Q: Disable autosave

Your problem is that Apple is perfectly free to keep their apps as they are at this day.

Read the applications's licenses. They didn't change a product which you own, just products which you paid to be allowed to use.

Knowing them since the Apple ][ I will not bet a cent upon a possible change. So, my guess is that you will have to live with the available apps and their behavior or leave them.

PS.

I file a report about the problem which I discovered with the use of AppleScript upon AutoSaving apps.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 14:27:19

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

Summary:

AppleScript and Autosaving applications

Steps to Reproduce:

Open an existing document, a Numbers’s one is a good example (I got the problem with a 5260 rows one).

Run an AppleScript to make data insertion and/or several changes on it.

Expected Results:

With pre-Lion systems, no problem. The treatment may take five or ten minutes, it reached its end flawlessly and the script saved the document or left it unsaved allowing us to scan it to check that there was no error embedded before saving

Actual Results:

With Autosaving applications, from time to time, the app issue a dialog claiming that the doc was modified by an "other application" and ask us if we want to drop the changes or save them.

Of course, we answer "Save them" but to do that, we must be in front of the machine which isn’t the goal of automated processes

Regression:

Fighting since Lion delivery against users ranting against Versions and Autosave, I’m a bit reluctant to add my voice to them.

So, my idea is that maybe there is a way to teach the system to stop treating Applescript driven changes as ones done by an "other application". After all, AppleScript is designed to give us extraneous hands to drive the apps.

Temporarily, I will rewrite some of my scripts so that they will open the target document, apply the checks required to be sure that it’s a doc which may be treated by the script. Then, they will trigger File > Duplicate to create a replicate which was never saved so they will be free to work upon the replicate and of course will close the original.

At end, we will be free to drop the modified file or save it "upon" the original one … loosing the benefit of saved versions.

An alternate scheme would be to reopen the original doc an paste the modified tables upon ‘old’ ones so that we will not loose the benefit of saved versions.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 15:00:47

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

Read the applications's licenses. They didn't change a product which you own, just products which you paid to be allowed to use.

That is an extremely weak argument. All software you purchase is leased. The only software you can own is something you write yourself.

Knowing them since the Apple ][ I will not bet a cent upon a possible change.

You know as well as anyone else the Apple has made changes according to customer feedback. They would be fools not to. No matter what your standing with consumers currently is, they will not continue to buy products that don't do what they want.

Fighting since Lion delivery against users ranting against Versions and Autosave, I’m a bit reluctant to add my voice to them.

You're kidding. You wrote that in a bug report? Has it not occured to you yet that many users flat out hate this change? It has already been said more than once, but here it is again. The OS should never, EVER write over my data unless I say so. This is MY data, *I* know what I do and do not want to do with it. The OS cannot EVER know that.

The right answer, simply put, is for Apple to enable a setting to turn off AutoSave - puting the User in control of his or her work environment.

I have sent my comments into Apple with respect to this and other serious flaws included with Lion, for all of you who feel the same way, please send your comments in to Apple as well... and hope this works.

Until then, I refuse to use applications with no way to turn AutoSave off (my personal choice, based on my personal work needs).

Parenthetically, the same goes for SaveAs - I use it all the time... ditto above for SaveAs.

I'm never kidding and yes I wrote that in a bug report. What I posted here is just a copy/paste of my report.

As I already wrote, I'm pig headed and when I have my own advice I write to every correspondant according to that.

You loose datas because you refuse to take care of the applications changes.

It's your problem, not Apple's one.

I was hesitating to ask them to look at this thread.

Given your reaction, I will do that just after posting this message.

Done.

I added :

Hello

I guess that it would be useful to have a look at a thread in which some users are ranting upon Versions and Autosave : https://discussions.apple.com/message/16531560

From my point of view, Autosave is a safety feature. It make sense only if it is at work every  time.

Would be ridiculous to tell car users or airplane passengers : "you are free to fasten your belt when you want"

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 15:37:34

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

I'd like to make an interims summary how I see the whole issue.

Apple made some changes with the intention to provide a solution for data loss due to unsaved or wrongly saved files.

Those changes focus on the accessablility of snapshots of your file (I don't think that Versions is the correct word).

To achieve this, they changed the menu and navigation.

Now there are more possibilities what you can do with your file but also more complexity. E.g. not-saving a file requires several steps of navigation or some actions in advance like duplicating a file beforehand.

This is what irritates me. Apple usually simplifies things even if they add new features. Working with Autosave requres much more attention to the App itself than previously – which is the wrong direction nowadays.

There's nothing wrong with the intetions of Autosave and Versions (which I was really excited about) but almost everything went wrong with the design of the application/usability/navigation etc.

For me the conclusion is that these new features work against me but not for me. It's an addtional source of errors and work. Even after several weeks of getting-used-to-it.

What I posted here is just a copy/paste of my report.

Uh, yes, I understand that. It was another way of saying, I can't believe you said that in a bug report. Bug reports are supposed to be technical information, not your personal opinion of others.

You lose data because you refuse to take care of the applications changes.

That's is a huge assumption on your part. What data have I lost? Do you somehow know what I do here, or whether or not I ever have lost any data? Don't make comments you cannot back up with facts.

It's your problem, not Apple's one.

Again, your personal opinion. You like the new setup. And has also been said many times by myself and others, I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is people like you who seem to think users should not have a choice in their own workflow. Is this really that difficult for you to grasp?

The fact that  I can't believe you said that in a bug report, just prove that you don't understand thge way I behave.

I didn't wrote that I like the new Applications setup.

I wrote that I have no objection to it because it's consistent : a safety scheme make sense only if it is always active.

