[shanebdavis]

I want to throw my hat in to the "restore Save-As" pool. Save-As actually takes 3 steps now. Not only do you need to duplicate and save, but you also need to close the old document to end up in the same state that "Save-As" would have left you in. This is exactly what I want and use many times a day.

(I'm being pedantic, but actually this is a 4 step processes because the new window is in a different location on screen and may require repositioning.)

Adding more steps to a processes costs more than just wasted time. It creates opportunities for human error. This used to be an entirely safe action: "I don't want to touch the original document; I want to start a new document that is a duplicate of the original." With one action I know I safely have a new copy and won't be screwing up the original. Now there are several failure scenarios:

1) I can accidentally edit the old document instead of the new document. Granted versions lets me roll back, but versions is still a clunky system and that is a painful operation. It may also take me a long time to realize I made this mistake. Unraveling all that could easily take an hour of precious time. Even after I unraveled it, I don't think the new copy would get all the recent edit history that would have been there had I dont the "save-as" sequence correctly the first time.

2) I could forget to save the new copy.
2a. At a minimum this means I haven't assigned it a name or a location on disk. This can take effort to figure out if I come back later and don't remember what I was doing.
2b. If I quit and restart Omni Outliner it does restore the duplicate, but the undo buffer is gone. Previously OO would prompt me to save when I quit; since Lion it no longer does.
2c. If I haven't saved, Lion's versioning doesn't kick in.


As was said before, just because Apple says it is good doesn't make it so. In this case the "Save-As" feature isn't contrary to Apple's new Versioning and Application-Restore ideas. It fits in with them nicely. This seems to just be a case of premature simplification. I don't think "consistency across applications" is a good enough reason to blindly follow Apple's guidelines in this case. Omni apps should be mutually consistent, but the consistency cost compared to other company's apps is very small. Most of them break consistency in much larger ways. On the other hand, added work-flow overhead is actually pretty large.

Please restore Save-As.

[whpalmer4]

I don't think it is quite so simple. In the good old days, if you opened a document, made some changes *without saving them*, then did a Save As... the original document was untouched, and the new document contained all the changes. If you do that now, having restored Save As... as proposed, if you've worked on the original long enough to trigger an auto-save before you did the Save As... you've now left some changes auto-saved in the original document. This isn't novel behavior for those of us who grew up with editors that made changes immediately, but it is for anyone who has always used an editor where you have to save your work after making changes.

If you want to make a new doc that is a duplicate of the original, without any possibility for error, the way you have to do it in the iPad OmniGraffle is pretty foolproof: you duplicate the document, then open the new one. No questions about the semantics of the operation. You do have to take the action up front; however, you seem to be suggesting that you are deliberately creating new documents as a matter of practice, not an afterthought.

A fixed number of simple extra steps to get a reliable result vs. an unknown number of less familiar extra steps to recover from an unreliable one. I know which one I'd rather my friends and family who rely on my support use :-)

[EGuFFzEm]

I haven't moved to Lion yet, so, I'm not sure how I will like Versions. However, back in the day on another OS long long ago, file versioning was simpler and worked better than manual save-as: so, I would suggest that folks give it a try!!


My only other comment on an entirely different subject:
I was hoping that OmniGraffle Pro for Lion would be "64-bit/Heap&Stack-NX-DEP/64-bit-ASLR/ProPolice-Stack-Canary/Sandbox" secure by now: (Google the BlackHat paper "Macs in the age of APT" and
"Blackhat-Europe-2009-Fritsch-Bypassing-aslr-slides")

[shanebdavis]

whpalmer4: I see how your save-as-after-auto-save scenario could potentially create confusion. I don't think it is any worse that the confusions I listed in my scenarios, so I'm left unconvinced that the duplicate and save method is 'safer'.

Aside: the way this works on the iPad is different from the way it works on Lion. On the iPad the application is restored in EXACTLY the same state it was in when you closed it. On Lion this is not true. Undo buffers are lost for one. Also, the "duplicate" interface is part of the file management UI, not part of the editing UI as it is in Lion.

Now, back to general problem of saving files. First, as an axiom, you should never lose any data ever. I don't think the new Lion system solves this problem, though I am glad Apple is thinking this direction.

What I'd really like to see is the following:

Only have explicit, manual saves. Saving is a user-signaled time when the document is in a "consistent state". The user isn't half-way between thoughts. If you've used source control systems this is akin to a "commit". Though you should commit code often, you should do it at points where it at least compiles/runs. Similarly with documents. When I save a doc I am signaling it's in a "good place" right now. I love the idea of versioning for documents, too. I'd like to be able to roll back and see previous "good places". What I don't want is to see previous "randomly selected" places. Along these lines, I'd love to have the option to put a note on each version - much like in source control when you attach a short message to your commits. This should be optional, obviously.

Now, in-between saves, I'd like to have the entire editing state of the document persisted including, most importantly, the complete undo buffer.

