What happened to Save As?

To Steve and DChord568,

I re-read my post and DHord568, I did find the 'attitude' you noticed. Thanks to Steve for the steps and DCHord568 for the attitude adjustment.

It seems my frustration with this is not limited to just me. (<-slight sarcasm).

I don't use the computer every day to produce work. Mostly email and surfing.

However, when I do need to do work I will spend hours and days on a single task. Usually this involves creating complex documents that I must share with others. The old "Save As" allowed me to uniquely label a 'version' of the work in progress. I can, at any point during this work, easily find and coordinate my work with others.

I am not stating anything new here, obviously. I'm just realizing that my frustration stems from having to learn some new method just to get work done that previously was quite simple.

I completely agree that this now sets the Mac OS as being harder to use than the MS products. Jeez, that doesn't happen hardly ever! But, it is true here for this "Save As" issue.

Maybe MS will, once again, copy Mac and we'll all be in trouble.

:-)

Ted

I can, at any point during this work, easily find and coordinate my work with others.

Yes, exactly! It's extremely difficult to fathom what Apple doesn't understand about the loss of this very vital function.

Maybe MS will, once again, copy Mac and we'll all be in trouble.

That also appears to be unfortunately true. Not to be left behind on the "let's make every piece of software we write look like a tablet" mentality, I very recently read that MS is removing the ability to bypass the ugly-as-sin Metro interface. Older public beta releases let you switch back to the standard type of desktop in Windows 8, but now it looks like they're going to remove that option in Win 8 and force eveyone to use the unbelievably stupid Metro desktop.

Hi guys.

One little thing that helps a little bit. If there is one document that you like to start with, edit and Save As another document, there is one thing that helps for just this circumstance and it is limited. It is not a total workaround or fix or anything like that.

Go to the finder and copy the document that you like (Pages or Numbers). Now click on the Copy. Rename it what ever you like, but give it the "template" extension (Numbers is nmbtemplate and Pages is template). Now, each time you open the "template" it gives you a fresh document to start with and does not change your template (you also have your original that you copied from for a backup).

Yes, it only works for the times that you are starting from the same saved template, but in some instances it helps. It's not a fix.

And, I for one still want SAVE AS back in it's original functioning capability!! I also want the option to (toggle) turn off Versions and AutoSave!! Maybe not everybody wants to toggle off, but those of us that do should be able to!

Keep sending Feedback to Apple for Numbers and Pages, etc!!

Good idea, Linda.

What I've taken to doing with most of my Numbers or Pages files is just immediately duplicating the thing as soon as I open it and then close the original. Then I can do what I want with the duplicate (or trash it, if I'm just experimenting) with the knowledge that the original is untouched.

What's bothering me as much as the loss of Save As functionality is the slowness that is brought about by all this versioning and auto-saving. There seems to always be a sluggishness.

Ted -1 wrote:

To Steve and DChord568,

I re-read my post and DHord568, I did find the 'attitude' you noticed. Thanks to Steve for the steps and DCHord568 for the attitude adjustment.

Thank you, Ted. I greatly admire someone who is willing to take responsibility for what he says and see it in a different light. You rarely run into that these days. I appreciate this.

It seems my frustration with this is not limited to just me. (<-slight sarcasm).

I don't use the computer every day to produce work. Mostly email and surfing.

However, when I do need to do work I will spend hours and days on a single task. Usually this involves creating complex documents that I must share with others. The old "Save As" allowed me to uniquely label a 'version' of the work in progress. I can, at any point during this work, easily find and coordinate my work with others.

I am not stating anything new here, obviously. I'm just realizing that my frustration stems from having to learn some new method just to get work done that previously was quite simple.

Yep, that's exactly where we've been coming from here since the inception of this thread and others like it.

I think the overriding issue here is one of control. In addition to the versioning use to which you put Save As, I use it most frequently to branch to a new document intended for another purpose. With Save As, I can base this new document on the old one, preserving some of its elements, altering others, and discarding still others altogether.

Crucially, I can make the decision to do this at any time. I don't have to know in advance that I'll want to do this (which is what those who tell you to "just duplicate the document in the Finder" before even beginning to work on it would have you do). I determine the exact moment at which I feel the old document has taken on enough new features to justify branching to a new one while preserving the old, and I act on the spot.

I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't need the old document still open and in my way. I don't want to have to navigate to another location to save the new document. Nine times out of ten I want to save it in the same folder as the original — which is the default under Save As but not under Duplicate.

In other words, *I* have control of my documents — just as I ought to have control over when they're saved or not saved. The new Autosave/Versioning/No Save As paradigm takes that away from me.