I never wrote that "users should not have a choice in their own workflow", I wrote that app designers are free to refuse to give you this choice which is a difference which you have difficulties to understand.

The app behave this way : it's fine as long as it fit my needs. The day it will no longer fit them, I will drop it and use an other one as I did during all my professional career.

If it behave an other way : it's fine as long as it fit my needs. The day it will no longer fit them, I will drop it and use an other one as I did during all my professional career.

I always thought that applications are intellectual creations and that their authors are free to design them as they want.

For instance, I never rant against the behavior of Keynote, Numbers or Pages as substitutes of AppleWorks features.

I just claimed during several years that, to be a true replacement for AppleWorks (what it was announced to be) iWork would offer a true database. As the database wasn't delivered, I removed my comment and use an other tool.

The Licenses are clear : our unique right is to use the apps for which we pay. They aren’t guaranteed to fit our needs.

When we buy a license of an application, we bet that it will fit our needs during some time. We must be prepare to be warned that :

(a) the product is discontinued

(b) some features are changed so that the product don't fit our needs.

It's absolutely normal.

Buying assuming the opposite is just playing with matches.

It's your problem, not Apple's one.

Again, your personal opinion.

It's not an opinion, it's what is written in Applications licenses.

Last not least, I posted about 100 reports by letters before I connected to Internet, more than 300 bug reports thru Internet and I will certainly not ask your advice upon what they may embed.

According to Apple, a report skeleton is :

Summary:

Steps to Reproduce:

Expected Results:

Actual Results:

Regression:

Notes:

I wavered between two locations. At first I put what you dislike in the Notes area but at second thought I decided that it was more logical to write about what would be a regression upon theAutosave design in the regression area.

You are free to ask for an optional Autosave but I feel free to write that from my point of view, such a change would be incoherent.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 17:38:54

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

You are free to ask for an optional Autosave but I feel free to write that from my point of view, such a change would be incoherent.

But that's just the problem. You don't write it as a point of view. Every single one of your responses to those who do not want to use the new workflow is, "Apple is perfect, and you're wrong."

I wrote that I have no objection to it because it's consistent : a safety scheme make sense only if it is always active.

And as I have said over and over. I don't object to your use of the new method, or anyone else who prefers it. What I object to is that I have no choice NOT to use it. I do not need, or want this nanny hand holding to use my computer.

I'm not defending Yvan, precisely, but he never says he likes the changes.  He just says that Apple is free to take its toys and go home, and he sounds resigned to that fact.  Also, he's given a couple of examples of having to change his workflow around to accomodate some of these "features", which makes me suspect that he is not so much happy as fatalistically accepting the idea that Apple will do what it wants without regards to his preferences.

I believe Yvan is technically correct in his points, but that doesn't mean that:

1. I have to like the Auto-Save/Versions feature
2. I shouldn't lobby for change, or
3. That there's no hope that Apple will not respond to user community requests to add on-off switches to this functionality.

Clearly the behavior with external/network disks is a bug, pure and simple.  As to the functionality in general, I will keep lobbying for change, and I suggest anyone who feels likewise do the same.

M. Hannemann wrote:

 

As to the functionality in general, I will keep lobbying for change, and I suggest anyone who feels likewise do the same.

Yes please, Autosave/Versions bug^H^H^H functionality optional in 10.7.3. Let's lobby for that, please.

putnik wrote:

I really do not see your problem and you have just contradicted yourself. First you complain that files don't save when closing, now you are complaining they do save. 

Well, you didn't read my post, yet are ready to "help". Where exactly did I complain that "files don't save" ?

putnik wrote:

 

If I want a file to be saved, I do a Cmd-S as I always did.  If my document is good I save it, if it is bad I quit with it unsaved, or now I can revert to a good version.

So, you even don't know how Lion works. If your file is on the remote storage and you quit (or application crashed), you are stuck with the bad version which you cannot revert to anything. That is a dumb behavior of the system, and that is what I am saying here. If you are able to understand or not, it is a different matter, not so important, actually.

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

...a safety scheme make sense only if it is always active...

Only if it increases safety in the first place.

"Versions" does not. It actually does quite opposite. A "safety scheme" which can damage files by simply viewing them, is a mistake, not a "feature".

Users here are discussing this here because they want to somehow make Apple understand their mistakes and correct them. Of course, it has t o be discussed first. In this case, mistakes are so fundamental and so dumb that it is even difficult to formulate a bug report in any reasonable way, that's why this thread.

And what is your purpose here; to protect Apple? They don't really need your protection. Or, to tell people to stop complaining and switch to other OS, because Apple will never listen to them? Or what?

ron App wrote:

 

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

...a safety scheme make sense only if it is always active...

Only if it increases safety in the first place.

"Versions" does not. It actually does quite opposite. A "safety scheme" which can damage files by simply viewing them, is a mistake, not a "feature".

Versions doesn't damage a file if we just view it. It store only the changes.

If you type cmd + S when an already saved file is open, it's not Versions which is a wrongdoer, it's you.

But, even if you do that there is nothing damaged, the cmd + S command doesn't change the main file.

And what is your purpose here; to protect Apple? They don't really need your protection. Or, to tell people to stop complaining and switch to other OS, because Apple will never listen to them? Or what?

As far as I know there is nothing forgiving somebody which doesn't share your opinion to write here. These forums aren't an annex of "Pravda".

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 26 octobre 2011 20:16:07

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

ron App wrote:

 

...

 

And what is your purpose here; to protect Apple? They don't really need your protection. Or, to tell people to stop complaining and switch to other OS, because Apple will never listen to them? Or what?

Very good question. Curious about the response...