[ugh]

I don’t think you understand. This is about paradigm shifts.

Here is how it used to work: You open this old document because you want to create a new one and use the old one as a template. You either Save as right away or (much more likely) you edit for a bit and do a Save as at some later point.

If you do this with auto save you are fucked. (Well, not really. There is now Versions, so starting with Lion this is finally a recoverable mistake.) Editing your document for a bit before doing a Save as with auto save is the same as mistakenly saving your document – overwriting your old document – instead of doing a Save as. That mistake is catastrophic – I know it, I used to make it often enough myself – and users would make it all the time had Apple left Save as in.

Now when you open an old document you will be asked – as soon as you start editing – whether you want to edit the document or duplicate it, thus avoiding that catastrophic mistake. You can also duplicate documents at any time.

The transition period will be painful, that’s for sure, but the end result is pure bliss. It’s worth it.

A lot of changes with Lion are just like this. Sometimes some pain while transitioning is the price for awesomeness.

[greggman]

And what if my workflow involves making multiple files based off the same document? Say I making png buttons in Photoshop. I change the test to "Order" pick save as, type "order.png", change the text to "Cancel" pick save as, type "cancel.png", change the text to "Help" pick save as, type "help.png".

It sounds like that work flow just got massively tedious.

[ugh]

Duplicate → Save, Duplicate → Save.

One step turned two. Worse? Yes. Tedious? No. It’s worth it given the other conceptual changes and the fact that this is very much an edge case.

[Shazback]

Here's my work flow when I'm writing a long document: - Create/open "Master copy". - Regularly Save/enable Autosave. - When I have completed a chapter/segment, or before for lunch/supper, I Save and Save As on my backup HDD with a time-stamp/chapter number.

Like this I have one copy that I can edit and is always up to date on my main HDD and I have a whole record of copies on my backup HDDs. If I want to see how I edited chapter 3 whilst I was writing chapter 6 (they're related in the plot) I can.

I can't imagine this being something unknown of in the use of other applications. A franchisee that tracks various performance metrics each hour/day on a rolling database (month/year) sends a copy at regular intervals to the franchise owner/manager so that general franchise performance can be evaluated will have the same problem.

I can see how Duplicate -> Save is "only one click more", but the one-click solution worked well. If the "paradigm shift" is related to auto-saves, why not simply have the auto-saves create a new hidden file by default. Either the changes are saved (cue overwriting of the opened file), or the changes are saved as. If the user exits without saving, the hidden file can be marked for auto-delete in X days/hours, making erroneous exits recoverable. If there's a crash/loss of power, the hidden file is prompted for recovery at the program's next start.

[keeperofdakeys]

A lot of programs have some kind of auto-save, here is how it works in Microsoft Word. While editing your document, it is auto-saved, but as a new, hidden file. When you manually Save, this new file overwrites the old, and a Save As does the same, but with the new name, not wiping the old document. You can argue that this is messy, and only a hack to get around the paradigm. It all depends on how people want to work, giving the program the responsibility to handle it.

[mturmon]

Thanks for the clear explanation of the rationale.

[dasil003]

Personally I miss my Save As and I am not a fan of auto-save, but I think it's horseshit that someone downvoted this.