Autosave

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useeger
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Autosave

Post by useeger »

NW 2.1 uses the MacOS autosave function. I don't like that because I fear that my hard disc will soon be filled. Can I turn it off?

In former times it was possible in the Saving preferences to choose autosave (without keeping older versions) and after how many minutes a document is autosaved. Now the setting for autosave is grayed out and the setting for the minutes has disappeared, but the old value is obviously still valid. Can I change the time somewhere else?

Thanks for help
Ulrich
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martin
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Re: Autosave

Post by martin »

Hello Ulrich,

As you say, it is true that Nisus Writer Pro (NWP) version 2.1 adopts the autosave feature provided by Mac OS X. This allows NWP to support OSX's document versioning feature, allowing users to revert to prior document versions.

As you also noticed, unfortunately this means NWP no longer offers a preference to set the autosave period. Instead OSX handles the details of scheduling autosaves. Apple says its autosaves occur every 5 minutes if you work continuously, or if you pause during working.

Allowing users to opt-out of OSX's autosave may be possible, but it might mean also disabling OSX's document versioning. It sounds like that's no problem for you, but it might be a consideration for other users. I have filed your request as a possible enhancement, but it will require some analysis, to see how allowing two different autosaving schemes would impact other document operations.
I don't like that because I fear that my hard disc will soon be filled. Can I turn it off?
I don't know the particulars, but I believe Apple does some kind of automatic culling of autosaved versions, so this fear should not be too great. Most likely the culling occurs in a way that operates like Time Machine, where older document versions that are chronologically adjacent are culled more aggressively than newer versions. However, as with the autosave scheduling, this is all opaque to us and occurs at Apple's discretion.
dshan
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Re: Autosave

Post by dshan »

Why would OS X's autosave cause you to run out of disk space? It's just saving the document for you, overwriting what was there before. It uses no more disk space than if you saved it yourself periodically (or when Nisus used to auto-save it every "n" minutes).

I think what you are referring to is Nisus' use of OS X's versioning feature, not auto-save. Even so you won't run out of disk space because:

1. OS X's versioning feature only creates new versions when:
a. You open an existing document and begin to make changes to it.
b. Once every hour that you work on it in a given session.
c. When you manually save a version yourself using cmd-S or File>Save a Version.

2. OS X versions are not full copies of a document like the old Nisus versioning feature used to create, they're databases of document changes that are stored separately (outside the normal filesystem), they occupy much less space than multiple full copies of the document.
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useeger
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Re: Autosave

Post by useeger »

OK, I understood, thanks for the answers. I hope Apple handles the auto-save/versioning feature reasonable. I am working every day on a now 600 page text document, command-save is my normal action about every 10-15 minutes. I have over 8.000 older versions of this 3,5 MB document in my dropbox. I don't want to have them as full versions on my hard disc.

By the way: Opening of this document on my MacBook Air 1,7 GHz Intel Core i7 needs more than 1 minute. I do not dare to think about how long 1000 old versions on my hard disc will need to open if I use Apple's feature and open all old versions. Therefore I will never use this feature but pick up old versions from the dropbox (what was necessary until today, thanks god, only on time and worked perfect for me).

best wishes,
Ulrich
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Hamid
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Re: Autosave

Post by Hamid »

When you delete a document, all previous versions of the document will be deleted.
You can also delete all previous versions of a document any time you wish.
While you are in the browsing all versions mode, go to the File:Revert to menu. Here you have a command 'Delete This Version...'; when you press the alt key that command changes to 'Delete All Versions ...'. When you apply that command, you will be prompted to confirm:
DeleteAllVersions.png
DeleteAllVersions.png (26.63 KiB) Viewed 21826 times
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useeger
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Re: Autosave

Post by useeger »

After some days working now with the new autosave feature I can confirm, that it is really very annoying. Every time I pause, MacOS saves the document, maybe 10-20 times in 5 minutes. Saving of my 600 pages document needs about 7 seconds. So every time I want to go on I have to wait until the spinning wheel finishes spinning. It costs me a lot of concentration.