I get that for some, the new paradigm makes working on their Macs easier, and that's fine. I have said from Day One that this ought to be the default behavior of the newer operating systems. However, those of us who have found our work made more difficult by the new paradigm should be able to revert to the system that has served us beautifully for as many as 28+ years now.

Welcome to the thread, Ted. We're glad to have you here.

Yes, DChord - You are exactly right! It is the control for those users that know what they are doing and what they want to do!

For those that want just another machine that runs like an iPhone or iPad or some other such touch-screen device without this CONTROL, that is fine for them.

Just give us the option to Toggle off the new Autosave/Versioning/No Save As paradigm!!

Like you said, served us beautifully (Most, meaning the Majority!) for 28+ years!!

I think that what makes this whole thing worse is that the 13 step work around gives you the same outcome as the old Save-As and does not require the removal of Versions. That is, Apple could have programmed that set of steps into a function called... Save-As, allowing everyone to have what they wanted. But they didn't. They removed Save-As without needing to. It does not need to be the way it is. They gain NOTHING from this arrogance. They can keep their precious Versions and give us the workflow we want in a function. But instead they announce the return of Save-As, calling it a new "feature" of Mountain Lion, then secretly make it something else all together. It is as if Tim Cook is sitting there rubbing his hands together with a croocked smile saying "I'll show you, telling me you want Save-As back." This us versus them attitude is the OPPOSITE of what Steve Jobs did. It has brought me to writing an ebook about this whole phenomenon because it will become a business school case study in 10 years time. The Decline Of Apple or something like that. It is just insane. Really. (PS we got to 60 pages, the goal someone set. Nice.)

Hi.

I want save as back. however I like all of you have to get some work done.

I found that by changing the preferences in Time Machine "OPTIONS" to lock fileafter one(1) day have helped me by forcing me to duplicate (then save as new file name) without making all the silly mistakes. I always kept the old file anyway. So I in this case only have one more step.

Still more steps but stops me from changing last months statements/status of an account by mistake. I rarely access my files same day.

however when I do my yearly tax accounts ???? disaster...... changes every hour for several days... Will have to see how I deal with this..

.

cheers elo

Next change to the horror show called SAVE AS:

The 10.8.2 update also includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac, including the following fixes:

- An option to discard the changes in the original document when choosing Save As

Lets see what it brings us

cheers elo

Eliminating the "Save-As" convention that has existed for 40 years in personal computing is Apple fixing what ain't broke. As a recent Apple user (iMac '09), I find the mantra that Apple's software is "intuitive" to be vastly overstated; perhaps it would be intuitive had one started on the original Macintosh but given that the majority of Apple's users (since at least 1995) are PC-converts, "intuitive" is a relative term.

It is MUCH EASIER to open, modify and Save-As a file than it is to duplicate, rename, save and then change that file. Too smart by half on this one Apple!

The next update should include a USER OPTION to change files the way the USER (i.e. buyer) wants to change them; not the way some product manager in Cupertino thinks they ought to be modified.

In the Lounge area of these forums (for level 6 users and higher) John Galt made this thoughtful comment. It is slightly modified as it was a response to an individual. So I changed just a few words to make it read as a general statement.

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Apple dominates the mobile device market, and appears to be pushing OS X in the direction of iOS. Computers are no longer just professional tools, they have become appliances like your kitchen toaster. I bristled when Steve Jobs proclaimed the end of this era ("they're going to be like trucks") but as is usually the case time will prove him right.

People don't want PCs. They're too complicated, they crash with disturbing regularity, they succumb to malware and viruses. As appliances like a kitchen toaster, they're a failure. It's already happening: Intel just cut its forecast on declining PC sales.

Like common appliances, intelligence will not be required to operate the Macs of the future. In fact, consumers will demand they become less "dangerous", less difficult to use, and completely invulnerable to malware. Consider the sort of questions being asked here, and the apparent level of intelligence of those asking them. Encountering a coherently worded, grammatically correct question is becoming rare. Look around you - is it not obvious that the world is becoming dumber?

A computer can be a powerful tool, but powerful tools are dangerous when wielded by dolts.

Apple has two choices: continue to make computers that require a level of technological literacy to use them, or adapt to the pressing needs of a society that is evidently becoming dumber at an accelerating rate. How is that going for them? Unlike every other PC boxmaker, sales of Apple computers is actually increasing: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2079015

Face it - we're dinosaurs. We're tilting at windmills.

For the truly computer-literate among us, we can only hope that Apple will continue to offer some high level access to "their" computers, perhaps through some kind of developer status like there is for iOS. Don't be surprised if we have to pay for the privilege, and that it could be revoked for whatever minor transgression they deem appropriate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sadly, I have to agree with pretty much all of this. Long gone are the days when being a computer owner meant that you either had to take the time to learn a myriad of tricks and technical knowledge just to keep it running, or hire someone else to do it.

