Is the Save Button Obsolete? 188
Luther Blissett asks: "I've wondered this for awhile now: why do we still have a Save button? Why isn't it always automatic? Why isn't 'Save As' called 'Name and File'? I understand that in ancient history, when Save was a hit on system resources (e.g. when saving to your 5.25 inch floppy disk), we might give control to the user. Also, the average user then was probably more technically adept (out of necessity) and knew the difference between RAM and storage. But now? Why?"
Marginal Cases (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
Shades of VAX/VMS with foo.txt;1 foo.txt;2 foo.txt;3 ... foo.txt;954
Make it stop!
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
I remember when it took three of us to lift a 10 Mb hard disk drive. (But, man! the geek factor of a CDC hawk in one's bedroom in one's parent's house was enormous).
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
But watching the VMS newbs do it one ... file ... at ... a ... time was always fun (much more fun than using EDT on other than a VT52 or VT100) until we put them out of their misery.
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:3, Insightful)
The version tree just isn't very useful if it includes 900 slightly different versions of the same document. Which one do I want? Let's see, it was about 10:00 when I started doing dumb stuff so I guess I want version 845 then, it was from about that time...
I could label my versions explicitly, but then how would this be better than a save button?
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
Since other comments in this thread have made me reminicent of my own VMS days, I'll use that command set. In that OS, you can always issue:
$ DIR /DATE
Pick one from before 10:00. Run with it. Lord knows the versioning on VMS has saved my ass more than a few times...
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
I'm sure that e. e. cummings [utoronto.ca] ("paragraph? what's a paragraph?") wouldn't have liked that "feature"...
Eric
View your HTTP headers here [ericgiguere.com]
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
I agree with you. It ain't broke.
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
To answer the origional (stupid) question: Why do we have a "Save" button? Because users want that function and that's the name under which they expect to find it. Same with "Save As". Nothing about their existence prevents autosave from being implemented, but there's
Re:Marginal Cases (Score:2)
version tree == undo tree (Score:4, Insightful)
This has the advantage that a quit or crash and restart from a temporary change will allow you to back out the change. It also works for large datasets, because you aren't continually saving the whole thing, only journalling the changes.
Re:version tree == undo tree (Score:2)
There are situations where this couldn't be used, where unpredictable and non-replayable external input matters. Example, network packet logger. But most "document" based programs work fine.
since day one (Score:5, Insightful)
Since day one, "SAVE" has been obsolete along with a myriad of abstractions offered end users (what the heck is the notion of a "FILE" menu anyway? -- What the heck is the notion of "FILE"? I know I've read every beginner's book about getting familiar with computers, and they always go into excruciatingly dull detail about the file abstraction (it's a collection of bytes the comprise a document, blah, blah, blah.)). Users don't care what a file is, they don't want to know what a file is, they just want to do work.
(I will admit caution when absolving users of any responsibility to learn, but generally speaking, end users have enough on their plate without having to incorporate geek-speak to do their work.)
I was in a design meeting one day discussing the appropriateness of the "FILE" menu for the application we were delivering. One of the anointed Golden Boys of the team had sketched the layout and included the "FILE" menu. I asked why we needed it, there was NO notion of "FILE" in our application, there was no notion of "SAVE FILE", etc. in our application.
He said, "cuz they expect it, it's a standard menu." I said, "standard cuz they expect it, or standard cuz it's always been there?" I finally gave up on the chicken and egg discussion, let it be resolved the end users "expect" "FILE" (NOT!).
That said, I could (and may) go through the menu selections in virtually any application and find half of the "options" are abstractions that have bubbled up either historically, or were just never "translated" for end userdom. It's a mess, and it's a presentation piece of software I am constantly explaining, and apologizing for.
It's toothpaste out of the tube, I wish it could go back in. But, it's a great lesson in humility when you actually take a lay-step back and actually try to interpret what we see as normal-speak on a daily basis. It isn't normal, and it isn't transparent.
Short answer to the poster's question: yes
Most of the crap we throw the users' way is artifact crap that never went away. (Does anyone know or remember the story about cutting away 1/3 or the Thanksgiving Ham when preparing it for Thanksgiving Dinner?)
Re:since day one (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that saving a change history along with the document itself can be problematic for various reasons, from the simple fact that you're bloating the file to the fact that you may expose information inadvertently if anyone care to look at the change history. As many Microsoft Word users have discovered to their chagrin.
