Re: [Usability] gedit's Save A Copy

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005, Murray Cumming wrote:

> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 21:57:50 +0100
> From: Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>
> To: "usability gnome org" <usability gnome org>
> Cc: Paolo Maggi <paolo maggi polito it>
> Subject: [Usability] gedit's Save A Copy
>
> gedit 2.9 has a new feature - a "Save Copy" menu item, under "Save As".
> It saves a copy of the document (I guess the current state, but maybe
> the saved state), but afterwards you will be editing the original
> instead of the new location.

"Save a Copy" is synonymous with "Export"

Forgive me but I'll need to explain this, sorry if it seems pedantic,
clarity is essential if this is going to make any sense.

The functionality "Save a Copy" should take the current document state[1]
and save it to the location specified as a new copy[2].  The difference
between this and "Save as" is that with "Save as" the document you see in
front of you will not be the orginal [1] anymore but instead you continue
editing on the saved version [2].  With Save a copy you keep working on
the original independantly of the copy.

> I think it's meant as a way to upload files to external servers without
> using nautilus.

This should only be an incidental bonus and be made easier by how "Save a
Copy" works.

If you have a location on an external server mounted in some way you can
periodically "Save a Copy" to that location while continuing to work on
the current document which is safely on your local machine (which means
less problems if the connection to the remote server is a bit
dodgey).

I hope I explained that clearlly enough to help you better decide if you
think this feature needs to be changed.  I think I may have already read
the feature request describing how they intended it to work and I do hope
there were able to do it without breaking the standard idea of how Save a
Copy is supposed to work.

I hope the Gedit maintainer can clarify (either way I hope this new
feature is well documented).

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/