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My daughter lost her social studies essay because LibreOffice doesn't have autosave on automatically.

This is about the most recent version of LibreOffice on Windows 10. I can't speak for other versions.

My daughter worked hard on her social studies essay. I type things in for her because she’s a really bad typist, but she tells me what to write… but I didn’t remember to manually save her social studies essay yesterday, and for some reason the ThinkPad rebooted, LibreOffice crashed and we lost the whole thing... because autosave was not automatically on when I installed it.

No, recovery didn't work. We just got a blank file.

I rewrote it for her based on the information we had and what I remembered and tried to make it sound like what a 13-year-old would write because it was basically my fault and she did do the work. I did have her sit with me as I wrote it in case she didn’t like something I wrote, but it was sort of cheating. I'm okay with that cheating since I know she worked hard on it.

First, though, I went into the settings and turned on autosave.

I like LibreOffice, but why the hell is that not on automatically? Honestly, I don't really understand why someone wouldn't want their documents autosaved, but I'm pretty sure most people would want that.

This isn't fucking 1993. I shouldn't have to remember to save a document anymore and it shouldn't be lost forever because of it.

Like I said, I like LibreOffice. I don't really want to trust documents to Microsoft or Google. But this was really annoying.

Diplomjodler ,

Us older folks automatically hit save every few minutes. But not saving days worth of work is asking for trouble.

eager_eagle ,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

I'm feeling old right now, thx

I even impulsively hit Ctrl+S when writing comments on Lemmy once in a while

negativenull ,
@negativenull@lemmy.world avatar

You have to hit Ctrl+S 3 or 4 times in a row, just in case too.

bigkahuna1986 ,

This is how I play Pokemon yellow. Save game? Better save again just in case.

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

I sometimes ctrl+S on my web browser.

bigMouthCommie ,
@bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

me too, but it's beacuse that's the emacs keybinding for incremental search

intensely_human ,

So did you want this as an .htm archive or what)

metacolon ,
@metacolon@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I tend to hit ESC :w

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I am an older folk. I grew up with an Apple II. I just have gotten used to autosave being on automatically in pretty much every word processor I've used since probably the mid-1990s. I just can't imagine why they decided to not have it on when you install it.

Diplomjodler ,

Never assume something works until you've verified it. And even then assume it'll break some time

ilinamorato ,

I mean, yes, but also it's a fair assumption to make that autosave would either be on or the fact that it was off would be communicated.

intensely_human ,

A fair assumption maybe, but not a safe one.

BeardedBlaze ,
@BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world avatar

What word processors? Even Microsoft office doesn't have autosave on by default unless you're working off of One Drive/Share Point online.

Why would you switch to different software and assume it works the same as another?

subtext ,

Yep, my thoughts exactly… my company doesn’t want us to use OneDrive because of some security fears, so none of our work has autosave. Just because it’s 2024 doesn’t mean everything has autosave. Even working in a browser doesn’t always have autosave, I use some online programs daily that you have to remember to Ctrl + S.

ericisshort ,

I think your memory might be failing on this, because we’re about the same age and autosave wasn’t really a common feature in the 90s. MacOS didn’t introduce autosave until OSX Lion in 2010, and Microsoft’s auto-recover (which was their only feature even close to autosave until office365) wasn’t introduced until the 2000s and didn’t work properly until 2007.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Fair. I could very well be misremembering. I don't have the greatest memory.

ericisshort ,

It happens to me more and more these days as well.

ShepherdPie ,

I don't have the greatest memory.

You should have hit Ctrl + S more throughout life.

Diplomjodler ,

If only it were that easy.

intensely_human ,

It does for me, but I’m autistic.

I can literally decide “I’m gonna remember this thing” and then push it into my brain in a way that I know it’ll be there forever.

Neato ,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

Agreed. It's standard practice now. At the very least LibreOffice should ask you on document creation if you want it on.

There's no reason to create the extra work of the past unless you are specifically making a nostalgia product.

braxy29 ,

the only time i ever lost a paper/document (at 13, for social studies), was on an apple IIc. then i rewrote it. i cried A LOT.

it has never happened since, and writing is a significant part of my job. i learned the hard way.