Eric
My Squidoo page [squidoo.com]
Re:since day one (Score:2)
Re:since day one (Score:2)
Eric
The Invisible Fence Guide [ericgiguere.com] (features my dogs!)
Re:since day one (Score:2)
Re:since day one (Score:2)
Re:since day one (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want my save button taken away, because that's something I'd like to have control over. It's easier f
Re:since day one (Score:2)
Re:since day one (Score:3, Informative)
As an added benefit of making that change, one could move the "standard" Tools->Options into Application->Options (or Preferences) and stick it next to the typical Print, Printer Setup, Page Setup menu items.
Re:since day one (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason things like "Print" aren't under the application menu is because you can have multiple files open at once. It relates to the current file only. The same goes for "Save." I don't want to save every file I have open.
The apple icon menu is for OS-specific items (about mac/system preferences/shutdown/logout).
You're using a computer (Score:5, Insightful)
If you do away with the concept of 'files', the operating system then has to handle every possible type of document. You wouldn't have had the MP3 revolution because there would be no such thing as an 'MP3' since the OS didn't support it. You also wouldn't be able to organize data in directories, like having all of a game's data in one directory. Grand Theft Auto would have it's application wherever applications are, sounds wherever sounds are kept, textures wherever pictures are kept, movies wherever they are kept, settings files wherever they are kept, and their proprietary data files wherever they are kept, if the OS even allows it because it knows the type of file and where it should go. Then you could be scanning your pictures one day and see a texture not knowing what it is and delete it, then you can't play the game anymore.
And how exactly is 'save' obsolete? How often are you going to write the file to the disk? Every 10 minutes? Every 1 minute? Every keystroke? I would argue that having a 'save' button or menu item is the best way to handle this. If they close down the application with a modified document, the application can warn them as most applications do. Good luck saving a big spreadsheet every keystroke with OO when a save can take minutes. I don't think you'd get much work done. What if you want to just play around? Do you want to have to create a copy of the 'document' before opening it if you want to make changes you may not want to keep? It's also inefficient to save every keystroke when you may be making a lot of changes before saving.
The notion of a 'FILE' menu is there because applications work with FILES. If you have an application that doesn't work with FILES then don't use a file menu.
You are completely wrong ... (Score:2)
You would have a "spreadsheet", a "letter", etc.
The "all files should be known to the OS" thing is BS, that's what plugins, kparts/automation-servers are for. MP3 never meant jacksh*t to linux; but inside KDE, you click on one of those, and voila, noatun is loaded with it.
Re:You're using a computer (Score:2)
...unless you add a label like "Grand Theft Auto" to all of the objects comprising it, then search for "Grand Theft Auto" to see all of them. Of course, I just re-invented directories, so that seems kind of pointless. Possible, still, nonetheless.
How often are you going to write the file to the disk? Every 10 minutes?
Re:You're using a computer (Score:2)
The concept of 'files' is just an abstraction of the reality of your hard-disk which is a couple chains of linked lists of sectors, we can access it at an extremely low levels that disregards any data on it such as dd -if/dev/hda -of/dev/hdb or we can pile tons of metadata in it so we can see things like thumbnails in our filemanagers. Take a look at libFerris [sourceforge.net], they working on some very intere
Re: The End of the File As We Know It (Score:2)
Yes, that's great!
And we can call the "discrete little packages", uh, we can call them, uh, I know, "files"!
And the "larger, concrete objects" can be called "directories"!
What a revolutionary concept!
On a more serious note, a
Re:since day one (Score:5, Funny)
What the heck is the notion of a "Steering wheel" anyway? what the heck is the notion of "STEERING"? I've read the owner's manual for my car, but it's just excruciatingly dull detail about why I need to learn how to use the "pedals" and "brakes", blah, blah, blah. Drivers don't care what a steering wheel is, or how the brakes work, they have enough on their plate without having to incorporate gearhead-speak to get where they want to go.
Why do people have to learn how to use a tool? Why can't the tool just be designed so that it can guess exactly what the user wants, and just do it? It all seems so needlessly complicated.
