2012/5/18 Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]>: > On Fri, 18 May 2012 06:26:33 +0100 > Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]> wrote: > >> One aspect of the User Experience which frequently manifests itself for >> Users is a bad file save, leading to a corrupt file, which is partially or >> totally irrecoverable > > Sorry! My previous posting got away before I had completed it. > > In my programming days (some 25-30 years ago) it was de rigeur that the > original file was never over-written until the new file had been completely > saved, so that if there was a crash (app, OS, or power failure) the original > file existed, perhaps as a .bak file, but there, untouched. This does not > happen in OpenOffice (all forks as far as I know). Some thought needs to be > given to this and to the defaults of the backup ("always create backup" to be > on by default). > > Many of the instances of corrupt files are caused by User error (too quick > shutdown before write buffers are flushed?); a part of the User Experience is > to ensure against the stupidity of Users. >
+1 There is also a second, less harmful, problem with the save file work-flow: it is quite easy to accidentally uncheck the "add file extension" on the save dialogue so every now and then we get on the forums windows users that do not know how to open a file because when they double click on it the OS do not recognize it. Maybe we need to eliminate that option and always save with the correct file extension? Regards Ricardo