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I just can’t imagine why they decided to not have it on when you install it.

Different generational audiences expect different UX about their software, as this topic has aptly shown.

I'm sure there's a bunch of people who would be pissed off at the fact that they only want to control when a save happens (by default), and not the app.

Personally I would expect it to be on automatically (normal modern UX), but also after I've written big blocks of very important text I'd do a manual save, as I don't know where in the interval cycle between automatic saves I would be at (when's the next autosave happening). Best of both worlds, basically.

Finally, only because I'm talking to you right now, as far as you and your child goes, only you as their parent knows what's best for them.

Take heart that if you're trying, you're already halfway there, as many parents don't even bother.

And don't take the negative downloading you're getting on this topic as a criticism of your parenting skills, aholes on the Internet trying to keep the world exactly how they expect it to be from way back when, and are so hung up on responsibility to a fault, are not the best sources for knowledge on how well or poorly you're doing as a parent.

I am an older folk. I grew up with an Apple II.

I as well. Still have fun memories of loading Choplifter into my Apple via a cassette tape recorder.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks much.

Also, I'm going to have to go play Choplifter now!

assembly ,

I still do this regularly while using Google docs even though I don’t think it has any effect.

SpaceNoodle ,

"Us" don't do anything, but we do.

Chainweasel ,

I was going to say, it was absolutely drilled into our heads to save after every paragraph.
My high school teacher would occasionally flip the breaker for the computers in the school computer lab just to give those of us with bad saving habits a hard reminder.

intensely_human ,

Your teacher would probably get raked over the coals for traumatizing the kids if she did that now

Blooper ,

Meh, only the Libreoffice kids

IWantToFuckSpez ,

Nah more for corrupting some of the computers storage drives.

rottingleaf ,

I'm 28, do that too. Though maybe that's what you meant by older.

Diplomjodler ,

No, whippersnapper, that's not what I meant ;)

name_NULL111653 ,

Young folk who have lost hours of progress in robotics programming projects too... Once is enough to learn your lesson. The inevitable second time is traumatizing. By the third time, you hit Ctrl+s five times after every paragraph.

intensely_human ,

I don’t think OP’s kid is gonna learn the lesson here. Sounds like Dad was handling the typing for her, and then when things screw up he’s blaming others for it. Not a good environment for a kid to learn in.

moon ,

That was my sense too. OP isn't letting his kid learn the hard lessons for themselves.

Also what kind of an excuse is it to say she sucks at typing? With practice she will improve, so let her do her own homework

leftzero ,

And “save as” every few times (or every time if the document is important).

I lost a lot of work hours once because I was using a program that saved a backup copy every time you saved (so that you'd always be able to recover the previous version), and the damn thing crashed while saving, thus corrupting both the save file and the backup. Never. Again. Hard drive space is less expensive than my time and what's left of my mental health.

intensely_human ,

I worked as a kitchen designer and for each customer’s meeting I’d made a new file with everything the same except the date in the filename. So worst case I’d lose a day’s work.

cholesterol ,

If only computers could automate repetitive tasks. Oh, well.

intensely_human ,

If only people understood the tradeoffs with automation

JDubbleu ,

Auto save with Google Docs style snapshots has so little overhead I'd hardly consider it a trade-off. We have insane amounts of disk storage and extremely reliable non-volatile memory. The only reason against it that I can conceive of is confidential data you don't ever want to exist outside of volatile memory.

All modern word processors use auto save and it kinda blows my mind libre does not do this.

Kusimulkku ,

They can. Just have to turn the autosave on. Better to manually save still just in case

FrostKing ,

I'm barely an adult and I do this. I think it's less your age, and more the type of programs you tend to use—ei. programs where you may not want things auto saved, for me game engine, but there's plenty of examples.

Emerald ,

Few minutes? For me its every few seconds

skullgiver , (edited )
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    ChexMax ,

    There are free 10 finger typing classes online. Frankly it's a bit fun, similar to learning an instrument! I did one during downtime at work because I was a 6/7 finger typer, and always had to look for numbers or punctuation other than . , ! ?

    pwalker ,

    or instead of throwing more data/money at Big Tech try one of the self hosted instances of https://nextcloud.com/office/ or https://cryptpad.org/

    SkippingRelax ,

    Furthermore, if the laptop randomly reboots for no reason, autosave won't save you. You just need a tiny bit of bad luck for the computer to crash while saving, corrupting the perfectly-good file saved to disk.