Re:since day one (Score:4, Interesting)
On a car, you need a clunky H-gate gear lever a foot long, with a complicated and expensive synchomesh mechanism, or an even more complex and expensive automatic gearbox - all to work around the bad gear shift induced by spinning the input shaft at engine speed. On a bike, there's a slow-spinning gearbox that consequently needs no synchromesh and can be fed by a wet multiplate clutch light enough to be lifted with the fingers of the left hand. Only in the past few years have car manufactures finally invented expensive mechanisms to reproduce the "sequential shift" that bikes have had since the 20's
So yes, a steering wheel on a bike is exactly what the original author raised as the issue with the Save command - it's an ugly and inefficient way of doing things, dictated by the design constraints of the a bad design back in the last century.
Re:since day one (Score:2)
The Save button ascribes blame (Score:2)
Not many good reasons I can think of... (Score:2)
The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
Save and files are not, in any way, obsolete. Not everybody in the world uses their computers exclusively for writing code or letters to Mom.
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
Who do you think you are -- Gmail?
Re:A good point, sortof (Score:2)
Sometimes closing and re-opening is the best shot until you can figure out where you are.
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
What I end up with are directories for an image where I have "filename-1","
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
Thanks!
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:3, Interesting)
When talking with my users, I have even referred to closing a document without saving it as a "high level undo". If you completely trash something, just don't save it and start over from the good saved copy. Autosave might deprive you of a good saved copy.
Re:The save button is about as obsolete as Undo (Score:2)
I have even referred to closing a document without saving it as a "high level undo".
Heh. I did this yesterday, when I realised I was editing the wrong template and had deleted swathes of information that needed to be in the template I was actually in rather than the one I had thought I was in. quit without saving, no harm, no foul.
I need a save button... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I need a save button... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. You create your document "Great Novel".
2. You edit your novel.
3. You shut off your computer.
4. You turn on your computer.
5. You open up "Great Novel" and it takes you where you left off.
6. After editing for three hours, you decide that you really don't want to kill of your hero, so you ask for the document to be rolled back by 50 minutes.
7. You start editing from that point, which automagically creates a document branch.
8. After twenty minutes, you like what you have, and decide to label the version on this branch "best version".
9. You later decide to go back to your abandoned branch, and label it "hero dies".
10. Over the course of months, your version tree becomes extremely bushy. However at any time you can ask for the most recent "best version" or see a history of all versions in which "hero dies".
If I had to say there was a suite of capabilties missing from most applications, it is a comprehensive but easy to use set of logging, versioning and branching capabilities.
Re:I need a save button... (Score:3, Insightful)
Users grok save at a basic level. Throw what, 2000 branches at them and they are likely to flip. How would automagic know that changing my font was a BS change and not worth branching and changing my character's name was a big deal?
Isn't this a solution in search of a problem?
Until you only need _some_ changes (Score:2)
Re:I need a save button... (Score:2)
OpenOffice's new fileformat opendoc is xml based so integrating with cvs should be fairly easy (hint, hint any openoffice folks)
Re:I need a save button... (Score:2)
THen I go back to work, use windows and cuss.
Re:I need a save button... (Score:2)
Instead of saving to a new location AFTER you made your changes, you could also enter a new filename BEFORE you make your changes if your 'Save As' were called 'Name and File'.
It is just a matter of what we are used to, I guess.
And a good undo/versioning function is about the only thing that would allow you to catch mistakes that can happen in either system (e.g. hitting "save" instead of "save as" with the current scheme or forgetting to rename the file
Because some user like it that way (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, I could have wildly misunderstood the question - wouldn't be the first time.
Re:Because some user like it that way (Score:2)
Often as not, I decide to stick with the original (at least for now). This is so much easier when the software doesn't "helpfully" autosave and force me to wade through levels of undo: Lessee
save still a hit on system resources (Score:4, Insightful)
Photoshop files -- they get quite large, after all;
Flash source files -- they get quite large, after all;
Premiere and other video/DVD editing software -- the biggest files of all;
Reason/Sonar (music) files -- they get large, and they also negatively impact system performance when you're playing back complex compositions in real time.
It's even worse if I'm saving to a network share.
So, that may be the case for large files, but what about text files?
Well, I'm a web developer by trade, and when I'm troubleshooting broken code, I often use this convenient and pain-free system to narrow down the bug location:
Step one: cut a chunk of code out of my source document;
Step two: save the file (without the chunk of code);
Step three: paste the chunk of code back into the source document;
Step four: refresh the browser to see if the bug is still present;
Step five: save the file (with the chunk of code restored).
