autosave improvements
Submitted by Daniel Borgmann
Link to original bug (#335079)
Description
I would like to turn autosave into a preference that makes the task of saving completely transparent to the user. The easiest and least "dangerous" method probably is to save the document everytime it is closed or the focus leaves the window. This way saving operations are unlikely to disturb the user while editing, but the document is still up to date whenever the user might want to access it from a different application (like a web browser or compiler).
Rational: Manual saving is a task that mainly results from (historical) technical requirements instead of usability requirements. While some users certainly have incorporated it into their workflow, I strongly believe that a user should not be forced to deal with it when it can be avoided. Implementing a realiable autosave mechanism would at least offer the following conveniences to a user:
- No necessity to hit CTRL+S after every little change. No chance to forget about it and getting all puzzled when a change has no effect...
- No annoying save confirmation dialogs (unless the user has untitled documents, which can be avoided).
- No necessity to understand the abstract nature of a text buffer in memory as opposed to the actual text document on disk. For the user, the displayed text becomes the document.
- Reduced chance of data loss.
Other information:
Version: git master