    Hardly how file saving works. Else you could say the same about a bit of bad luck for the computer to crash while pressing ctrl-s, corrupting the perfectly-good file saved on disk.

    Too many people on this thread seem to see autosave and ctrl-s as two different things, governed by magic and mystery, one of them indispensable to conside nyourself an experienced computer user. It's the same fucking piece of code, in one case invoked by a timer, in the other one by the end user pressing a key combo.

    Op's issue was that automated was disabled by default. Obviously autosave doesn't work it it's disabled.

    Lemming6969 ,

    This makes op a bad parent. Know this first op... The luxury of autosave is the least of your worries.

    TORFdot0 ,

    It doesn’t make them a bad parent. They are just making a poor choice out of what I assume is good intentions.

    intensely_human ,

    It doesn’t take any money at all to learn touch typing: just google “learn to touch type” and there’s Mavis Beacon type software just written in js, totally free.

    All that’s required is the discipline. If OP’s daughter sits with it 5 minutes a day she’ll be able to touch type in no time.

    Learning as young as possible is the right move.

    Emerald ,

    Mavis Beacon haha. For something not ancient, https://www.typingclub.com.

    Socsa ,

    Everyone learns compulsive ctrl-s eventually.

    seppoenarvi ,

    I was going to say we've all lost an essay before we learned to routinely save the document. :)

    DrMango ,

    Yep. Unfortunate though this is, it's an important lesson for OP and their kiddo.

    Save early and save often.

    intensely_human ,

    The lesson for the kiddo is more complex and harder to learn: letting daddy do stuff for you doesn’t always mean it’ll be better.

    Evotech ,

    Side note : You say she's a bad typist so you type it for her. But how exactly is she going to learn how to type then?

    Maybe just let her do things poorly and learn

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    As I told someone else, I let her do it when it isn't a long essay. With an essay, it would literally take hours.

    electric ,

    Just want to say, what a good parent for actually giving your child a hand in school work. The work load has become so insane for children.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Thank you, although in my case, it's required. My daughter is in online school. It's a public school run by the state, not a private school, so she has real classes with real licensed teachers via live videoconference and the assignments are graded by the teachers. They require a parent to be a 'learning coach.' Mostly to keep the kid on track.

    But I also know my daughter has very little patience for bullshit, as I did I when I was her age, so when they say things like "to learn about biological cells, draw a picture of an imaginary factory and show the different parts of the factory and label how they work" (an actual assignment) and it isn't being graded, it's just busywork, I tell her we can skip it. I wish I had someone who let me skip that nonsense. Like you said, the workload, or in this case the expected workload is insane. And most of it isn't conducive to learning. Drawing an imaginary factory- and they wanted kids to do this before teaching them the parts of the cell- isn't going to help you learn what mitochondria are.

    Meanwhile, she's getting better grades than she did when she was in public school. It's working out pretty well.

    electric ,

    Oh that sounds like a much better situation. I only found out public online schools were an option in my second to last year of high school, when the bullshit work load had already been waning. Doing it mostly online now for college and it's so much less stressful. Wish you both luck. 🤞

    wjrii ,
    @wjrii@kbin.social avatar

    Drawing an imaginary factory- and they wanted kids to do this before teaching them the parts of the cell- isn’t going to help you learn what mitochondria are.

    That sounds like it's an exercise meant to get the kids thinking about a multi-faceted system existing inside a single structure, with parts that are interconnected but distinct, and will lead into a common metaphor teachers use to teach about biological cells. Not being graded means they're not judging the kids on what they know or don't, but want to evaluate where they are with this sort of thinking and figure out what they will focus on. Also, your kid may be smart and already know where they're going with this, but others in the class may not. If she does, she could probably knock that out in fifteen minutes. Even if you decide that she doesn't need to do it, I don't think it's stupid busy work, at least not necessarily.

    Some teachers are dumb; we need too many of them and pay them too little for each and every one to be a superstar. The ones coming up with curricula and lesson plans usually aren't, though.

