Q: How to disable Versions completely

I think it is fair to say that I was not rage filled but indeed the thread has been charged up by the tone of your responses for example. The issue with not being able to select if you want Versions active or not for a project is the sort of thing to create a range of emotions and is easy to stir up.

Your musings on what Preview is or is not designed for don't really come into it. That aside, Preview is actually capable of doing complex batch edits on thousands of files very well, out of the box as it is designed to do. Software capable of batch edits, examining EXIF data, transcoding files etc is not consumer level.

Preview is but the front end for the system level image engine used across any app that is designed to access it, so one would suggest it is industrial rather than consumer.

The unforeseen issue in adding Versions to Preview.app is that each edit you make causes a version to be created. So a scale, crop and rotate are three versions; due to the large change in data made by those edits a lot more data is recorded. This slows down the application, in the example by a minimum 3 times. A third the performance.

If you are batching 100 or 100,000 images the storage waste and time overhead created by Versions is an issue.

Further, if we argue that Versions as implemented is good and will be implemented by all developers over the next few years the problem will expand to include Adobe et al. For the single file, this is nice. If you are working with large data sets or large file sets Versions is an issue no matter what. If you are a business in any industry, the Mac OS with the current implementation of versions creates huge waste of storage and impedes the workflow of your staff.

I feel it is a great idea and have used it with joy, for a Word Processing document. The concept expanded out though is not fully thought through. Images, movies, audio, all media files create problems for Versions, they are large to start with and changes are not as easy to encode due to the variation across the data. Text doc, no worries.

It is a most unfriendly advancement for media files.

Thanks though for your tip on ImageMagick. I will give it a try. I had to laugh at your suggestion of minutes, it strikes me as odd that someone of your experience would think anything you do 100,000 times would take a few minutes, especially when each thing is a couple megabytes. The software would not have even loaded let alone processed that many files. The system itself cannot from a ram disk even display 1,500 5meg images a minute, ram disks way exceed SSD, let alone HDD

FYI, it is something that I have posted to Feedback. Not complaining, simply explaining the issues it causes for media file edits. I just came to this thread to see if there was a way, seems I could hack the old preview in but that sounds like trouble.

Thanks again.

Hello Cy, and welcome to etresoft Land!

I'd like to take a moment to explain how things work here:

1. You, as a professional with a thorough knowledge of exactly how your workflow operates, post an intelligent account of how the changes in Lion have completely disrupted that workflow.

2. etrosoft, in spite of his complete ignorance of your particular workflow, posts a reply that says this disruption is not Apple's fault — it's YOUR fault because you're using the wrong tool for the job. This despite the fact that you've made it clear that this tool has worked perfectly well for your purposes, as you know from years of on-the-job experience.

3. In the process of this post, he further insults you by stating that the very nature of your post was wrong, and you never should have made it here. You see, the only posts acceptable in etresoft land are those that say "Lion is great, and anyone who doesn't like the wholesale changes it has made is 'living in the past.'"

4. You post an eloquent reply that demostrates what a fool etresoft has made of himself.

5. etresoft either...

         a. Goes right on with his same old shtik, oblivious to how foolish his is and has been throughout the course of this thread, or,

         b. Ignores what you've written completely and crawls back into his hole until the next opportunity to embarrass himself comes along.

A check back over the last few months of this thread should be enough to convince you of the accuracy of this description.

Your posts are welcome here. Your commentary is exactly the kind of real-world experiences that are needed to demonstrate the truth of your statement that these new operating paradigms have just not been thought through.

The simple solution, which I've put forth repeatedly here (and which etresoft has repeatedly ignored because it's just too logical to work in etresoft Land), is for Auto Save and versioning to be the default in Lion, but capable of being disabled by experienced users who choose to do so.

Thanks again for your informative posts.

Cy Starkman wrote:

 

I think it is fair to say that I was not rage filled but indeed the thread has been charged up by the tone of your responses for example.

I made a point to say the thread, rather than your post, was rage-filled just to avoid that statement. I guess I failed. This is a rant thread. People don't come here for solutions, they come here for a fight. I'm happy to oblige.

Your musings on what Preview is or is not designed for don't really come into it. That aside, Preview is actually capable of doing complex batch edits on thousands of files very well, out of the box as it is designed to do. Software capable of batch edits, examining EXIF data, transcoding files etc is not consumer level.

