Save separate backup file for every change

[jjustinmor]

I'd like the option (toggled) of automatically generating a full save of a file every time I change anything in it, using filename and date/time for the new filename. I use Textpad to write prose and poetry (to avoid concentration- breaking automation in Word and such and concentration-breaking technical command sequences in other text editors) so I dont want any irrelevant programmer telling me to use version control. Other systems only save a baseline (which you must specify) and changes in current document, not a full history, one could write and delete a million words and they'de say no change! If it gets too big in generated files I',m quite capable of deleting them, much more so than remembering everything that gets lost or overlooked and deleted.

[Drxenos]

I'd like the option (toggled) of automatically generating a full save of a file every time I change anything in it, using filename and date/time for the new filename. I use Textpad to write prose and poetry (to avoid concentration- breaking automation in Word and such and concentration-breaking technical command sequences in other text editors) so I dont want any irrelevant programmer telling me to use version control. Other systems only save a baseline (which you must specify) and changes in current document, not a full history, one could write and delete a million words and they'de say no change! If it gets too big in generated files I',m quite capable of deleting them, much more so than remembering everything that gets lost or overlooked and deleted.

I think insulting every programmer here is a poor way to begin a request for help.

DrX

[dak]

I'd like the option (toggled) of automatically generating a full save of a file every time I change anything in it,

This is a rather interesting request. How often would you want this full save to be done? After you change a single character? That would potentially generate quite a large number of backup files. Maybe after a predertimined number of characters were changed?

More information is needed.

I might as well open the can of worms: what would be wrong with using some sort of revision control anyway? I'm not a programmer, but I have used such systems in the past to track changes to computer documentation that I was writing, and it was a good solution.

P.S. I agree with DrX's comment.

Cheers,

dak

[MarkS]

I think being able to have backups save with date/time naming is a great idea. Without this, the auto-save can be a little funny. For instance, say you have the file auto-save every 10 minutes. This is good for the purpose of making sure you don't lose too much work, but for the sake of keeping track of the same changes you've made (in my case, to code), and being able to back out a few changes, it's not very useful.

Another application I use has the $Date and $Time keywords that you can use for backup file names to allow you to have multiple backups of each file. I use this with a "backup before save" option in my other app, which textpad currently has as well. This is tremendously helpful for repeating changes I've already made. Version Control Systems are nice, but they're unfortunately a bit inefficient when it comes to tracking changes between individual changes.

I don't know what the rule is for posting names of other apps, but let me know if you'd like to take a look at the other app that has this feature. It's pretty intuitive the way they have it set up.

[jjustinmor]

I'd say just backup with every save of a new change regardless of how minor, to simplify implementation and make it happen, if later people want tolerance refinements well and good; but have default configuration as the option toggled off, and easily changed in process. The reason to avoid version control is as previous writer noted; inefficient at retrieving intermediate changes, at least those I've seen or can afford. Btw I deny insulting programmers, but needed to head off the denigrating and demeaning dismissal by programmers that killed this suggestion last time it arose w/o that codicil. If the programmer group want to not encounter such defensiveness they could try moving their first principles to being less denigrating and dismissive smartalecks, or at least tolerating so many.

[jgoemaat]

The $Date and $Time keywords used as part of the backup file names would be perfect. You just have to press CTRL + S to save, so each save would save the old version as FILENAME.yyyymmdd_hhnnss.BAK or something like that.

I work on documents all the time where I want to save very frequently during revisions and (as has been explained here) it would be very helpful to go back to a specific one.

Source control is not ideal or efficient for the frequency of saves or the in-infrequency I need to go back to a revision.

Adding an additional checkbox to delete revision files older than X minutes or only save X revisions would be helpful also to keep the folder cleaned up.

[jgoemaat]

Well, I had an interesting afternoon - I enabled the backup function and my Textpad locked up and wrote all NULL values to the original and backup file - weird! Unfortunately it was a very important file I work on all day (why I wanted it backed up!), so I almost lost all today's work, but found a great program WinHex (http://www.winhex.com/winhex/) and did a disk search on the block of text I was editing last and found it! I was able to copy/paste to a new document (as files really don't overwrite the old sectores/blocks on disk immeidately, but that's another story).

Anyway, I ended up using SyncBack (http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/s ... tures.html) to create a mirror job to keep backing up my important files, checking every 3 minutes and keeping up to 200 revisions for up to 14 days (all configurable). It was fairly easy to setup (tons of options) - I use it for other backups, but did not think of having it auto-backup these files throughout the day, but after today's episode, I spend the time to set it up right! It is very little overhead and evidently more stable than TextPad's backup from what I discovered today. It can also look for changes in a file size or date/time, etc - not just checking on a schedule.

Anyway, hope this helps someone.