    Contramuffin ,

    As a side note, typing well isn't something that can easily be learned by simply typing more. If her typing is a concern (and it may well be since she'll be typing much more in college), it may be helpful to search for some typing courses. My impression is that there are some free online ones, but I don't remember any off the top of my head.

    wjrii ,
    @wjrii@kbin.social avatar

    I never truly learned to type, though I had a few weeks instruction in school, and did a few levels of Mario Teaches Typing when I was a kid. None of it really stuck, and typing remains an exercise in hand-eye coordination for me. I topped out at around 70-80 WPM if I'm composing rather than copying, but that's been good enough for a lifetime of office jobs, and certainly for writing school essays. There is definitely a lower ceiling if you don't get proper instruction, but simple practice is still helpful.

    Contramuffin ,

    Perhaps, but that's a relatively spectacular case. If my memory serves me correctly, the average typing speed is around 40 wpm. And sure, that kind of speed can get the job done but it definitely won't be a good time. My elementary school was pretty forward-thinking in this respect. They signed us up for computer literacy and typing courses that would last for multiple years that we would do in computer class. I think everyone in my class was hitting at least 50 wpm by middle school. I was typing a solid 70 wpm.

    Anyways, I think there are certain aspects of typing where having guidance could really help. I know people who chicken-peck because that's just how they've always done it and they've never broken that habit.

    jadedwench ,

    The only way I learned how to type growing up was from instant messaging my friends. All of those ridiculous typing programs didn't help. One random thing that might help is a different keyboard, or, different profile keycaps!

    I love me some mechanical keyboards and I like the tactile feedback from "brown" switches. The last one I built I found out about the wonderful world of keycaps, specifically keycap profiles. I fell in love with MT3s as they are a little "cupped". My fingers sort of fall into the scoops and get enough tactile feedback to stay on the key and they just feel nice. I haven't looked at cheaper membrane keyboards in years, but I remember you could pull off the keycaps and put different ones on those, but I have no idea how they are now.

    If you are interested in mechanical keyboards, you can usually buy a sample kit that has all of the different switches and you may be able to find something similar for keycaps.

    I guess what I am trying to say is a different keyboard, or even keycaps, may help her learn. Though I do realize that this stuff is expensive too. As someone who is on a keyboard everyday, it became a tool to invest in.

    https://drop.com/buy/drop-mito-mt3-cyber-custom-keycap-set

    wjrii ,
    @wjrii@kbin.social avatar

    No need to go crazy with the first one. That first step from laptop keyboard or membrane pack-in is the biggest jump you'll ever make in typing experience. a brown-switch gamer board with the RBG turned off and some cheap Amazon "CSA" style keycaps might be all you'd ever need. Of course, even that type of thinking can lead to certain... rabbit holes.

    Tja ,

    Are you going to type her emails and reports when she goes to work some day?

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    No?

    Tja ,

    Only the long ones?

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Do you think maybe it might be better, if she is going to write an essay at her age, for her to think about what she is going to say and put it in a comprehensible and logical way than slowly typing things out letter by letter so that each sentence takes over a minute and she can work on her typing skills in other ways which require less creative thought?

    CyanFen ,

    No. All the other kids in her class are typing their own essays. Why isn't she?

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Which other kids would those be? She's in online school.

    And, as I said to the other person, feel free to do what you want with your own kids, but I feel that when my child is writing one of the first essays she's ever written, her ability to think about it critically is, in my opinion, far more important to her education than hunting and pecking on a keyboard for hours rather than think about it.

    CyanFen ,

    Ohh sorry, surely your daughter is the only child enrolled at the online school.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Care to respond to the rest of my post?

    rudyharrelson ,
    @rudyharrelson@kbin.social avatar

    I don't know how so many snarky comments are getting upvoted here. Barely an ounce of empathy to be found in this entire comment section.

    It isn't hard to understand why you'd focus on the content of the essay rather than the mechanical process of typing it out. Clearly you're letting her type shorter things, so she's gonna get better over time even if you type for her on these longer essays for the moment.

