Re: [Usability] gedit's Save A Copy

[Paolo Maggi <paolo maggi polito it>]

On Sat, 2005-02-19 at 22:38 +0100, Murray Cumming wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-02-19 at 22:20 +0100, Paolo Borelli wrote:
> > Murray Cumming wrote:
> > 
> > >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.
> > >
> > >I think it's meant as a way to upload files to external servers without
> > >using nautilus.
> > >
> > >This seems both dangerously confusing and not consistent with other
> > >applications. It's a plugin, so I personally wish it was turned it off
> > >by default, even after the UI freeze.
> > >
> > >  
> > >
> > The plugin is meant to to "save a copy" (who would have guessed :) ), of 
> > the current document to a local or remote location. I can understand how 
> > can you say that this can be confusing (just for the fact that it adds 
> > a  menu item), but I don't see how it can be dangerous:
> 
> It's too similar to Save As. People might think that Save Copy does what
> Save As does, and then mistakenly delete the original, thinking that
> their changes are in the copy.
> 
> It's also not clear whether it saves a copy of the saved state (as a
> Nautilus copy would) or the current unsaved state)
> 
> Export would be clearer, but sounds like data conversion to me.
> 

Note that the "Save a Copy..." function is described by the  GNOME HIG
(see table 4.2 of
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/menus-standard.html#the-file-menu)
as one of the standard items of the File menu.

Regards,
Paolo