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*!% pages auto save anyone!!!

Didn't AppleWorks 6 have autosave? In fact, I'm sure ClarisWorks had autosave...

Apple have lost out on a sale of iWork from me for two reasons, despite my strong desire to destroy Office:
1. No autosave. Computers crash, be they mac or PC - I don't want to have to keep interrupting my train of thought to save every minute (by habit I save every 30mins or so in Word)

2. No equation editor. AppleWorks had one, so why get rid of it in Pages?? Given Apple markets themselves quite strongly at the student market, this is a very bad call.


Sorry Apple, but I'm going to keep my £35 and wait until Pages is fixed before buying. I'll put up with Office '04 crashing - at least it has autosave.
 
A couple of days ago I was told about a possible solution I haven't had any personal experience with it but the person who told me about it said that it works on their computer. Worth looking into. Read about it here. Backup anything you mess with.
 
xUKHCx said:
A couple of days ago I was told about a possible solution I haven't had any personal experience with it but the person who told me about it said that it works on their computer. Worth looking into. Read about it here. Backup anything you mess with.
Click to expand...

thanks - i'll give it a go ... after i back up:eek:
 
thomasp said:
Didn't AppleWorks 6 have autosave? In fact, I'm sure ClarisWorks had autosave...
Click to expand...

As mentioned earlier in the thread, yes. But as I also said, it was the flawed AppleWorks implementation of autosave which swore me off autosave, probably forever. I'd much rather save when I know that I want to keep the changes I just made, rather than have the software decide for me. I wouldn't complain if autosave was an option in Pages, but the idea that Pages is flawed in some major way because this feature is missing strikes me as a bit silly.

Save early, save often. And don't blame the software if you forget.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Save early, save often. And don't blame the software if you forget.
Click to expand...

Actually, yes, blame the software. TOne of the main reasons human beings invented computers was to do monotonous repetitive tasks. Saving is one of those.

Autosave is not about being 'standard' in this that or the other word processing programs, it's about a function that is WHY we have computers. to do dumb things like: always save. We, us, humans, forget. machines don't.

So the blame does go to the software.
 
MAcNIAC said:
oh and - wordmunger - i'm pretty sure word just saves over and over the same (current filename) - so you dont get 6 million different versions - i'm not sure though, i've only ever gone back to the most recent one.
Click to expand...

Like I said, I haven't used the feature for years. A problem I see with saving over the same version is if you're doing something like a massive search and replace (or a series of them) and want to be able to revert to the saved version. Autosave could have just saved your errors and make you unable to revert to the "good" version.

But as I've said, I never use it, so I'm not the best judge. If it is a feature that a lot of people want, then Pages should have it.
 
sdp said:
Actually, yes, blame the software. TOne of the main reasons human beings invented computers was to do monotonous repetitive tasks. Saving is one of those.

Autosave is not about being 'standard' in this that or the other word processing programs, it's about a function that is WHY we have computers. to do dumb things like: always save. We, us, humans, forget. machines don't.

So the blame does go to the software.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Software should not do the thinking for you, nor should it be expected to do the thinking for you. Saving is not an monotonous, repetitive task -- it's an optional operation, something you the user should decide when it is useful to do. I for one do not want the software to make this decision for me.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I disagree. Software should not do the thinking for you, nor should it be expected to do the thinking for you. Saving is not an monotonous, repetitive task -- it's an optional operation, something you the user should decide when it is useful to do. I for one do not want the software to make this decision for me.
Click to expand...

But it doesn't save over your file, it creates a temporary file that it uses, so it is only a benefit to you.

I save my work regularly even with different version numbers so I can go back through my versions if necessary and autosave has saved me time and effort when the program has crashed as I can quickly get back the work I have done say in the last 5 minutes.

Autosave is a great feature and if it is in Textedit how could they not include it in Pages :confused:
 
xUKHCx said:
But it doesn't save over your file, it creates a temporary file that it uses, so it is only a benefit to you.

I save my work regularly even with different version numbers so I can go back through my versions if necessary and autosave has saved me time and effort when the program has crashed as I can quickly get back the work I have done say in the last 5 minutes.

Autosave is a great feature and if it is in Textedit how could they not include it in Pages :confused:
Click to expand...

Like I said, I would not complain if the feature was added as an option, I'm simply arguing that its omission in Pages is not the huge flaw that some say it is. I mean, you could make that argument for any feature which happens to be one you like, and if all of them were added, before you know it, Pages would become as complex and bloated as Word. That would spoil it for a lot of us.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I disagree. Software should not do the thinking for you, nor should it be expected to do the thinking for you. Saving is not an monotonous, repetitive task -- it's an optional operation, something you the user should decide when it is useful to do. I for one do not want the software to make this decision for me.
Click to expand...

I don't consider saving to a backup location 'just in case' a program 'thinking' for me. the thinking one does in word processing is in the document.

Autosave is literally a no-brainer in terms of a word processing program.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Like I said, I would not complain if the feature was added as an option, I'm simply arguing that its omission in Pages is not the huge flaw that some say it is. I mean, you could make that argument for any feature which happens to be one you like, and if all of them were added, before you know it, Pages would become as complex and bloated as Word. That would spoil it for a lot of us.
Click to expand...