    Sorry you lost the essay. But I'll look on the bright side and say it sounds like you're doing a fine job working with your kid on their homework, and ideally this is just a growing pain as you use FOSS in the course of their education. I use LibreOffice too and am sometimes similarly frustrated at unintuitive or unexpected design choices.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Thank you, I appreciate the comment. And yeah, she will get better over time. This is one of the first essays she's ever had to come up with and I think the first where she's had very little in the way of detailed instruction.

    intensely_human ,

    I think that if writing takes a lot of effort it naturally makes people think more about what they’re going to write.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    That's a very neurotypical way of looking at the world.

    usualsuspect191 ,

    With an essay, it would literally take hours.

    Ignoring that this would get faster with the practise of typing it themselves:

    How quickly are people writing essays these days? I'm a decently fast typer and it always took me a couple of hours to write a whole essay at that age. Once I was a few years older and was diligent in drafting a really good outline first I'd maybe get it to under a hour at the computer, but the speed of typing was never the bottleneck.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Again, it can take her a full minute to type a sentence. She is an incredibly slow typist. This is really the first big essay she's ever had to write and I wanted her to think about what she wanted to say, not hunt and peck for ages.

    Look, maybe you don't have kids. Maybe your kids are good typists. My kid has just started down this road of writing real essays and I have decided that typing speed is far less important than critical thinking when it comes to her education. You are free to make your own parenting decisions, but I would appreciate you not questioning mine, especially when you are not able to see the full picture when you don't actually know either me or my child.

    fmstrat ,

    While I won't debate your decision, please be sure that 1. You recognize how rediculously important learning to type properly is for today's kids, and 2. That she may not want to learn, and is slow because of it. She may need a reward system, and a defined set time to learn. Good luck, and I hope it goes well for you.

    intensely_human ,

    Critical thinking is a high level skill. High level skills must be built on top of low level skills, and people learn thing better when they write themselves. The mechanics of putting the words to paper are an important part of the WRITING process.

    autokludge ,
    @autokludge@programming.dev avatar

    I found with the few 'public speaking' presentations I did during school, writing down what I was going to say made me more diligent about information/points to bring forward and what phrasing to use. I suspect all this time spent on one specific thing greatly helped commit the topic to memory and by the time of presentation I didn't need to rely on prompts to get my point across.

    Harbinger01173430 ,

    All it takes is a few minutes to give chatgpt a good prompt and the copy and casting to the text document. 🧐

    BURN ,

    Then let it take hours. That’s how you learn. She’s not going to learn to remember to save regularly if you just sweep the mistake under the rug and do the heavy lifting for her the second time around.

    Emerald ,

    When I was learning Dvorak, I decided I would use it all the time. Even if it took me hours to write an essay. I now type 120 wpm. Practice works.

    rottingleaf ,

    Maybe just advise her to learn piano. Does wonders to one's typing habits.

    tyler ,

    This thread is absolutely terrible. I’m very sorry op. As a software dev, I think I’ve hit the save button maybe ten times in the past 2 years. You are right that it should auto save by default. That’s just required in this day and age. People saying they don’t want auto save because they don’t want cats losing their work literally do not understand how auto save works in the vast majority of modern systems. A simple example is Google sheets, where you can literally see every change made to every character in every file throughout time. You’re not going to lose anything. Software devs solved this in their own tools literally decades ago. My job is literally editing text files all day long. I can’t remember the last time I lost data due to a crash or a cat or anything.

    Some people even mention LaTeX which literally has a solution with Overleaf. If software doesn’t autosave in this day and age, it’s shit software.

    What you have here is another case of Linux users jumping to defend the only things they have to defend, even if it’s absolute shit.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Thank you.

    fhqwgads ,

    Thank you! My God, the amount of holier-than-thou "it's your own fault" in this thread is mildly infuriating in and of itself. Auto save and versioning have been a thing in Word for at least 8 years, probably over a decade but that's the first version mentioned in their docs, and I struggle to think much software I use regularly that doesn't have some form of it. Hell, even the new Notepad on Windows keeps your changes when it's accidentally closed.

