Automatic Backup: similar to auto-save.

[FredBob]

SAVE IS DESTRUCTIVE. And after you close the program ALL UNDO HISTORY IS GONE.

If you had deleted something that you should not have, without a backup, you are shit on a rope. Period!

Regular, and separate, backups are the only way to cover you ass.

I have Scrivener set to BACKUP with EVERY MANUAL SAVE. And I manually save way often. The backups are saved on a separate disk. Another safe-guard. This is how real programmers work. Why should users be treated any differently?

I would prefer to set an auto-backup every 3-4 minutes, or after a specific number of changes, ala Cakewalk DAW.

To tell us that the majority, as in prolly 99% of users, cannot have this feature because there are lunatics that have been so stoopid as to have projects way beyond any sense of human reason, is silly at best. Why should the majority have to suffer for the mental illness of the fewest?

Auto-backups do not have to be enabled by default, as too many windows, and apple, “features” are. They should be USER defined. As are the current settings for save and backup.

I want to be able to auto-backup as I desire. This makes TOTAL sense.

The code already exists. How about providing a few check boxes for users to use it?

[Amcmo]

To tell us that the majority, as in prolly 99% of users, cannot have this feature because there are lunatics that have been so stoopid as to have projects way beyond any sense of human reason, is silly at best. Why should the majority have to suffer for the mental illness of the fewest?

Just because a writer's project is a different size to yours doesn't make them a lunatic, stoopid (sic), or suffering from mental illness, and insulting them is unlikely to convince anyone of your argument. In fact likely the opposite. Neither is continuing to berate after a member of the L&L team has given you their response.

From the Beta download page

A Note on Suggestions
To help resolve remaining bugs, we'd appreciate keeping the beta forum posts dedicated to bug reports or questions on working with the beta. Suggestions for the interface or functionality should instead be posted in Scrivener's general wishlist forum, since most of these affect the design for both Windows and macOS. Thank you!

Your request is not a bug, so perhaps post it on the wishlist page as a request, where no doubt it will receive due consideration.

[AmberV]

Moderator Note: I have split off this entire tangent back into your original feature request thread, in which this topic was already discussed at length. This has nothing to do with whether or not the beta is a safe platform to work from.

To tell us that the majority, as in prolly 99% of users, cannot have this feature because there are lunatics that have been so stoopid as to have projects way beyond any sense of human reason, is silly at best. Why should the majority have to suffer for the mental illness of the fewest?

I do not understand the necessity for the hostility and abusive language being used here, it is entirely unnecessary. Large projects like these are in fact well within the design parameters of this program, and a big reason for why it uses a distributed folder architecture for its storage model. A simple single-file XML model would probably have been a better choice if the idea was to not put much into a project other than your words.

That is really neither here nor there however, as projects can be excluded from the automated backup system. The problem with your request (to reiterate) does not have to do with outliers, but rather that it is annoying with “99%” scenarios.

[Gothelittle]

Huh, ok, I stand (or sit) corrected. I assumed he was talking about saving, because it would not have occurred to me to keep making full backups every few minutes.

If I'm working on a particular section and I think I may want to preserve the way I started it, I usually copy-paste it into the Notes and then delete it when I'm happy.

I never leave my project open for more than one day. When I go to bed, I close all my programs and set my computer to either sleep (less common, for if I need quick PC access in the morning) or shut it down to restart fresh the next morning.

That said, it's not like I have any problems with someone having a feature request I don't use.

But I don't think the autosaving or auto-backup is any different between Scrivener 1.9 and Scrivener 3 Beta,

[rdale]

There's another option for leveraging the vestigial File->Save shortcut, which is to make Scrivener take snapshots of all of the documents that changed since... the last snapshot of the current writing session, I think. It bloats your project if you use it too frequently*, but it makes it a LOT easier to sort through the changes you've made to a given chapter document over the course of a few hours/days.

* This feature creates a full copy of the binder item's text content every time you create a snapshot, so it's not really worth it to invoke it every few words. But a handful of times per writing session as you start editing gives you a reasonable set of snapshots that you can compare to the current text in the editor.

[erk]

Now that there's an "automatic shutdown after X minutes" function, for those of us who don't remember to shut the program down I guess there's a "solution" to the automatic backup request (in traditional Mac-backwards-fashion?)

Why it's considered LESS intrusive and MORE usable to shut down the whole program instead of just making a backup is totally beyond me...

One thinks it should be possible to do both or either?

[xiamenese]

Why not set yourself a keyboard shortcut for "Back Up Now". Users with big projects would be utterly frustrated if they were in mid-writing-flow when the automatic back-up you propose kicked in, shutting them out of working while it did the job of backing up the whole project. From the menu or a shortcut you can do it when it's convenient for you!



