Is there a way that Scrivener can include an option to simply automatically save everything ever written in a Scrivener document, including all changes and erasures – not just at project open or close, but constantly and automatically? I think it would be tremendously useful for Scrivener users to be able to do this.
I know there is a Snapshot option, but I feel like sometimes you don’t know in advance what you want snapshotted, you might make a mistake and delete text without realizing it, etc. Given the extremely low cost of storing text, it seems like a no-brainer to just be able to store all changes ever made so that nothing is ever lost.
You should be able to go back and for any note, or for the project as a whole, simply see its state at any point in the past. I think Scrivener users would really appreciate this ability.
You mean record every key stroke ever made, even those which are later undone, as for instance through spell check, or a sudden realization that you’ve typed the wrong word? You want to go back and recapture – literally – any microsecond in the history of the document? Assuming it were possible, how long would it take you to shuffle through all your changes and variations and mistakes and folly and foolishness, looking for that one perfect moment? And supposing you go through all that and find that the one perfect moment you thought you remembered doesn’t even exist?
It makes the inside of my head hurt just to think about it. Needles in haystacks, child’s play by comparison.
If you want to store all the changes ever made, how will you keep the overview of the text and not drown in all the various versions of a document? Say you type “hello”, then there are already 5 different documents in Scrivener: one with “h”, one with “he”, then “hel”, “hell” and lastly “hello”. I don’t think it would be practical to go to all these documents when wanting to revert something.
Perhaps an option like “Make a snapshot every x minutes” might be more helpful, like discussed in this thread.
Btw, I’m already quite happy with the snapshot and backup functionality.
I plead the fifth too much to want anything like this.
For those not versed in that US-ism the fifth amendment to the US constitution allows a person to refuse to testify if the answer would potentially lead to some form or self incrimination. Which in and of itself is admitting to guilt so …
BTW, the idea of recording all and every version of the text overestimates grossly the importance of previous versions – und underestimates the wroter’s obligation to make decisions. These old versions aren’t that good, because otherwise the writer would not have altered them!
Plus: Even if you tried to implement such a thing, you’d soon run into logical problems.
Supposed you have written and saved a chain of versions:
A1 -> A2 -> A3 -> A4 -> A5
Now it strikes you: A3 was better than everything that came afterwords.
OK, back to A3 to continue from there:
A1 -> A2 -> A3 -> B4 -> B5 -> B6
Again, you come to the conclusion that this is a dead end. Now you think, the first versions were indeed better than what you have written now.
You go back to A3 – and then what? You expect A4 and A5 still being there.
And you expect the versions B4 - B6 to remain, just in case you change your mind again.
And even if this were implemented, you’d still have the problem that by going back from version A5 to A3, you would loose the good parts you have written by going from version A3 to A5 as well! You go back because you think the previous version was better than what you made of it, but this does not mean that the new version don’t have some parts that were better nevertheless.
So, there is no other way than to make decisions, to save versions before bigger rewrites and to fiddle the final version together from the good pieces you collect by moving towards it.
I’d have to agree with the general consensus here. I’ve used “record every keystroke” third-party tools before, and generally the rate of chaff (crap I deleted for a reason) is so high that it’s only useful in the most dire emergency—and that doesn’t happen a whole lot with Scrivener. Such things are more useful in programs where what you’ve typed in for the past half hour can all disappear in a crash if you forget to save. The chances of that happening in Scrivener are very low with its default auto-save settings. Snapshots are easy to use (Cmd-5 Cmd-5 Cmd-5), and so are clipboard managers if you want something external. A good clipboard manager has an adjustable history, meaning that Cmd-A, Cmd-C is like quick saving to a non-named temporary file.