I'm quite sure the Preview is a consumer level tool. I have never used it for batch processing. It turns out that it does have some rudimentary capabilities. You can batch resize and rotate, but you can't adjust color or crop.

Thanks though for your tip on ImageMagick. I will give it a try. I had to laugh at your suggestion of minutes, it strikes me as odd that someone of your experience would think anything you do 100,000 times would take a few minutes, especially when each thing is a couple megabytes.

You are correct here. I did a test of 36 ~2 MB images on my MacBook Pro. I was actually surprised to see how slow ImageMagick was. I normally work on images that are from 200MB-2GB using 16-64 core machines. On my MacBook Pro, it would take ImageMagick over 8 hours to do a scale, crop and rotate of 100,000 2 MB images. I could probably get that down a bit if I had a few thousand small images to play with and/or a newer, faster machine.

However, ImageMagick is a command-line tool that no one has really made Mac-friendly. I will try to do that and post it. Until then, your only option to get it would be Fink or MacPorts.

And I'm the one insulting people? Rage-filled indeed.

I'm happy to see that you don't dispute the truth of anything I've said.

I can't blame you for wanting to deflect attention from the particulars.

Nothing you post moves me, or has ever moved me, to rage. It has, however, provided me with considerable amusement.

It is very hard to read through this ego and stupid things you two say to see if there is actually a way to turn off versions for good like asked in question. Is a very poor show and not help to anyone. Easy to insult harder to answer a question. Anybody else know of an answer?

Thank you

I'm happy to answer your question.

No, there is presently no way to turn off Versions for good.

That is why, in my earlier response, I stated that "The simple solution...is for Auto Save and versioning to be the default in Lion, but capable of being disabled by experienced users who choose to do so."

I thought it was clear in context that this solution has not been implemented. It was also clear in Cy Starkman's post that his workflow had been seriously disrupted precisely because he was unable to turn off Versions.

My request (and that of many others) is that Mac users be given a choice. Those who are happy with the present state of affairs, whose workflow has not been interrupted by Auto Save and/or Versions, see no urgency for doing this.

In other words, your concerns and mine are of no concern to them.

See you couldn't stop after first two lines which answer question for me. I don't want to know all the rest. Just simple answer. You still have to fight with other man like politicians. Just help people is better.

Thank you

This thread is a wild place and I've only been here less than 1 day.

The solution to turning off Versions is...

Format and then Reinstall Mac OSX 10.6

and quite frankly after running 10.7 since late last year it isn't such a dramatic idea. To ease your concerns.

- launch pad is pointless (just have the apps folder in the dock)

- except for iTunes full screen apps lose ability (mail for example can't write and read email at once, a real struggle)

- full screen mode except in rare cases (FCPX) makes a multi monitor setup pointless

- the great gesture abilities are useless unless you have a trackpad / latest apple mouse (full screen more useless)

- Versions makes editing media files slow and space wasteful

- the AppStore is still on 10.6

iOS latest versions will work with 10.6 at least until 10.8 or .9 so we can revisit updating Mac OS then.

10.7 otherwise is all half baked, all of the features work, but they haven't had time to mature and are fraught with teething problems that the users are discovering. It is hardly the Vista debacle and even MS tied that up nicely with 7.

For me, I am going to drop 10.7 on one Mac and keep it on the other, some people won't have that option.

Is there any feature in 10.7 that we really have to keep it installed for?

Thread solved. LOL

Cy Starkman wrote:

 

Thread solved. LOL

No because all of us don't wan to or cant go back to Snow Leopard. I love Lion, so I was asking for way to disable versions too, not get rid of and go back to old system with spaces and stuff. I see that I cannot so I will just get used to them now. But thanks for those what help here and don't fight.

thank you

Hi Cornel. Is there any change to versions I cannot see in new lion update. versions still drive my mad but though you might have see something in 10.7.3 that turns off now like some were hoping for.

Thank you

boyfromoz wrote:

 

Hi Cornel. Is there any change to versions I cannot see in new lion update. versions still drive my mad but though you might have see something in 10.7.3 that turns off now like some were hoping for.

 

Thank you

I would be happy to answer this question for you. But...

See, you not cornel but can't helpbut insult people on here. very sad for you and you friends here. you addicted to here but never anywhere els. sad life. plesae keep away with no answer or no knowledge mr 10 point expert.

thank you. i wait for someone helpful.