Automatic saves would interfere with what I find to be a very convenient workflow.
Re:save still a hit on system resources (Score:2)
It's obvious... (Score:3, Funny)
And don't even get me started on the obviously Freudian "Cut" and "Paste".
Re:It's obvious... (Score:5, Funny)
The day of the contest comes, and both Jesus and Satan begin working as quickly as they can. Hours pass, with both of them creating many spreadsheets, documents and databases. About 5 minutes before the contest ends, all of the power goes off, then comes back on after a few seconds.
Satan starts cursing at the computer, and how he just lost everything he had been working on. Jesus calmly just restarts the computer, and finishes what he was working on. Satan sees this, and starts complaining to God about how Jesus must be cheating.
God replies to Satan, "Jesus saves".
Re:It's obvious... (Score:2)
Re:It's obvious... (Score:2)
Re:It's obvious... (Score:2)
Ever used MS Office? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, as far as the auto save feature goes, I don't want it to. Ever opened a MS Office file (doc, ppt, xls, etc), go to close it without touching a single thing, and it asks you to save? Not to mention that when you work with baselined documents, if they ever change it has to be sent off for approval, resubmitted to higher ups, etc. If the modified date shows anything other than the baselined date, ruh roh. No thanks on the auto save.
Our save button doesnt do anything (Score:2)
I dont really like this feature, I'd prefer the save button do
Actually, our save button does do one thing: it disabled itself after being clicked until something else changes. I argue against that because I feel I sh
Re:Our save button doesnt do anything (Score:2)
Re:Our save button doesnt do anything (Score:2)
Re:Our save button doesnt do anything (Score:2)
As opposed to what? (Score:3, Interesting)
There still is a difference between RAM and storage and there's no indication that that will change any time soon. A Save button gives us the control that we still need. In a word processor, for example, a quick typer could generate as many as 15 or more individual changes to the document per second. Yes, you could save at predefined intervals, but that number would need to be tweaked depending on the software and hardware situation. There's no one save interval that would fit all needs.
There is another possible reason for the save button to exist... occasionally there are situations where I want to open a document and even possibly modify it but not save it. Rare, I know, but automatic saving would be a drawback in this case.
In the end, removing the Save button from applications would only introduce more problems than it would cure. In an ideal world, I can see where it would work (Apple would be the first to do it), but with today's hardware, software, and users as error-prone as they are, it's much better to just leave it there.
Re:As opposed to what? (Score:2)
Re:As opposed to what? (Score:2)
The other difference is that you normally apply a handful (two, three, four) of operati
3 easy reasons... (Score:2)
2. Lots of people (photographers, lawyers, accountants, etc.) might want to share their work without sharing all the steps that went into creating that work.
3. Lots of people might see a need to share data using something with limited bandwidth/storage.
Are you always perfect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, I could Undo back to the previous state, but I've seen so many programs with broken or unreliable Undo that I simply could never trust that. Or what if the editor crashed before I could Undo?
The only way you can do away with user-directed saving is with some sort of automatic versioning system. But then, how often do you version? Whenever a single byte of information changes? Less often? How do you determine it?
What a pain in the ass. I'll keep my Save function, thanks.
Undo also has problems (Score:2)
I'm not sure what the best way of implementing an improved "Undo" function would be. Perhaps "Undo" would just use strikeout and redlining to show what it is about
Re:Undo also has problems (Score:2)
Re:Are you always perfect? (Score:2)
Dial the Phone (Score:2)
The reason (Score:2)
Continuous save vs. templates and temporary change (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to make a new document based on your old one (maybe it'll use a similar structure or something). You open it up, make some changes, then save it as a new file, leaving the old one unchanged.
With continuous save (by which I don't mean the auto-save that current apps like MS Office do, where it saves to a temp file), you have to hit "Save as..." or the new-paradigm equivalent immediately, or else your old document is going to end up looking just like the new one. This is only really a problem during the transition phase, while people get used to the new procedure, and it's arguable that it's better in the long run, since as things stand right now you can easily forget that you haven't already branched a new file and save over the old one.
