is that this used to work *very* well.  Apple made convoluted an application and a process that used to be incredibly smooth and easy to use and understand.  But that's not the worst part.. they made it *dangerous* too.  By overwriting my data when I haven't asked it to.  A cardinal sin in computing for me.

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

Which workstations are you running ?

 

PowerMac Pro were not modified fo months so they accept Snow Leopard

The iMac delivered at this time are the same than those introduced in May.

They are delivered with Lion but may be used with Snow Leopard.

 

Only laptops were slightly modified this week at hardware level but installing a larger HD and a processor running slightly faster doesn't imply a change disabling Snow.

Minis and laptops and PowerMacs.  I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars on computers in the hopes that it will run an old version of the OS (which Apple doesn't officially support on the computers) and that hope that Apple hasn't silently updated a piece of hardware so that the SL drivers don't work any more.  My IT guys have better things to do.

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

 

berj wrote:

 

babowa wrote:

 

You can use one of those in your email - there is no need to use the one you changed.

And as I pointed out in my original post in this thread.. versions are lost when you move a file from one volume to the next so the only one that exists is the autosaved one.. there is no way to revert.

 

This feature is incomplete and poorly thought out from the beginning.  It needs to be fully functional from the Finder in order to at least ameliorate some of these issues.

The versions aren't necessarily lost.

I already wrote several times that I delivered a set of scripts allowing us to keep them if we want.

Just need to read carefully.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16208616

As I said.. this feature is incomplete and dangerous.  If it were an option I wouldn't be as upset but the idea that it is *required* is what make it bad.

Yes.. things can be recovered and people can go through a zillion hoops in order to do so.  But I would prefer to just avoid a broken feature until it's fixed.  Lion doesn't allow that in this case.  It will happily write over my data whether I ask it to or not.