Rack: Opening a patch with file association deletes autosave patch with no warning

[jonheal]

This one has bit me many times.

The autosave is great, but misleading. When I open Rack, the previous project I was working on appears to open as its name appears in the title bar. I make changes and quit. Later, I reopen, and sure enough, the most recent changes are there, intact.

However, if I create a new rack with the New menu command, work for a while, and then at some point decide to open my previous project, when I do so, I find none of my recent changes to that project are there (unless I explicitly invoked the Save menu command). The autosave function has, at worse, mislead me to believe I was automatically writing changes to my file when I was actually writing changes to the autosave file, or at best, made me complacent.

I suggest one of two things, ether:

1. Merge the autosave.vcv file with the file I am working on at application end, or;
2. Change the new file dialog to a "save as ..." dialog.

[AndrewBelt]

Would a more descriptive "Are you sure you want to start a new patch?" dialog fix it? And/or a "Are you sure you want to overwrite the current patch?" when opening a patch?

I think that it's fairly intuitive that an explicit save is required before starting a new patch or opening it. Just like Microsoft Word (or really any other document-based software), you need to save before clearing or opening another document, while the current memory holds the current state. The only difference between that and Rack is closing and reopening behavior.

I'll wait for others' :+1:'s on this issue and come back to it later.

[jonheal]

The difference with Word, in particular, is that creating a new document does not close/overwrite your current unsaved document, it invokes another instance of Word.

Yes, changing the wording of the dialog could help. I would also add "You will lose unsaved changes." Also, maybe do like Reason does, and put an asterisk after the file name in the title bar if it includes unsaved changes.

[AndrewBelt]

Okay, maybe Ableton Live or REAPER is a better example.

Right now it's impossible to know whether a patch has been changed, so can't use an "*" until #153

[jonheal]

Or can invoking the New file command while an existing, previously saved project is open, also make a call the Save function in the background to save changes to the existing file?

[AndrewBelt]

make a call the Save function in the background to save changes to the existing file

No, most of the time you don't want to do that. That would be ridiculous behavior.

[jonheal]

Well, I would. But you're the boss. I will adapt to your way of thinking on this and try to get in the habit of explicitly saving more often.

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Jon Heal
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On Feb 28, 2018, at 7:02 AM, Andrew Belt [e-mail] wrote:

make a call the Save function in the background to save changes to the existing file

No, most of the time you don't want to do that.

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[DomiKamu]

Multiple module deletions (while Del/Backspace is held, and mouse cursor flies over modules) while autosaving - either stable 0.5.1 or 0.6.0dev - may cause "memory segmentation" issues (and crashes), reported into console. Experimented with Core, Fundamental and Befaco modules, also some third party modules such Blamsoft XFX, VCV Console/PM, Vult... IMHO an option (like "Prefs" feature) to enable/disable autosaving, may be an idea?

[AndrewBelt]

@DomiKamu That's 1 bug and 1 feature request. The feature request has #565 as a dependency

[ZwergNaseXXL]

Was as well bitten by autosave as @jonheal describes. My suggestion:

• Keep autosaving as is, no matter if working on a new/unnamed/unsaved rack or on a named/saved one.
• Whenever starting a new rack or closing the app or loading a saved rack and the current patch wasn't saved, prompt users if they want to save their work. When they answer no, just continue with the requested operation. When they answer yes, in case of unnamed work display the "save as..." dialog, in case of named work just save to that file.

I think a "do you want to save" box is more useful than a "are you sure you want to start over" box, which also covers only one of the cases where work might be lost.

[AndrewBelt]

I'm not a fan of launching/closing dialog messages. My hope is to get rid of all of them and put them in "info notification" boxes after launch so the user has zero friction when starting/stopping a patch. The nice thing about Eurorack is the ability to turn it on and start playing, and then turn it off and come back to it later.

My advice is to just get used to it. Hitting Ctrl+S is no new habit in software. There's no better way that satisfies everyone.

[AndrewBelt]

When undo history #153 is implemented, I'll be able to add a "*" icon to the title, which will be preserved across Rack launches.

[jonheal]

Already used to it. Close if you want.

--
Jon Heal
IT Specialist, Information Services Division - Business Solutions Management Branch
United States Department of Agriculture | Foreign Agricultural Service | Office of the Chief Operating Officer
202-720-5728
Have a nice day

On Jun 19, 2018, at 4:05 PM, Andrew Belt [e-mail] wrote:

I'm not a fan of launching/closing dialog messages. My hope is to get rid of all of them and put them in "info notification" boxes after launch so the user has zero friction when starting/stopping a patch. The nice thing about Eurorack is the ability to turn it on and start playing, and then turn it off and come back to it later.

My advice is to just get used to it. Hitting Ctrl+S is no new habit in software. There's no better way that satisfies everyone.

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[jonheal]

I didn’t know you were planning an undo history. Convenient, for sure. For myself, I am trying to be less anal and possessive and embrace the whole modular “here today, gone tomorrow” aesthetic.

--
Jon Heal
IT Specialist, Information Services Division - Business Solutions Management Branch
United States Department of Agriculture | Foreign Agricultural Service | Office of the Chief Operating Officer
202-720-5728
Have a nice day

On Jun 19, 2018, at 4:07 PM, Andrew Belt [e-mail] wrote:

When undo history #153 is implemented, I'll be able to add a "*" icon to the title, which will be preserved across Rack launches.

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[AndrewBelt]

Adding knowledge of a modified state will allow me to intelligently handle unsaved work. Once this is in place, I can do the following things if there is an active filename AND the modified state is set.

• Add a "*" character to the filename like Microsoft Word, etc.
• Add "Would you like to save your patch XXX.vcv" when clicking New or Open, or when launching a patch from the command line (e.g. ./Rack mypatch.vcv).

I think that would completely solve this, correct?

[ZwergNaseXXL]

Yes, that's exactly what I asked for. Also on closing the app, please.

[AndrewBelt]

Closing since this is solved.

[jonheal]

This is an aside and not really your issue, but a “gotcha” occurs if you have been working on a patch, but not actually saved it to a separate file. Then you go to the forum and download and open some one’s damn patch they’re shared. Bye bye, patch you were working on but neglected to save.

[AndrewBelt]

Okay, I have reopened and renamed the issue to something more descriptive.