Then there's the issue where you load something and want to make a temporary change, say, for printing or in prep for a screencap or copying and pasting into another app. Or you start typing in the wrong window. If the document is saved continuously, not only do you have to undo the changes before you close the application, but you end up changing the file modification date. Maybe it's not critical for the data, but if you're sorting by when you changed something...
already being phased out (Score:2)
many RAW image editing apps also do not have a save function for the simple reason that all RAW manipulations are nondestructive, and thus, nothing is potentially lost by saving every step along the way.
Another consideration (Score:2)
Part of the recommended practices for CE (Score:2)
Easy. (Score:2)
Atomicity (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's not. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that "saving" is quite the high-level abstraction you're making it out to be, and it's shorter than saying "write contents to permanent storage". I don't see the concept of files going away any time soon, and as long as we have them, users will need to write to them.
In your defense, I don't think that using unsaved files as a convenient "undo buffer", as mentioned here by others, adds functionality that a good bookmarking system couldn't achieve (albeit with much greater overhead and fragility).
coyotes (Score:2)
Do you have idea what the big holdup is?
Re:coyotes (Score:2)
Actually, you probably know as much about it as I do. I randomly checked up on it ever few months or so, and only recently noticed the name and/or control change. I hope it turns into something, because I'd like to see a genuinely new approach to computing take off.
Re:coyotes (Score:2)
Why does memory != disk yet? (Score:2)
Mostly, 'save' just pushes things from fast but volatile memory onto safer but slower disk storage. IMO, the bigger and more interesting question is why we haven't yet got a single storage solution that can be used both as efficient temporary non-volatile swap space, making RAM obsolete, and still be used for permanent storage, replacing hard drives.
Stability.
Going off on a tangent a little, I've often wondered why executable code and data are still put in the same memory address space. W
Re:Why does memory != disk yet? (Score:2)
Well the reason is because we don't have the technology to produce infinitely fast high capacity storage. Right now (while holding cost constant) for linear increases in storage speed we can experience exponential drop offs in capacity. So to resolve that we
Re:Why does memory != disk yet? (Score:2)
I've long thought that we should do away with the conceptual separation between RAM and disk or other mass storage. We've already come a long way.. the average person has no need to think about cpu registers, or the cache, or even RAM to some extent with the use of swap files. We need to go all the way and just make it all one huge seamless memory space, where each l
maybe 'Save a copy with name...' (Score:2)
'Name and File' seems pretty ambiguous to me. I prefer something like 'Save copy as...' or the title of the post, 'Save a copy with name...'
We have the screen real estate to be a little more generous with our names :)
Undo Sucks That's Why (Score:2)
no, users want control over data persistence (Score:2)
Operation systems commonly use the "file cabinet" metaphor for persistent data storage and I personally think that if "File" were used as both a verb and a noun, that would be more confusing than staying with the "Save" verb.
The user of a software application is typically doing work with some sort of data model. They usually expect the data in the model t
Save button? Where? (Score:2)
No its not obsolete... (Score:2)
The OS is file based, even if the file system (note name) is database driven or a plain journaled file system, its files. Even unix is entirely made up of files pointing at files!
Soon as the user knows what a file is, its easier for them to know about backups, copying files or working on files. Even in school the first thing they teach you is how to save your work, and revisions of your work per FILE.
A question li
Many times, you don't WANT to save (Score:2)
copy paste view (Score:2)
I copy part of a file to a notepad window. I have no intention of saving this data, but want to view it in notepad and not vi. Maybe I'm going to use notepads find / replace, because I find it easier than vi ( personal opinion ), or for some other reason. Why they hell would I want notepad to just save this data without me telling it to?
PDA's do what you ask already and so do phones. It is a case by
Constant saving would kill versioning (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, sometimes I want to make a test change, but not keep it.
Sometimes I want to revert back to the original, but some programs have very limited undo (excel, older photoshops)
Sometimes when I'm just writing something very temporary, like a fax cover page, I NEVER want to save it.
Is posting this to
Save obsolete? NEVER! (Score:3, Interesting)
Thesis in OOo. (Score:2)
Pentium 4 3GHZ, 1GB RAM.
Over a minute to load/save. During saves system slows down to a crawl, what you type appears some 10 seconds later. You just have to wait through.
Thank you, I'd better decide when to save by myself. Give the systems another 10 years of Moore's law and we can talk about removing 'save' again.
Is having a clue obsolete? (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of stuff like the Save button (Score:2)