lalala3 wrote:

Tierage27 wrote:

I don't get why there can't be a button to toggle auto-save. Or, maybe there could be backups along with the auto-saves.

I think there should be both, by making an option with three settings: Don't autosave, rename autosaved file (default), and replace original file.

Is there anything wrong with giving people options in life?

When you follow that design philosophy very far, you soon end up with really ugly complex impossible to understand software. For example - Calibre is an ebook management software tool I use that has 9,000,000 options. And it's a huge pain to use or figure out how to do anything simple.

The more options a piece of software gives you, the longer it takes to learn / understand how to use them all. That means things get complicated for new users really fast.

lalala3 wrote:

Tierage27 wrote:

I don't get why there can't be a button to toggle auto-save. Or, maybe there could be backups along with the auto-saves.

I think there should be both, by making an option with three settings: Don't autosave, rename autosaved file (default), and replace original file.

Is there anything wrong with giving people options in life?

right. just because some people don't know how to save doesn't mean we should make it difficult for those who do. i think best-of-both-worlds is a very good idea here. it's just as bad as losing your progress because you forgot to save when your project auto-saves itself in a broken state.

also it becomes extraordinarily distracting when my project saves itself every 2 minutes. my project is so big it takes 10 seconds to save, so it's a problem. imagine if you're writing a paper and every 2 minutes a popup appears and you have to stop typing right in the middle of a sentence.

since we were able to compromise on the bitmap/vector thing, i see no reason not to compromise here. after all, the goal is to be user-friendly, so it follows that we should be friendly to both people who are and aren't accustomed to saving.

nXIII wrote:

What would be useful for me is to be able to declare a certain version of a project as the shared version and continue working on that project without further changes being shared.

This would be very nice!

Lightnin wrote:

lalala3 wrote:

Tierage27 wrote:

I don't get why there can't be a button to toggle auto-save. Or, maybe there could be backups along with the auto-saves.

I think there should be both, by making an option with three settings: Don't autosave, rename autosaved file (default), and replace original file.

Is there anything wrong with giving people options in life?

When you follow that design philosophy very far, you soon end up with really ugly complex impossible to understand software. For example - Calibre is an ebook management software tool I use that has 9,000,000 options. And it's a huge pain to use or figure out how to do anything simple.

The more options a piece of software gives you, the longer it takes to learn / understand how to use them all. That means things get complicated for new users really fast.

i don't think it's a huge problem. users can tell the difference between “save automatically” or “save manually”. besides id really hate to have to mod scratch 2.0 in order to make it quit saving all the time, that would be pretty pitiful to be bluntly honest. i respect all the work you guys have put in this, and all the ideas you've accepted (like the bitmap editor), but this auto-saving is actually a pretty big nuisance.

the main issues with auto-saving are:

• interrupts flow of programming by saving every 2 minutes. this is a problem when the project is large and takes >10 seconds to save.
  
  
• potential to destroy a project through casual script-editing that was saved (has happened to me several times despite being aware of auto-saving)
  
  

i have several solutions

• make auto-saving optional
  
  
• make auto-saving happen behind-the-scenes such that it does not interrupt programming
  
  
• if you are not willing to commit these edits to the online editor, perhaps the downloadable version of 2.0 could be manual-save?
  

+1!!!!! Or make it like MS Word (auto-save, but it doesn't overwrite your old file. Just makes a backup).

Lightnin wrote:

lalala3 wrote:

Tierage27 wrote:

I don't get why there can't be a button to toggle auto-save. Or, maybe there could be backups along with the auto-saves.

I think there should be both, by making an option with three settings: Don't autosave, rename autosaved file (default), and replace original file.

Is there anything wrong with giving people options in life?

When you follow that design philosophy very far, you soon end up with really ugly complex impossible to understand software. For example - Calibre is an ebook management software tool I use that has 9,000,000 options. And it's a huge pain to use or figure out how to do anything simple.

