What happened to Save As?

For the first time, I think I may be agreeing with you - there is indeed a mindset involved, one that has been taught and learned over the course of nearly 3 decades, namely what SAVE AS is intended to accomplish. The party to blame for screwing with that mindset is Apple.

You made a nice graphic explanation, Tonza but you omitted the fact that in Lion, the user interface interaction time is extended by this difference between Lion and all its predecessors: when you use Save As, you give your document a name and location and either continue working or close it. When you use duplicate, you have to do the same thing, either immediately or lateron, but you also have to return your original window and close it Moreover, if you don't fully understand auto-save, you may be promped with a message if you inadvertently type any keystrokes in iut, telling you that it is locked because it has not been used for some period of time. Those are both additional -- and in my view unncessary -- steps that confuses people and unnecessarily slow down their work. Incremental small amounts of wasted time and confusion add up to productivity losses, not gains.

Learning the way it works has been a noble exercise but it has not changed those facts.

To add to Dennis' post:

That's not true, it doesn't: Duplicate and Save As... take the same amount of time...

Thanks for playing, but wrong. You missed the point entirely, even though it has been mentioned over and over in various threads. Writing a file of the same size of course takes no more time in either method. What you're completely ignoring is how Save As works as opposed to Duplicate. Specifically, when it comes to a document which has had changes.

If you've made changes to a file and want it to branch off to a new document while retaining the original unaltered file, Duplicate is ridiculously more complex. I'll skip the last step both have to accomplish, and that's giving the new file a name and clicking Save in the final dialogue box.

Using Save As to create a new file from an existing:

• Press Command+Shift+S

Using Duplicate to do the same thing:

• Duplicate

• Go back to the original open document

• Use the top menu to revert to its original state

• Close the original

• Press Command+S to finally save the duplicate to a new name

Thank you Kurt. You included a step I had forgotten. I've grown accustomed to closing the original without having to revert it.

This also brings up a point. If you don't close the original immediately and it is not a "locked" item from a while ago, it gets auto-saved again and again, just by being open. All of those "versions" consume HD space, which this thread has not yet even mentioned. If ever you wanted to know when the document was last really modified, I don't know how you would discover that, versus simply doing Get Info on the original. That is yet another thing to learn, albeit seldom needed.

For the xxxth time, Rename your original as xxx.template (if it's a Pages document)

This way when you double click it you don't change it and you may work as you want on the newly created one.

I work this way for at least seven years, long before Lion and even long before the day I bought iWork.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 13 février 2012

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.3

My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k

This is not the xxxth time, but it is not the first either. I don't want hundreds of Templates. My templates are like stationery. They contain certain basics, but not the full content of my previous correspondence in Page. The same is true for Numbers and Keynote.

Moreover, the Lion changes also occur in other apps, like Text Edit, which does NOT have the template feature.

If I were to write you a letter today, I would certainly not want it to be a Template, because I would not have the intention of ever writing another similar letter to you again. But if I found it necessary to write a letter to someone else, and perhaps use 80% of the content of something I had written to you, I would want to re-open the letter I wrote to you, change certain things about it, and then use SAVE AS to rename it and maybe file it away in a folder I use for that other person.

In Lion, I run the risk that if I begin typing in my original letter to you - even if I have the intention to eventually save it under a different name and I don't later forget to do that -- it will be auto-saved with the new content (unless it is locked from long ago). That can only produce confusion when I want to look at it again someday and I then discover it was changed without my consent.

This requires the user to LEARN that they better hit the Duplicate command right away, and close the original right way, and don't dare do any typing in the original unless the intent is to really modify it.

And that is the confusion and loss of time and productivity I have been writing about in this discussion, because user in a work environment have all kinds of behaviors, sometimes interrupted by co-workers, telephone calls, email correspondence, etc. And unless they fully absorb the Lion changes to revise their familiar work-habits, the consequences are not what is expected from using the world's best computers and operating system.