Mark

[erk]

Users with big projects would be utterly frustrated if they were in mid-writing-flow when the automatic back-up you propose kicked in, shutting them out of working while it did the job of backing up the whole project.

Sorry about the confusion.

You need to understand how the shutdown function works to understand my suggestion. It, of course, shuts down after X minutes of inactivity. I lost that word in the post above.

My suggestion is an inactivity delay. Not backup after X minutes. Backup after X minutes of inactivity.

I.e. if you're working on the project, you're not inactive, ergo no backups.

And, there's a function for shutting the program down after inactivity. Which, if it happened after X minutes would be even worse. So the functionality is pretty much already there.

If I had this function I'd set the inactivity delay for 4 hours... which means backing up the project once every night (when I've been sleeping for several hours.)

Now I've set the program to backup (on shutdown I think) and to shut down after 4 hours of inactivity. It's about the same as an automatic backup but feels a bit awkward and backward.

[kewms]

Users with big projects would be utterly frustrated if they were in mid-writing-flow when the automatic back-up you propose kicked in, shutting them out of working while it did the job of backing up the whole project.

No.

Please read my post once more. Forget the other posts in this thread. I'm talking about an inactivity delay. Not backup after X minutes.

Backup after X minutes of inactivity.

If you're working on the project, you're not inactive. Are you? Ergo, never interrupted.

If I had this function I'd set the inactivity delay for 4 hours... which means backing up the project once every night (when I've been sleeping for several hours.)

Wait. What? You just complained that having a backup automatically run when the program quits is too intrusive because it requires shutting the program down, but then you propose an inactivity delay of *hours?* This scenario is *why* the autoquit command exists: as soon as you've shown by inactivity that you're well and truly done working, Scrivener quietly shuts down, runs a backup, and patiently waits for your return.

Katherine

[erk]

Mmmm confusion.

Yes, shutting the program down to get backups gets the job done.

But you lose undo history when doing that.

And I think it's a funny way to do it.

[devinganger]

Having the program stay open is just asking for syncing issues.

[pseingalt]

For those on MacOS there is an amazing back up function built in - TimeMachine. For Win there are apparently a number of decent free options though difficult to beat one baked into the OS as with Mac.

As previously stated, why duplicate options already out there that as a side benefit protect all your files, not just those from Scrivener.

And if you're up against Apple's stingy storage limits, Time Machine is useless. Maybe if you have a TB, 256 GB is useless.

[kewms]

And if you're up against Apple's stingy storage limits, Time Machine is useless. Maybe if you have a TB, 256 GB is useless.

Excuse me? You can buy whatever size external Time Machine drive you want, from any company you want. Mine is a 4 TB Seagate drive.

Katherine

[kewms]

Mmmm confusion.

Yes, shutting the program down to get backups gets the job done.

But you lose undo history when doing that.

And I think it's a funny way to do it.

YMMV, but I'm not using "Undo" to roll back hours of work anyway. If I haven't "undone" something within a matter of minutes, Scrivener's other options are much more likely to give useful results.

Katherine

[Silverdragon]

Perhaps the disagreement here is intended usage. The automatic quit function, if I am not mistaken, was developed to avoid the "project open on another machine" sync problem as @Devinganger suggests. The "backup after inactivity" that @erk suggests addresses a different one—the "leaving the project open for weeks results in no backups when something goes wrong" problem, which can happen whether or not one syncs. Automatic quit addresses the second case as a lesser included function, when Scrivener->Preferences->Backup "Automatic backup on project close" is enabled.

I must admit that having undo history intact in the morning is not a motivator for me. By morning, I have only the vaguest idea of what I did yesterday in what order, let alone whether I want to undo something. I have my Scrivener set to auto-quit after 2 hours, which I adjust according to syncing needs, but which ensures at least one daily backup. OTOH, if I'm not syncing it would be nice to have Scrivener stay open.

So, @erk, you have a way forward, but I can understand that if you really like to leave Scrivener open and sync is not something you do, the auto-quit function seems like overkill. Another possibility is to turn on the "backup with each manual save" option in Scrivener->Preferences->Backup but that involves remembering to hit command-s periodically (a non-starter for me, at least, unless I can figure a way to automate it. I haven't.)

Sometimes I get frustrated in the Wish List forum with people who seem to be telling me that I don't want a feature I want. Sometimes, yes, there's a function I didn't know about that does just what I want, but more often I want something different, as you do. The good news is that L&L do monitor the Wish List, and so your request has been noted (@kewms is L&L Tech Support.) Sometimes I get an answer of "no" in the forum, but the next time Scrivener's updated, my request had been implemented. Don't give up hope.