On 29/08/16 11:57, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
BRIEF VERSION: Is it possible to tell XMLmind to save backup files in a
particular folder?
Sorry but this is not possible.
If this is already possible, then this could be a
practical way to solve our problem, right now, (if we exclude the option
of disabling the file backup function).
LONGER VERSION:
Currently, backup files are just normal files, saved in the same
location, but with a tilde added to the file suffix:
|foo/bar.xml foo/bar.xml~ |
Some computer users, like the one I cooperate with the most, are tempted
to see the above two files as equal. Thus they tend to open, and edit,
the copy they stumble on first - which sometimes is the backup version.
Also, for Mac OSX, there are specific problems: while "foo.xml" might
display the XMLmind icon (to signify that it can be opened by XMLmind -
this depend on the user - or the application - setting up the file
assocation, of course), and the foo.xml~ files tend to show a different
“generic” file icon, on the Mac this does not help users as much as it
could due to the fact that the mac OSX version of XMLmind does not
support opening files via double clicking. Had it worked, then, of
course, a click on the non-backup-file would have opened in XMLmind,
whereas there probably would not be any application association for the
.xml~ file - and thus there would not only be getting visual feedback
but also behavioral feedback telling him/her which file to open. By
contrast, when users must use the file open dialog, the foo.xml~ files
open just as nicely as the foo.xml files. Another issue, with the open
file dialog is that it is probably easier to hit the wrong file - by
accident.
To minimize the problem, we could of course simply disable the
preference that causes XMLmind to, on each save, store a file backup of
the last version.
Yes. I would even say that this feature could be disabled by default.
May be we'll change this as users seem not to be used to deal with the
"~" backup files.
(In addition, we would have to delete the "foo.xml~"
from the computer.) But if you, the XMLmind, can look at it, here is
what you could do:
1. Fix double clicking on Mac - probably would eliminate many of the
problems - I’d say «go for this first», if you can.
2. Make XMLmind issue a warning to the user saying "you are now opening
a backup copy - are you certain you meant to do that?"
3. Save backup files in specific folder(s) so that they are less easily
taken for the original file. (There are various options - it could
be in a sub folder of the edited file’s «current» folder or it could
be in a folder together with the XMLmind preferences.)
I'm sorry but this backup file is deemed to work sufficiently well, so
we no not plan to change it in the near future (aside disabling the
feature by default).
We know that double-clicking a .xml file should open it in XXE
(depending on the settings of the Mac, of course) and that this
currently does not work. We'll try to find out why and try to fix this
bug (one more time, because we already tried but failed to fix this issue.)
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