[whpalmer4]

Duplicate and edit gives you 100% reliable, predictable behavior. Never any question as to what the result will be. Save As... after editing for a while would give you unpredictable results in Lion: you may or may not have the original file polluted with some of your changes.

As for the iPad restoring app state exactly, you must be using different applications than I do. Make a change in OmniOutliner and the Undo buffer is kept only so long as you continue working in that document. Switch to another document, much less restart the iPad, and the change becomes permanent. Maybe Omni did something wrong, but the fact remains that I cannot rely on undo state being exactly preserved.

Have they removed File->Duplicate from the Lion Finder? That strikes me as being the corresponding element to the Duplicate Document functionality in the document chooser for the iPad apps I use.

I certainly don't agree with every decision Omni makes, but I have yet to find something like this where they simply haven't given the matter any serious thought prior to making a decision.

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by wordsandwords

There is no longer a Save As version in my Omnigraffle Pro. Is this intentional?

The simple answer is that we did nothing to remove "Save As": our menu definition still includes an entry for "Save As", and we have no code that removes or disables that menu item. (You can even see it still sitting in the menu if you launch OmniGraffle and check the File menu before any documents are opened.)

So if we didn't remove it, where did it go? Apparently Lion automatically replaces "Save As" with "Duplicate" for apps like OmniGraffle which include support for Lion's new Auto Save and Versions. (In other words, we didn't remove it at all; Apple did.)

It's possible that we could find some way to override Lion's menu update to somehow get back the old "Save As" functionality, but we'd prefer to cooperate with the operating system rather than to fight with it. So if this change on Lion makes your workflow less efficient, I'd encourage you to send that feedback to Apple:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Thanks for your question! Sorry I didn't see it sooner.

[MadSap]

this new "feature" is a pain in the [rear].
It disrupts my workflow.
And makes me question OmniGraffle.

I hate it
wait- I hate it.
Yes, I hate it!

fix this !

other apps still allow save as...
arg!

[pascal]

My 2 cents…

Keep it as it is. No Save as. I really tried to find a scenario where Save as may make sense. I can't find only one.

Guys, this is the mac way of doing your work and if you don't like it change to windows of any other system that suits your needs.

No application using versions will offer Save as and there are several reasons why it doesn't and why it shouldn't, here are some:

- if you want to create a duplicate of the current document, use duplicate. Make your changes and save it under a new name (that's what you have to do under SL as well)
- if you want to make a "copy" of a document, use the finder. That is the place to do such things
- if you use Save as to use a document as a pseudo-template then you're doing it wrong. If you need templates, use templates, not documents.
- there's no more risk to change/destroy the original document by accident.

To Omni: You're doing mac software, so there's no longer a save as under lion and it's exactly what it's supposed to be.

It's ok if some people are afraid of changes and fear the unknown. Don't be afraid, just use it and you'll find the new way much more useful, intuitive and productive than the old one. All other Apps will follow.
And if you don't like Lion, revert to Snow Leopard. It's a nice system and it uses an outdated way when working with documents and may suit your needs better.

[Jaydekay]

I understand that this functionality is coming from Lion, but so far I am not digging this.

I think its a little selfish of the OS force me to handle files a certain way. And no, that doesn't mean I want to use Windows smart arses :P During functional transitional periods of this nature (aka important workflow changes), sometimes it's best to allow the user to change at their own pace. I'm not all for piles of options by any means, but this is a biggy and people should have the option.

Here are a couple things I don't like besides the fact that it's interrupting my work flow.

Can't grab individual files for backup off-site.
One thing I don't like is that it doesn't allow me to pluck individual files and back them up off site, as in, not on my Mac but in a cloud. I like Macs, but they fail, and sometimes fail hard especially in the HD dept.

No file redundancy
I'm assuming that since we're talking about "Versions" we're not dealing with duplicated files? Meaning that it is one file, that stores different states. Sometimes its nice to know that if a file goes corrupt, you at least have _something_ that you can still work with. That something being a manually saved, separate file.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Jaydekay

Can't grab individual files for backup off-site.
One thing I don't like is that it doesn't allow me to pluck individual files and back them up off site, as in, not on my Mac but in a cloud. I like Macs, but they fail, and sometimes fail hard especially in the HD dept.

Huh? What's stopping you?

No file redundancy
I'm assuming that since we're talking about "Versions" we're not dealing with duplicated files? Meaning that it is one file, that stores different states. Sometimes its nice to know that if a file goes corrupt, you at least have _something_ that you can still work with. That something being a manually saved, separate file.

My understanding is that it is similar to how Time Machine works, except it is storing the difference between two versions instead of an entire copy. But the active file doesn't contain the history of all of the changes that made it what it is. That history is stored elsewhere in the disk volume. This isn't like Microsoft Word's "Fast Save" or whatever it was called where you could find evidence of previous revisions of the file. That said, if you want to keep a completely self-contained snapshot of your file at a given point, duplicate the file and name it accordingly.