I am sceptical, Martin, whether two different autosaving schemes are a good idea. I would be happy if I could turn autosave off, I don't need it. That's a simple solution which does not confuse the users. Just a clickable box in the preferences "autosave off".

best wishes
Ulrich
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Re: Autosave

Post by NisusUser »

useeger wrote:I would be happy if I could turn autosave off, I don't need it. That's a simple solution which does not confuse the users. Just a clickable box in the preferences "autosave off".
+1 I think a user option would also be good for this. Because I knew NWP/OS X are now making backups, I didn't do so today. But then something happened (an anchor for an image moved to a previously non-existent page and was stubborn about moving back). So I tried out the versions in OS X / NWP 2.1. Ugghh! Just like Time Machine I was bombarded with zillions of copies of my document and wasted precious time trying to find the one I wanted. If I do my own backups, I know when/where I did them and which one I want when/if I do have to go back to them. I'll still do my own backups, but it would be nice to be able to turn the OS X feature off in NWP.
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martin
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Re: Autosave

Post by martin »

Thanks for your feedback. I understand that some users may want to work completely without autosave, and we'll take that into consideration.
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useeger
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Re: Autosave

Post by useeger »

2.1.1 is a big disappointment for me because it is still not possible to switch off Apple's autosave. This feature is unreasonable for persons who are working on large documents.

On the internet I found a terminal command to switch off autosave:
defaults write -app 'name of app' ApplePersistence -bool no
The problem is 'name of app': I tried Nisus, NisusWriter, Nisus Writer, Nisus Writer Pro, NisusWriterPro, com.nisus.NisusWriter ... and always got the reply "Couldn't find an application named "..."; defaults unchanged".

Does anybody know the name of the app?

If not I have to downgrade on Version 2.0. It is definitely impossible for me to work with Version 2.1

best wishes
Ulrich
Vanceone
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Re: Autosave

Post by Vanceone »

The only thing I can think of is to cd into your applications directory or wherever Nisus Writer is installed and run it again. The application name is indeed "Nisus Writer Pro"; or at least identifies as that in it's info.plist. "com.nisus.NisusWriter" is another one. Either should work; but that error message you are seeing usually pops up for me when I've got a path issue in the terminal.
Michael T
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Re: Autosave

Post by Michael T »

You can disable AutoSave globally (system wide): go to System Preferences ->General, uncheck the box besides "Ask to keep changes when closing documents".
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useeger
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Re: Autosave

Post by useeger »

Michael T wrote:You can disable AutoSave globally (system wide): go to System Preferences ->General, uncheck the box besides "Ask to keep changes when closing documents".
This was also one of my first thoughts when the problem came with version 2.1. I unchecked the box, the problem persists.
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useeger
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Re: Autosave

Post by useeger »

Vanceone wrote:The only thing I can think of is to cd into your applications directory or wherever Nisus Writer is installed and run it again.
I added
cd /Applications/Nisus\ Writer\ Pro\ 2
before and tried it again. Same result.
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martin
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Re: Autosave

Post by martin »

Ulrich,
useeger wrote:On the internet I found a terminal command to switch off autosave:
defaults write -app 'name of app' ApplePersistence -bool no
The problem is 'name of app': I tried Nisus, NisusWriter, Nisus Writer, Nisus Writer Pro, NisusWriterPro, com.nisus.NisusWriter ... and always got the reply "Couldn't find an application named "..."; defaults unchanged".
If you want to change the ApplePersistence user defaults key, this is the correct command

Code: Select all

defaults write com.nisus.NisusWriter ApplePersistence -bool NO
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martin
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Re: Autosave

Post by martin »

useeger wrote:
Michael T wrote:You can disable AutoSave globally (system wide): go to System Preferences ->General, uncheck the box besides "Ask to keep changes when closing documents".
This was also one of my first thoughts when the problem came with version 2.1. I unchecked the box, the problem persists.
That system preference does not disable Apple's autosave as Ulrich desires. It will only reenable confirmation dialogs that show whenever you close a document with unsaved changes.
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