Feature Request: Auto Save

[jake2k]

Is there anyway we can have an autosave feature? Something that you can turn on and will automatically save after a certein amount of time has passed. Maybe even have it so we can select the amount of time in between each save. I ask because I'm not so good at saving while making something and then if I spend an hour or so on a project and pdn crashes i'm screwed. Thanks

[FrEaK]

Is there anyway we can have an autosave feature? Something that you can turn on and will automatically save after a certein amount of time has passed. Maybe even have it so we can select the amount of time in between each save. I ask because I'm not so good at saving while making something and then if I spend an hour or so on a project and pdn crashes i'm screwed. Thanks

this just happened to you didn't it?

[jake2k]

haha, yeah for like the third time. you'd think i would have learned my lesson by now

[usedHONDA]

It happened to me a couple of times. File recovery is one of the greatest features of Microsoft Office Pro.

[Helio]

One of the first things I do when I start liking a project that I'm working on is save it. Then I continually save after various changes I make to it. If I think that I may want to go back to a previous step, I just start saving it as something similar (e.g. water, water1.) I Don't know if this helped, it's sorta something you have to put to habit. :wink:

[Rick Brewster]

Err, don't forget to send in the crash log.

[jake2k]

soooo, does anyone think this would be possible

[Picc84]

I think it could be done, possibility is not the question hear, the question here my young one, is "WWRD"?

[Rainshadow]

Some programs I've used (for example Microsoft Publisher)will have a timer, and when it hits the certain time it will say "Its time to save your work"and you can save it. (you can adjust the timer) Would that be to hard to program?

[Bob]

PdN intented to be as less configurable as possible, by design (well, when I joined).

So I would say it might be a bad idea, because it can be very annoying (people is already complaining that PdN's save process is too long).

[jake2k]

Well maybe it could be made so that you could enable it only if you want it.

[Bob]

PdN intented to be as less configurable as possible, by design (well, when I joined).

Yet another config dialog?

[Rick Brewster]

Some programs I've used (for example Microsoft Publisher)will have a timer, and when it hits the certain time it will say "Its time to save your work"and you can save it. (you can adjust the timer) Would that be to hard to program?

There are already timer programs out there that you can set up to do this. I don't see value in Paint.NET implementing this type of "babysitter" feature.

You can also just get into the habit of pressing Ctrl+S (Save) every once in awhile. I end up hitting Ctrl+S all the time when editing documents, and programs like OneNote leave me a little uncomfortable sometimes because they don't have a Save command. (I like OneNote though -- I've acclimated to that difference)

[Mr Frojo]

I think this would be a cool new edition. My computer sucks, and freezes sometimes. Whenever i'm in pdn, I ussualy have 5-10 seperate things open. The timer thing seems kind of useless. I used to do something like that with a different program, but sometimes in pdn im just on a roll and dont feel like stopping to save.

[Rick Brewster]

The problem with Save is that it is a modal operation. To put this in terms that are relevant to the end-user (that's you!), this means that while a save operation is in progress, you cannot do anything else. At all. I can't let you change the image while I'm saving it. No ifs, ands, or buts.

So let's say it takes 10 seconds to save your image, which is not too far fetched on a middle-of-the-road system working with a multiple layer 1024x768 or even 640x480 image. If I have an autosave feature that fires every 5 minutes, it gets very annoying to have it pop up while you're in the middle of drawing so it can save (even if the "pop up" is just the mouse cursor changing to the hourglass). Or, of course, you make it more intelligent so that it waits until you aren't in the middle of doing something -- even then, it doesn't prevent you from deciding to do something in the middle of it saving, and you have to sit and wait and wait for it to finish.

Compare this to when you invoke the Save command yourself: you are also preparing yourself to wait for it to complete. You think, "Ok I'm going to save my image. I know it might take a few seconds, so while it's saving I'll amuse myself with the super awesome progress bar animation. Or maybe I'll think about puppies. They are cute. Oh cool, it is done." You haven't made those types of short-term preparations with an automatically invoked save operation.

Now, this is actually partially an artifact of the way the data layer in Paint.NET currently works. There is a lot of work I want to do on the data layer for a future version that would incidentally enable me to do a save operation while still allowing you to continue editing the image. But remember, when I say "a lot of work", that also means "a very long time from now."

There's also error handling. Some of the codecs require large amounts of memory allocation to do their job, and this is a very error prone operation ("no more memory? you = crash!"). It's just not cool if you're using Paint.NET and then 5 minutes later it decides to save and then crash ... and you didn't even touch it! If it crashed halfway through a disk write operation, your image is now hosed. This can of course be mitigated in several ways (e.g., save to a temp file first, then swap the temp and real files ... suppress errors during auto-save operations ... etc) but it is still an obstacle.

I'm going to go ahead and put this in the Popular Feature Requests thread.

[jake2k]

Thanks for all the info Rick!

There are already timer programs out there that you can set up to do this.

Would you be able to recommend one of those?

[Rick Brewster]

No. I'm mostly assuming based on the fact that it would take about 1 minute to write one in C# or Visual Basic using WinForms. Just use a search engine I guess.

[paint.net/ROCKS]

I don't see the use. I mean, either get used to saving, or live with it. Paint.NET DOES ask you if you wanrt to save after editing an image.

In MS Word if the program closes unsubspectedly, it has recovery files. IE 8 also does this but instead of having recovery files it remembers the pages open so next time you can go back to those pages. :AllColorChannels:

[Leif]

I don't see the use. I mean, either get used to saving, or live with it. Paint.NET DOES ask you if you wanrt to save after editing an image.

In MS Word if the program closes unsubspectedly, it has recovery files. IE 8 also does this but instead of having recovery files it remembers the pages open so next time you can go back to those pages. :AllColorChannels:

Please don’t bump old treads. (It is in the rules, you know.) And for this feature it is in the “Most popular requests” viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3455

[Ash]

^ what Leif said.