AW: [Qgis-user] autosave plugin

[Alex Mandel]

Giovanni Manghi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
>> The problem with saving on a time interval is that it doesn't make any
>> sense unless combined with some type of change detection. What's the
>> point in using cpu to keep a timer going and saving if someone just left
>> QGIS open when they went to lunch.
>>
>> At best it makes sense on certain actions to check the time maybe
>> against a saved value and compare and if delta greater than x specified
>> by user do a save.
>>
> 
> 
> 
> you got a point,
> nevertheless I would also to point that:
> 
> a) qgis doesn't save any geographic data, saving a project takes
> virtually no time, so I don't see what difference it makes if such a
> tool saves on and on an idle project.
> 
> b) unfortunately qgis still crashes sometimes with no apparent reason
> (seg fault) and in a not replicable way (if is replicable I always file
> a ticket). Happened to me today a couple of times, and it will happen
> again also to other people I know they use qgis on regular basis.
> 
> A autosave tool based on a timer would be very useful indeed. For now.
> 
> 
>> Note Autosave based on a timer has been removed from things like Office
>> for similar reasons.
> 
> 
> not from OpenOffice :)
> 
> 
> cheers
> 
> -- Giovanni --
> 

Actually I'm pretty sure OpenOffice got rid of it's time based autosave
in favor of a time/change detection function. If you notice in recent
versions of OpenOffice it's a timer to save Recovery information only.
That means it goes to a temp file, and only gets used if OOo crashes. It
may also only be saving a diff.

Minor technical oddities, I would like an autosave but you have to make
sure it only saves when you want(picture testing something and then not
liking but forgetting to turn autosave off), doesn't keep trying to save
when nothing has changed (could be slow with 100s of files loaded), and
doesn't disrupt the user while they are working (Arc plugin for this was
notorious).

Even worse imagine if the segfault was in the timer for the autosave...

Ctrl-S is your friend. +1 for autosave to a project backup file,
possibly only as a diff if it makes it faster.

Thanks,
Alex