You really think a feature that would prevent the loss of work would spoil it. :confused:

We aren't talking about a feature that only some people might use (i.e. citation manager, equation editor etc. etc.) we are talking about a feature that will save people from program crashes that affect everyone. It is a small feature that works in the background to save you time in case the worst happens.

Autosave is a feature that has been in Word for god knows how long that it is considered to be a standard feature. A quick scan through the most well know Word processor programs reveals that Pages is the only one (there are probably others but I haven't come across them) that doesn't have this feature.


OpenOffice Yes
TextEdit Yes
Pages No
Word Yes
AbiWord Yes
Bean Yes
Mellel Yes
Mariner Write Yes
Nisus Writer Pro Yes
Scrinver Yes
Google Docs Yes
SubEthaEdit Yes
WriteRoom Yes
ThinkFree Yes

The logic doesn't really apply to this case and you can't argue against adding useful features that are considered to be standard and will protect people. Maybe if Pages was the most stable application then this would be a moot point but lets face it it isn't.


And yes I agree Pages needs to cut down on the bloat as it already has too much of it
 
xUKHCx said:
You really think a feature that would prevent the loss of work would spoil it. :confused:
Click to expand...

I probably should not have to explain this again, since I've already said it at least twice, but my concerns are: (1) that it be an option, because some of us actually don't care for autosave, and (2) that Pages doesn't succumb to Word-style feature bloat, which is what happens when the kitchen sink approach to adding features is taken.

That's feature bloat, not the size of the application. Hardly anybody cares how much space an application takes up on the hard drive anymore.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I probably should not have to explain this again, since I've already said it at least twice, but my concerns are: (1) that it be an option, because some of us actually don't care for autosave, and (2) that Pages doesn't succumb to Word-style feature bloat, which is what happens when the kitchen sink approach to adding features is taken.
Click to expand...

Well it is a user selectable option in almost all of those applications better to have the option than not.

IJ Reilly said:
That's feature bloat, not the size of the application. Hardly anybody cares how much space an application takes up on the hard drive anymore.
Click to expand...

But they do care how much RAM the program uses ;), that is a screenshot of activity monitor.
 
Not just word has it,,,,, wordperfect has it, and has had it for a very long time... since version 8 if I remember correctly.

I think auto save should be an option... It has helped out countless times.. To many times in fact.
 
Autosave support in Cocoa is crap. That is why it isn't supported in Pages.

To be honest though you should just learn to press Command S a little more often.
 
Eraserhead said:
Autosave support in Cocoa is crap. That is why it isn't supported in Pages.

To be honest though you should just learn to press Command S a little more often.
Click to expand...

Seriously this has been covered already but I suppose I can add some more. What if Pages crashes on save (has happened to me before)? What if you forget? Does it harm you by having the option? If it is a standard feature that users of word processor expect but it is not there how can apple expect to drive switchers?. I personally know of at least 4 people who aren't buying Pages solely because of this.

I'm all for keeping it lean but not just for the sake of keeping it lean or punishing users because of a buggy application.
 
Who knows? Next version perhaps. Let's not forget, this application is only about three years old. I just hope that Apple is careful about deciding which features to add. Trying to be all things to all people is the best way to become nothing to nobody.
 
xUKHCx said:
Seriously this has been covered already
Click to expand...

The former point is my main one, and that is certainly my programming experience.

Sorry if the saving point has been covered before, the thing is that people will write pages of stuff without saving and it is more than a little foolish. For a start even if you have autosave you don't know if the autosave is working.
 
i'm a bit surprised this thread is still going - i just wanted to vent, and to get a suggestion on a work around!

autosave is a no brainer - it should be in pages, for exactly the same reason as timemachine is a good idea. i.e people are bad at remembering to do mundane (but important) stuff like backing up ... and saving manually.

i'd happily have it with an on/off setting to appease those who say "just hit apple-S". so please - apple development team - if you're listening ... please stop me from doing this AGAIN.:eek:
 
I heartily agree that there should be autosave in all iWork apps; though I don't think it will happen in the '08 version. But if it isn't in the next version of iWork I will be very surprised. Until then I'll be relegated to hitting ⌘-S.
 
Human forgetfulness is the standard

As this whole thread clearly shows. Glad to know I'm not the only one outraged by the clear ineptitude of failing to put such a basic feature in a word processor.

Humans mess up. Computers mess up. Bad combination when you forget to save and Pages quits "unexpectedly," without giving you a chance to save.

And although Microsoft may have first introduced the autosave feature, it has obviously become standard, even in freeware programs such as OpenOffice (which, for all of its inelegance, I rather wish I had been using it now).

I'd even argue that I'm not a complete moron for forgetting to save, seeing as how I'm new to Mac, and hadn't heard of a word processor without autosave since the mid-'90s. I assumed Mac was as user-friendly as I had always been led to believe it was, but I guess I was wrong.

At least I was on a free trial basis with Pages, and now I know never to spend any money on it, let alone $80, when well over a year later they still haven't fixed this problem . . .
 
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