All you have to do is look around. His reference to a toaster is perfect. The younger generation knows nothing of tweaking config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get MS-DOS systems running as efficiently as possible, while still getting programs which both could or couldn't handle "extended" memory working at the same time. Or the days of OS 9 and earlier where it was practically an art to figure out what order to get extensions to load in so they wouldn't interfere with each other, or cause the system to crash with alarming regularity. They expect a computer to be like a toaster. Turn it on, and darn it!, it better work without my having to think about it. This despite the great complexity and interaction of hardware, firmware, drivers and software.

When you look at it from that perspective, that is what Apple is catering to. The newer users who really believe the "It just works." statement. The simpler they can make the OS, the more appliance like and goof proof it (hopefully) becomes. The huge downside of that is users who do know how to make the most of a computer's capability aren't even allowed to, as "features" which get in your way can't even be turned off.

Now for the other side of the coin. A computer is simply not a toaster. That is the whole point of a computer. They are highly configurable devices. The basic hardware is the same from machine to machine. It's the software that makes them do what they do. They can be set anywhere for the user "who doesn't know nuttin", to "master user". A computer is not, and never will be as simple as a toaster, and the attempt to make them so will only continually frustrate the advanced user who just wants the OS to get out of their way.

Kurt, this is not true. My friend is a teacher in Australia, and kids were given laptops by the government, with controls so they could not use Facebook and watch ****. Within weeks the kids had hacked the security and made proxy sites to allow them to do what they want. Not the genius kids, all the kids. I know that my iPad is convenient, but only because I have a laptop to sync it to. I want my iPad to be smarter, to do more than it does. I want it to be like a laptop. I used to want my laptop to be like a desktop years ago. Now most laptops are that powerful. People want an iPad or iPhone that has a full operating system, but they will accept a dumbed down operating system for now. Microsoft Surfare has a full operating system version. Android is running on laptops. I pay $15 for a toaster. I pay $400 for an iPad. I pay $1,300 for a laptop. I pay $2,500 for a fully equipped desktop. I don't want my $2,500 desktop to have the brain of my $15 toaster. As Android gets smarter and Intel pushes their mobile technology small computers will get smarter. Apple therefore is likely to find themselves selling very expensive very good looking toasters. Give it 5 years to unfold.

Kurt. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion with the thoughts on the future.

At first I thought a certain monsieur had written the whole thing but then I realized that it was way too nice and logical to read. (in the monsieur's own technical way he was trying to tell us to just accept the new world and that apple knew what was best for us. I rebelled at that approach as I like to make my own decsions and choose my own path)

I tend to agree with your version of the future. My other half get really frustrated when she have to ask me to do something for her on her Mac Book She just wants everything to work. ie everything that was said in your two entries.

My concern is more the way it was done by apple. one day I was able to use my work flow to do my day to day things for my clients. The next day I had to rethink, tinker with the workflow, replace some software and as of now I must watch everything coming along to make sure they do not mess me up again.

Mind you. That it what all my users (1000 application and software developers) said back in the dark ages of IBM mainframes when we changed operating systems/compilers/hardware and things suddenly things did not work as they did the day before.

The world has not changed. only one thing this time they did it to me and I do not like it anymore than by clients did back then.

I have already as a result of this major change modified my work habits, set up backup and recovery differently, use Numbers in a different way, Instead of Pages for letters I use Bean and I now watch out for software that does not work the way I like it to work.

The world moves on and so must I.

But I still do not like SAVE AS/Version implementation.....please give me the option to turn it on and off. We know it is possible as others have done it.

Mind you they also just dropped in a new connector cable for the Iphone5 that does not have any backward compatibility with other devices.....???????

cheers elo

Message was edited by: elol

Re the toaster analogy, actually I believe we do want a toaster. A toaster is a device designed to enable the user to do a job in a simple, logical and intuitive way - like Apple computers before Lion.

What Apple has done is taken a perfectly good toaster and fixed what ain't broke.

With the toaster we have been using for 40 years you took a slice of bread, put it in the toaster, set the degree of darkness, and switched it on. You had the option to keep back a second slice of bread in case you burnt the first slice.

Now what you do is you put in a slice of bread, then you press the "clone" lever. The machine makes a second slice which you have to remember to take out and save. In the confusion you switch the toaster on before you remember to set the degree of darkness, and burn the first slice. But that's OK because you still have the duplicate slice which unfortunately you saved in the dog's bowl instead of the original packet.