Everything you learned about saving files is wrong

This is for OS X Lion users. If you are running Snow Leopard, you should also read this, because you will eventually be running OS X Lion, and then all this will apply to you, too.

Apple has turned file saving on its head in OS X Lion. You cannot save a file any more. You need to be aware of this, or you may constantly cause yourself problems, not only in Rhino, but in other applications, too.

This information is not specific to Mac Rhino, but applies to all applications that implement OS X Lion's Auto Save and Versions. What you learn here applies everywhere in OS X Lion.

The following paragraph has been in each recent Mac Rhino release note, but not everyone has read the article. You should do that now, and also read all the other articles that are referenced in the following URL.

Additional information about Versions and Auto Save specific to Rhino can be found here (http://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/mac/autosaving/).

Everything below is also stated in the referenced articles. It is merely stated much more bluntly here so you will realize how things have changed.

Auto Save does not mean autosaving

On OS X prior to Lion and on Windows computers, the term autosaving means “writing a single backup copy of your file somewhere else that you or the program can find later”. The term autosaving has meant the above for a long time. You still were responsible for saving your file on a regular basis, but Rhino and other programs would create a backup file just in case you forgot to save your file.

In OS X Lion, Apple unfortunately uses almost the same term, Auto Save, to describe something entirely different. In Lion, Auto Save means “saving your file automatically”. As in, overwriting your file automatically. As in, there is no secret backup somewhere else — your original file is getting overwritten. All the time.

How often is a file saved? All the time.

This is how Apple describes it:

Auto Save in OS X Lion saves during pauses in your work and, if you work continuously, it will save after 5 minutes.

Try the following experiment:

• Copy one of your Rhino models to the Desktop and place it where it will not be covered by a Rhino window.
• Select the copied Rhino file and select File > Get Info in the Finder menu. A file info window will appear.
• Note the Modified time of the file.
• Select the Rhino file on the Desktop again and press Command-O to open the model in Rhino.
• Adjust your Rhino window and your file icon on the Desktop so you can still see both, and note the preview image of the Desktop file icon.
• In Rhino, select some object in the Perspective view.
• Type Option-left arrow then Option-right arrow. This will nudge the selected object a little bit, then put it back where it was. This will mark the model as modified, but it is no different than it was before.
• Rotate the Perspective view a little, so you will be able to tell when the preview image has changed.
• Now, do nothing.

Within 10 - 20 seconds, the preview image of your file icon on the Desktop will change to match the Perspective view of your model. Select the Rhino file on the Desktop and select File > Get Info in the Finder menu. You will see that the file modification date has changed. Your file has been updated on disk.

The same thing happens when you switch from Rhino to another application. OS X Lion Auto Save will save your file immediately when you switch to another application. In the experiment above, instead of doing nothing for 10-20 seconds, switch to the Finder instead. Your file is immediately updated.

Lastly, your model is saved when you close the model window or quit Rhino. You will never see a “Do you want to save your changes?” dialog.

There are safeguards that are custom to each application to ensure that Lion Auto Save does not happen while you are modifying the model. Each copy written to disk is an accurate and consistent copy of your model at the time it is written. For example, Rhino will never perform an Auto Save when you are in the middle of a command. Rhino also creates a snapshot of your model in memory and then writes the snapshot to disk. The writing to disk is done on a background thread, so even if your model is stored on a slow network drive, the Auto Save will not block you from working while waiting for your model to be written to a slow disk.

You can no longer save a file

Or, perhaps more accurately, you cannot decide when your model will be saved on disk. The system is doing it for you instead, and does so all the time. You cannot save a file, because it has already been saved for you.

Apple's goal is two-fold. One, what you see on the screen is what is stored on the disk. You no longer have two versions of your model, the last saved version on disk and the currently modified version in the Rhino application. Now, they are one and the same. Two, you are much less likely to lose work because of a crashed program or a crashed operating system.

Command-S does not mean Save A File

If you are used to typing Command-S all the time to save your model, this is now a bad habit, because Command-S no longer saves a file. It does something entirely different, and it is probably not what you want.

Open one of your models and look in Rhino's File menu. The Save menu choice is no longer there. Instead, Command-S is associated with the new menu choice Save A Version. When you Save a Version, you are creating the equivalent of a Time Machine backup of your file. This is a backup copy of your model that you can retrieve any time in the future. Also, even if you never explicitly Save A Version, the system automatically creates versions for you, approximately one an hour. These are also backup copies that you can retrieve in the future.

Each separate version that you save is retained by the system. Creating a new version does not overwrite previous versions but instead adds to your collection of versions.

Every time you type Command-S, you add another Version to your file. Pressing Command-S a lot means you create a lot of Versions of your file, and you probably do not need or want all those distinct backups in the future. You should instead stop typing Command-S all the time if you just want to save your model. This is no longer necessary. The system is already saving your model for you.

The system also provides a Time Machine-like interface to look at these saved versions. In the title bar, click on the text next to your model's name and a menu will appear. Choose “Browse all versions” and the system will present you with a browser to view all the past saved versions. This is explained in detail in other articles that are referenced at the beginning of this article. The point here is that Command-S does not save your file to disk; it is instead doing much more work by creating a backup, a duplicate and browsable version of your file.

New Models

If you are working on a new model and have never saved it, then typing Command-S brings up the standard File Save dialog (just as it did before) and you pick where you wish to store your model. But after this initial save, the system will decide when to save your model.

IncrementalSave is gone

If you are used to using Rhino's Incremental Save, Versions provides a built-in replacement that also has a much better user interface. In fact, Incremental Save interferes with OS X Lion's Versions because it is constantly changing the file name of the model, so Incremental Save is no longer available as a command in OS X Lion.

Going forward

As you work on a model, there will be natural break points or phases in your work and these would be good places to use Save A Version to take a snapshot of your work so far. Remember that the system will also be making regular snapshots of your model about once an hour, so you will have a number of recovery points if you ever need to go back and retrieve previous work.

Apple has fundamentally changed how we are used to working with our documents. There no longer is a distinction between what we see on the screen and what is stored on the disk. They are always kept in sync. It is going to take some new habits and retraining ourselves to adapt to the new paradigm. It is also going to be a rocky transition as some applications are converted to Auto Save and Versions, while others are still using the previous File > Save paradigm. It will require us to remember how to work with each program until all programs have made the transition to Auto Save and Versions.