![]() So, rsync and friends work just fine there are some subtleties related to accessing a file with both a versioning and a non-versioning app, but nothing that interferes with usage: see below for details. On the other hand, this raises an important question: how do these features interact with traditional file access, be it command-line or Finder-based, or simply via non-versioning apps? If you use Dropbox, this question is relevant: what exactly gets synchronized? Indeed, Dropbox is essentially a fancy front-end to the rsync utility, which I use directly for my work backups (in addition to Dropbox) again, how do versioning and autosaving interact with it?Īutosaving does not present any problems in this respect: once a file is named, further changes are saved just as if the user was a compulsive CMD-S hitter (that is, me). As you will see, I think this is a very good thing, because-in my opinion-these features do not necessarily make sense for all applications, or in all circumstances. This is similar to other Lion features, such as full-screen mode. In Lion, “saving-as-preserving” happens automatically, whereas “saving-as-committing” requires explicit user intervention, as it should.īoth autosaving and versioning are application-level, not system-level features: that is, they must be supported by each individual applications. Hence, the semantic change in the corresponding entry in the File menu: “Save a version.” If you use a version control system, consider this: “saving” a file just preserves the changes you’ve made, whereas “commiting” a file to a repository makes sure that, should further edits introduce bugs, you can always roll back to working code. Saving is now a logically distinct operation: it means that the document is currently in a state that the user wants to preserve for possible future reference, even though she may want to continue editing it. The bottom line is that, ideally, the user should never worry about losing her work. For instance, you can email the document you are working on without first saving it, because Lion does it for you (so what you are sending is exactly what you have written so far). ![]() ![]() For example, as you type your Pages or TextEdit document, you don’t need to worry about explicitly saving your work: Lion does this for you every once in a while, when you quit the app, or when some other event occurs that requires the system to preserve your work so far. Coupled with Lion’s new autosaving functionality, it aims to change and hopefully simplify the way users think about documents. Ars Technica as usual provides an insightful and detailed explanation of this new feature provides further low-level details (but, see below).įile versioning is, essentially, a consumer-level and user-friendly version control system. ![]() I’ve been playing around with the new Mac OS X Lion “file versioning” facility. ![]()
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February 2023
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