Hi Yvan,

When (if?) I upgrade to Lion, I'm surely going to study your posts on how to open, close, save (as template!), etc. before I start using my iWorks (mainly I use Pages & Numbers)!! At my last job, where I was "coach" to many people on how to use Office software, they often complained about how the software did something. I found it hard to teach them something when they got stuck. Sometimes, the programmers will not change the programming of the software to what the users find best...no matter what!! You have to accept it and change the way you work with the software. It's only frustrating not to. Just my humble two cents...

It sounds like Lion now treats iWorks documents like databases. Databases have always done this. As soon as you open a database, it gets saved, while you work it is saving, any changes you make get saved. Usually when you close the document, you don't have to save it, it's automatic. If you want a clone of the database to "play" with or change but keep the original, you make a copy, rename it something else and open it. Sounds like this is the behavior Lion has now incorporated in the Apple applications, like iWorks and TextEdit.

But, thanks for finding a way to live with the "new" way of working with iWorks - I will definitely try your steps before opening any of documents! Do you have an online tutorial by chance?

The database nature of Pages is really no different than Excel or any other spreadsheet. If you want to sort records, you must sort the rows, not the columns. But you make a valid point on my behalf by suggesting that Keynote and Pages should behave like a database. I contend that they should NOT. I might even go further and say that Numbers should not do so either. All three apps in the iWork suite are "creative" to the extent that they allow users to explore ideas and content in the course of creating a DOCUMENT. A database is not like a DOCUMENT. A database is a collection of RECORDS which should not be considered tentative or exploratory. When you submit a record to a database, it should be saved immediately. Subsequent editing is optional.

Similarly, this discussion thread is a database of messages. Every item we write is a record in that database. The records are sorted by timestamp. The records are seachable by various other fields, like author and subject. Our written submissions are not auto-saved, they are entered into the database when we press the blue UPDATE button below. We can later edit those records, depending on the permissions granted by the database. Now, in saying this I realize that the way web forms are processed is not exactly akin to the way auto-save or Save As occurs on a computer. I am just drawing this parallel to underscore the difference betweek work that is of a creative, experimental nature, versus record-keeping.

It never occurred to me that the licensing agreements are the legal instruments by which I gave Apple consent to dissatisfy me. I don't mean that to be cynical, but if Apple were to enforce such licensing agreements, then all discussions and feedback about its software products would be totally meaningless because what's the point of listening to customers or allowing them to talk amongst themselves if the bottom line is that we all signed the agreement and we are therefore obligated to sllently like or dislike what we got.

Moreover, I would submit that nobody can ever "pre-discover" that they like or dislike something because the licensing agreements are executed BEFORE the software is installed. I suppose you could go to a store and try out the new features before you agree to the terms of the agreement. That might be a clever way to build more store traffic 😉

Your scripts look interesting and I may explore them for my own personal use. But I would argue that, as the saying goes, the exception proves the rule: if it is necessary to implement scripts to compensate for exceptions that the software doesn't natively do, and if such scripts are applicable to a very broad cross-section of the software's users, doesn't that point out the need for the software engineers to consider implementing such items into the software as a "bug fix" or "new feature?". Indeed, that is very often what happens when Apple or Microsoft or Adobe or FileMaker discover something cool that was created by a third party or plug-in developer: they sometimes acquire the rights to whatever IP is involved and enhance their software with those features.

One more time you read wrongly.

I wrote :

I do my best to help users when they face difficulties.

Since the delivery of Lion, I posted several tools which evolved according to the reactions of some users.

It doen't mean that for my point of view there are problems with the new system.

I wrote many times that I think that it's behaving very well.

My goal is just to give users which dislike the new features a way to stay with their obsolete workflow.

I hope (but I'm not sure of that) that one day they will at last understand that they are wrong and that learning the new workflow is the best thing to do.

Apple developper working onn the operating system are clever enough to be able to think by themselves that it would be easy to offer a menu item triggering Duplicate and Save… in a single call.

My guess is that from their point of view, such an item would be a brake to acceptance of the new paradigm.

If they decide one day to implement my scheme, I will be glad to see that for the second time one of my ideas is include in an Apple's operating system.