    I like most open source software but this sort of attitude in the community and what seems like an absolute disdain for any UX concept from the past 20 years makes me very hesitant to recommend it almost anyone outside very specific technical circles.

    guacupado ,

    I mean, it is? I don't even use LibreOffice, but god I'm thinking of my help desk days and dealing with people getting angry at everything except themselves.

    fhqwgads ,

    If people make a mistake occasionally or are willfully ignorant that's a user issue. If almost everyone in this thread is talking about how you should push a button every 5 seconds on a machine designed to automate tasks maybe that's a design issue.

    intensely_human ,

    If it were every 5 seconds, that would make sense for a cron job. If it’s “every time you’ve achieved a sense of satisfaction with the writing” then having the human do it makes sense because it’s an even based trigger and the computer can’t see the event.

    pirrrrrrrr ,

    People make mistakes, that's why we automate things.
    If a system relies on a human not making mistakes it is doomed to fail eventually.

    Saving manually should be a feature, but autoaave should be on by default these days, unless 30+ years of people losing work due to not hitting "save" manually has taught us nothing.

    Crashes happen. Errors happen. Pets and children happen.
    Any major document editor should be able to auto save and replay a very long history of actions.

    Improve the system, because you can't improve people with a code patch.

    intensely_human ,

    unless 30+ years of people losing work due to not hitting "save" manually has taught us nothing.

    It has taught us to take responsibility for saving our work

    intensely_human ,

    Improve the system, because you can't improve people with a code patch.

    But a person can improve themselves before they can improve the software they work on. There’s less collaboration and centralized planning required for an individual solution to this problem.

    ObsidianZed ,

    Man, maybe I just grew up in a different time and/or environment but I still to this day manually save obsessively. I use VSCode most days and feel like I'm constantly hitting the save hotkey. With that said though, I am just not a fan of most autosaves. I like to know what the current contents are and whether or not I have unsaved changes.

    That's just me though.

    ShadowCatEXE ,
    @ShadowCatEXE@lemmy.world avatar

    Yeah, I don’t trust the auto save to save my work properly. I work as a Software Engineer, and any small change I make, even if I’m not done with the change and I’m just thinking, my hands immediately default to CTRL+S.

    Always always make sure your work is being saved if it means something to you. Especially since windows will force update and reboot your computer. Battery’s can die, power can go out and your computer shuts down. Applications can and will crash.

    SkippingRelax ,

    Why do you trust ctrl-s though? You are a software engineer, you know that a bug in the piece of code that saves the document would affect both calls, regardless of whether its invoked by a timer or by the end user pressing keys, right?

    I mean we have all been bitten by op's problem In the past but it was exactly the same issue, autosave not enabled (most likely didn't exist) what's with all these, I don't trust software to do it's job so I do things by hand?

    Particularly from software developers or other technical users. Found a bug in a piece of software, report it, you don't need to change your behaviour for the next 20 years and tell everyone anecdotes about you still don't trust a regression.

    intensely_human ,

    ctrl-S is deeper, older code. And yes, a bug in that would affect both manual and automatic saving. Meaning the bug has greater exposure and therefore would be detected faster.

    More easily detectable bugs are less of a problem, because lack of alarm indicates lack of those bugs.

    It’s this: (P => Q) => (!Q => !P)

    Basically P is the bug existing and Q is someone detecting it. The more powerful the implication arrow on the left side of that equation, the more powerful the implication arrow on the right side. Or if you prefer probabilities: a greater conditional probability on the left means a greater conditional probability on the right.

    Worse bugs that affect more systems are less worthy of the user’s attention.

    SkippingRelax ,

    If current_time > x invoke deper,older code that you somehow trust

    Alternatively, more modern implementation suggested by someone else in this thread

    At every keystroke, invoke deeper older code that you somehow trust

    While not impossible, pretty hard to slip a bug into something like that and if it happens it gets identified,reported and fixed like all bugs. Users tend to be quite vocal about data loss.

    Also some software developers tend to overcomplicate things, this is not rocket science

    ShadowCatEXE ,
    @ShadowCatEXE@lemmy.world avatar

    There's a couple things... First, it's a habit to be constantly pressing CTRL+S. I've been doing it for many years, I'll continue to do it probably until I stop using a keyboard. It's such an easy keystroke, since my hands are almost always hovering over the keyboard. Second, in some software you can create new documents without first creating a file on disk. This means that when I go to hit CTRL+S, it prompts me to save the file. That's not to say that some software can't save a recovery version of the document in the event the software crashes, but I'm not going to bet money on it working 100% of the time. I'd rather be proactive and personally make sure my work is saved. Gives me peace of mind.