The more options a piece of software gives you, the longer it takes to learn / understand how to use them all. That means things get complicated for new users really fast.

I don't mean anywhere near that extreme. I'm talking about basic, fundamental options here. Like this one, of auto-saving.

Lightnin wrote:

Yep, this is a weakness in our current implementation in that we autosave, but don't provide a list of “versions” in case you want to revert to a previous save.

However - autosave has a lot of advantages for new users, so as a strategy I think it is sound. After all, the real world is “autosave.” If you rearrange a stack of blocks, you don't need to hit save - they're just there.

Once we add a revision list, it should solve most of the problems you guys are experiencing. That is - if you tinker around and don't want to keep your changes, it should be easy to revert.

It'll take more technical users more time to get used to (because we're used to saving). But of course our main goal is to support non-technical users.

It would also be helpful to have an undo button

I HATE AUTO SAVE! when you have accidentally made ​​a mistake you can start over but it AutoSaver to save it!
quite a pain! but hope scratch remove it!

thepowerstudios wrote:

I HATE AUTO SAVE! when you have accidentally made ​​a mistake you can start over but it AutoSaver to save it!
quite a pain! but hope scratch remove it!

Yeah.

What about google docs, with an undo/redo button, and you can restore every version.

i hate to mention roblox here but. it does not autosave but makes a list of every save so that you can fix whatever broke the same could be applied to autosaves

joletole wrote:

I don't like it either, for the same reason as Wes64. I was playing around with some high scores and threw away a script that I thought was the thing causing the problem. But, that script had no impact, and it also messed up another thing. So now, I have two problems that I can't fix and it is really annoying.

In Edit you can use the Undelete function.

nXIII wrote:

What would be useful for me is to be able to declare a certain version of a project as the shared version and continue working on that project without further changes being shared.

Just make a copy of the project and replace the old one later. You can always removed a project if it doesn't replace correctly.

botcrusher wrote:

i hate to mention roblox here but. it does not autosave but makes a list of every save so that you can fix whatever broke the same could be applied to autosaves

It's fine to mention that! In fact - can you post a screenshot of the roblox list of saves? We're interested in thinking about good ways of managing versions - and other examples will help with that. The more detail on how this works (well) in other places, the better!

Lightnin wrote:

botcrusher wrote:

i hate to mention roblox here but. it does not autosave but makes a list of every save so that you can fix whatever broke the same could be applied to autosaves

It's fine to mention that! In fact - can you post a screenshot of the roblox list of saves? We're interested in thinking about good ways of managing versions - and other examples will help with that. The more detail on how this works (well) in other places, the better!

sure!
if my account is still active

bingo!

it includes every uploaded version and every save using the online editor

Wes64 wrote:

i was looking around in my game for the source of some bug. i took apart a bunch of scripts and edited some lists, thinking no harm would be done. but the project saved itself without my permission, causing my edits to be permanent. this is an awful feature and it should be removed. projects should only save when you want them to.

I agree, especially if your project is shared. If you're editing it, the edits shouldn't be public. I think auto-save should just save for you, and then maybe clicking another button uploads your changes to the shared project.

randomgamemaker wrote:

Wes64 wrote:

i was looking around in my game for the source of some bug. i took apart a bunch of scripts and edited some lists, thinking no harm would be done. but the project saved itself without my permission, causing my edits to be permanent. this is an awful feature and it should be removed. projects should only save when you want them to.

I agree, especially if your project is shared. If you're editing it, the edits shouldn't be public. I think auto-save should just save for you, and then maybe clicking another button uploads your changes to the shared project.

Ingenious!

I really think this should be optional, cuz I see what you mean, but we will probably have a revision list

funelephant wrote:

I really think this should be optional, cuz I see what you mean, but we will probably have a revision list

I know, how about both (for the gajillionth time)? Is there a problem with that?

Sometimes the autosave places variables in the default position on screen. This is very annoying for those who want to show variables in specific places…