Here, in real life, I use only Save_As#3 when I work on a large Pages or Numbers document to be free of Autosave action. I didn't wait the delivery of Lion to write that from my point of view iWork apps were not coded by brains but by feets. Some days after the Lion delivery, I added that I was saying a big thank you to the Lion's developers. Thanks to the delivery of AutoSave, the iWork team will be forced to revise in depth their products. Without such drastic changes, iWork apps for OSX will be unable to behave well with iCloud. The culprit is not the operating system, it's the odd code delivered in iWork apps.

I have no plan to use iDevices but I was said that the iOS versions of iWork apps prove to be more efficient than OSX ones. Maybe the devs discovered that there is no need to recalculate the entire documents after every change. So I will wait and see.

Oops, I forgot that from time to time I use the two scripts allowing to extracts files from the hidden folder dedicated to Versions. At this time, I had no real needs for that but I feel a bit logical to test that what I deliver really apply.

I wished to add Final Cut Pro X to the list of apps treated by Save_As#3 but as I wrote, I just got the trial version which was designed before Lion delivery. I will not buy an app just to help users.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 13 février 2012

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.3

My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k

I tend to leave documents that I have duplicated open for a while in case I need to refer to them later. Only when I'm fairly sure I am OK with not having to go back do I close them off.

But that's my work habit, because it saves me having to open up other files or refer to earlier versions unnecessarily. I developed that habit because Newton OS didn't keep versions of any document.

It's a mindset thing.

—tonza

You could have discarded 3 of those 5 steps.

Without any evidence to support your position, your comment in useless.

What I described is exactly correct when you are trying to save an open document, which has changes to it, to a new name without the original being altered. You cannot in any way do that using Duplicate without having to go through the steps to revert the original before closing it. That is something you never even have to think about with Save As.

"• Go back to the original open document"

and

"• Use the top menu to revert to its original state"

I never saw the need to do that. If you don't edit the file since duplication, you should be able to just close it off.

"• Close the original"

Only when I need to, thanks.

—tonza

If you don't edit the file since duplication, you should be able to just close it off.

Your acute inability to read is astounding. I mentioned my reasoning - twice. Here they are again.

If you've made changes to a file and want it to branch off to a new document while retaining the original unaltered file,

when you are trying to save an open document, which has changes to it, to a new name without the original being altered.

Duplicate does not allow for this kind of workflow. If you've made changes and then decide against saving the original that way, and would rather have those changes in a new document, you must go through the steps to revert the original. That is something you never have to do with Save As. The open document simply becomes the edited file with the new name, and the original is closed with no changes saved to it.

Thanks for the echo, Kurt. Your description is exactly correct.

It is laughable to think about the consequences of this work habit: "I tend to leave documents that I have duplicated open for a while in case I need to refer to them later. Only when I'm fairly sure I am OK with not having to go back do I close them off."

As someone who works with dozens, maybe hundreds of documents daily, it is awe-inspiring to imagine what it would be like to look over his shoulder and watch him do his work. What is "a while" ... a few minutes? A week?

If I am ever fairly sure I am OK with never having to go back to something, then I don't even consider saving it, I throw it in the trash! Why save any documents at all? Why not just leave them all open and unsaved, scattered all over your computer screen?

OMG. Woody Allen had a way to describe that mentality but I won't repeat it here.

That merely means you are making a duplicate of an unsaved file. This doesn't change the arguement one bit.

And please, don't tell me that I can't read. Otherwise, I'll just choose not to read your comments.

—tonza

"It is laughable to think about the consequences of this work habit..."

And I suppose what you do by habit is any better?

"As someone who works with dozens, maybe hundreds of documents daily, it is awe-inspiring to imagine what it would be like to look over his shoulder and watch him do his work. What is "a while" ... a few minutes? A week?"

I often don't have to do anything. For example, if I go to the Finder and trash the original when I choose to, and then open the app again, since the document no longer exists, the app won't try and open it.

And who are you to judge how I work?! Dunno about you but I am not in the habit of losing data. Data reconstruction is more costly than fiddling around with a user interface.

—tonza