Moho Forum

I have an idea for a good feature that should be added to Moho. I have had Moho crash after doing hours worth of work, without me saving often enough, and I lose everything since the last save.

How about a backup/restore feature like word processors and editors have where changes are periodically logged to a backup file so that a restore can be done after a crash? Note, this is different than an auto-save feature which would periodically save the current .moho file automatically.

In the mean time, I guess I can save manually every 5 minutes.

Stephen

Actually, what you are describing is an autosave feature, it's just in Word Processors and editors they save to a different file extension, so it doesn't immediately look like a normal file.

I just lost five hours of work because I closed Moho before it was done saving. Auto save would have been nice.

Moho crashes when you do that. It also crashes when you close a render window before it's complete.

If Moho crashes when you quit during a save, that's a bug and you should report it.

But anyway, you should never rely on an autosave feature - you should be saving regularly with a different filename, so you have multiple versions to roll back to.

The problem with relying on autosave is that it's normally just one version of the file, and if the data is corrupt in the file you're working on (because of a bug or maybe another program crashed and trashed your memory) then you're just replacing bad data with bad data, and you can lose far more than 5 hours work.

Oh and you shouldn't be working 5 hours straight without a break, it will mess up your eyes and your hands.

I've been doing less manual backups lately because I'm trying to keep my filesystem less cluttered. You're absolutely right, though, there's nothing worth that risk. Until now my system of daily backups had been enough; I've not been doing very much work in any given day. I will do as you suggest.

Because I feel a little defensive, I should also say that I do take frequent breaks. Every fifteen to twenty minutes I get up and do a short stretching regimen. I also drink a lot of water to remind me to get up frequently..:) When I said I'd worked five hours straight, I just meant that I didn't play any games or watch television during that time.

Don't feel defensive, the smiley was there for a reason!

Whenever you stretch, you save. That way it doesn't interrupt your workflow. At the end of the day you have to delete the files you know you don't need, but that's a small price to pay.

ok, so save many versions as you try different things while working. But you still need Moho to be keeping a log of changes since your last save so that you do not lose any work on the current version when a crash happens. These are two different things. One is how you work. The other is how a good editor protects you from crashes. Im not talking about auto save, which we have already said is bad since it should be up to you when to comit your changes to your file. Im talking about keeping a transaction record to restore your state after a crash.

Yes, also, we learned at work to take "micro breaks" every 15 minutes.

I was about to make a autosave feature request when I found this thread so I'll add some thought to it.
Why not have Moho to set up an autosave folder where it does autosaves, that way it would be independent of your workfiles and no bother to you if you dont need them. And with a nice setup-box in Moho to go along with the feature, where to place the folder, maximum number of files and how often Moho should autosave.