I thought it might be productive to start a discussion on how we'd like to see the autosave feature work. I recall a post mentioning that it was considered but it was more technical than it seemed. I know there are several ways to approach autosave. So i guess a think tank might help in coming up with the most efficient approach. :w00t:

so where would this autosave file be kept ? should it be a hidden folder that you have to locate manually, or should it appear on the panel ? how many autosaved files do you want to keep - 1 working file that's constantly updated, or a series of files of upto 100 that save in increments of 10-15 minutes. that can eat away at your hd space quickly so there has to be some sort of stucture / organization for either easy archiving or easy clean up.

should there be 1 autosave folder with all projects or should autosave create a new folder per project in the same directory as the main project file ? or should the main project file be constantly updated with autosave - not sure about that choice because if you autosave a corrupt file - you have no alternate files ..so I'm more for a multi file system myself to circumvent potential corrupt files - but this means more hd space.

thoughts ?

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I've made several Posts re; Auto & InstantSave over the yers, Planet.

1) AutoSave is User Selectable for automatically Saving & Re-loading a Project when a Program is Re-Launched.

2) AutoSave Folder Backup Programs, eg; Acronis, W7 OS Backup Program etc; That are User Selectable that  automatically Save changes to selected Folders etc; every few minutes.

However, I've found that Acronis Continuous Backup slows-down iClone. So I don't use it.

3) INSTANTSAVE; Not User Selectable, that automatically takes a Snapshot of the Timeline every few seconds, as in NLE Programs. Similar to Windows System Restore that takes a Snapshot of your System when Hardware & Software changes are made (But that's a Diagnostc Tool). IMO InstantSave is what we need. Not AutoSave. There's a distinction between the Two. 

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I would think that  Instantsave is not applicable to iClone. In an NLE all data is by reference, so the project files are quite small and snapshots every few seconds are feasible. But see my comment below.

In contrast, iClone project files are large, as most data to recreate the projects (avatars, props, etc.) is included in the file itself. Only video files are default by reference. So I would want a series of backups (the user should be able to set that number) that are created at set time intervals, 10 minutes for example. If your project file is large (I have a 0.5 GB one) you obviousy don't want 100 versions, but 10 or so would be nice. I have separate directories for each project so I would want my backups to be under that same directory. 

Now obviously the timeline itself does probably work similarly to the timeline in an NLE, so it might be an idea to have a separate backup mechanism for the timeline along the lines that Colour is suggesting (InstantSave).

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I personally love the way Apple Logic Audio handles it's file system ..

It gives me a selection to save all my assets to a project folder, which is very useful to me because when I'm done with a song, I can simply zip up a directory and archive it, and when I call it up years later...all the parts are there and can be worked on as if it was never deleted. would be nice to have that with Iclone - although it would in effect duplicate your assets on your hard drive to keep the source and project independently in tact - it's the best archiving system I know of.

On the auto save, the audio program Pro-tools has a good approach - although it is a hard drive space eater ....it incrementally saves files like every 10 minutes to a new file ...in a .bak directory - while this would be very helpful for iclone, as it helps when a file gets corrupted or you just want to go back a few hours to take the project into a different direction, I don't see it as practical for iclone because of it's file sizes - I wonder if a .bak type file just for making safety back ups would help...something that is more of a data pointer than saving all the assets as one project file.

~Ricky

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Just a bog-basic ordinary little window to appear at specified minute intervals to say "Save project?" and a yes or no option.

Done!

This way, when buried in intensive works on set where an hour can feel like a minute we dont lose that hours work.

I really dont weant to sit there  for 70 seconds (evben on this machine.) at a time when I'm not prepared while it churns down a file containing about 700 elements and LEAST of all where as now I have a 30% chance of it crashing on me. 

So for me, this would be a productive starting point.

@Armstrong I like the simplicity of that , although I'd still like at least one alternate file to recover from a corrupt save ....so for instance ... The system prompts you to save ...but when you save , it takes the current saved file and make's it a .bak file ....so we have 2 sources - the file you just saved ....and a reserve file in case something went wrong.

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Yes, that would be a really good facility.
Auto Re-naming them incrementally and preset as to how many saves it will increment for you.  Though normally on save the window opens and asks for save as the existing name or edit/add a new one.

Did someone mention "quick saves" at one point?
I recall, and I think it still happens, MS Publisher does this. Makes a quick save. !!!???
And then upon close program makes a full save incorporating the changed data into the main one? I guess here, I dont know. 

And this picture just appeared. Didnt before. So my post was an echo. :P

We need to focus on the "what" (behavior) and the "why" (value and benefit) but not the "how."

I, for one, do not know anything about how iClone manages the data internally. (I'm not talking about assets being included in the file project.) For example, does anyone here know how "Undo" works? There must be some sort of buffer where that's kept. We can make guesses about iClone's inner workings all day long (some better and more educated than others), but really that's not for us to worry about.

Describe the ideal behavior you want. Also describe a "minimal improvement" that would at least be a step in the right direction. Then let the iClone developers determine what is and is not possible.

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ADDED LATER: A handy link to another Autosave thread.

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