    SkippingRelax ,

    I already covered your first point, you don't need to.

    As for your second point, autosave still does its job. The fact that you haven't chosen a name and a folder for your document doesn't mean that the software hasn't created one on disk that keeps getting autosaved. When you decide to finally save the document, that file gets renamed and placed where you want it.

    I mean this is trivial stuff that got solved a long time ago, I don't see people on this thread saying I don't trust electronic payments, I only write checks but somehow everyone think a basic feature is broken everywhere

    BURN ,

    Every single one of us has been bitten by auto save that didn’t work. I’ve personally lost hours worth of code to auto save glitches and poorly timed save runs. People don’t trust it because in the past it has had and/or caused problems with their workflow.

    Ctrl+S is a manual confirmation that I saved it, and is a step taken before running any code, especially through a terminal in an IDE where if the auto save hasn’t kicked in will mean the changes aren’t reflected.

    voluble ,

    Mmm. I grew up in a different time too. Makes me ponder how the software circumstances of that time built in us a very different idea of what an iteration actually is, when it comes to writing. The fact that we couldn't go back and atomically dissect the history of a piece. That a draft, and an edit, were something heavier. Maybe we'd have to think a bit more slowly and carefully before irreversibly casting a previous version into the ether.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not making a "gen z bad" post. Just reflecting on how things are different these days, and maybe it leads to a different kind of work.

    rxin ,

    Lots of VSCode extensions appear to assume manual save is on, so if you have autosave, they spam notifications like crazy. "Ooh you have syntax error in your config, please fix this now >:((((("

    Notifications were what made me abandon vscode lol

    ObsidianZed ,

    So out of curiosity, what did you move to and do you use autosaving? I'm always willing to try out other text editors but it'll take something impressive to make me start autosaving.

    rxin ,

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    ObsidianZed ,

    I've never actually used vim, though occasionally fallback on vi for remote admin. I may finally check it out now though. Thanks!

    rainynight65 ,

    I grew up in that different time too, but I completely agree with the person you're replying to.

    Auto save is a must. No arguments. You can have personal preferences and behaviours that make you want to disable autosaving and control your saves manually, that's perfectly fine, but that's you and your preference. A modern application should absolutely have autosaving enabled by default. Anything else is user unfriendly and indefensible.

    ObsidianZed ,

    Oh for what it's worth, I probably agree more with the fact that autosave should be on by default but also possible to disable.

    But yes, I do have my preference and I admit it is just that, a preference.

    westyvw ,

    No. I disagree. I should be in control. I do things at times that I do not want saved. If you have auto save then the only way is with historical commits.

    Auto save has fucked me over too many times. Leave it off.

    The ONLY way I can see us both being satisfied is to start each document with a save location and asking save, or auto save on the first save.

    rainynight65 ,

    Nothing is stopping you from being in control. You can turn auto save off and set things up any which way you like. People have different preferences.

    And yes, an application should absolutely ask for a file name and save location on document creation - that's just good UX. Asking for those details when the user is ostensibly about to finish working is not helpful.

    SkippingRelax ,

    What you have here is another case of Linux users jumping to defend the only things they have to defend, even if it’s absolute shit.

    Funny how OP is using libreoffice on Windows though, what's there Linux-related to defend? Did a Linux user hurt you?
    If anything this is another opportunity for some snarky comment about Windows being shit and crashing for no reason since the 1990s.

    intensely_human ,

    “The year is 2024. Any car that doesn’t automatically brake when it encounters an obstacle is a shit car”

    While the above may be true, it’s definitely not a reason to say:

    “I shouldn’t have to use my brakes”

    moon ,

    The most mildly infuriating thing about this post is a parent not letting a child do their own work because they would do it slowly. I've read all the responses, clearly OP is not willing to reflect on what others are telling him. I just feel sorry for the child whose peers are getting practice in basic life skills that she won't have the opportunity to because her dad thinks he knows better than her teachers and the curriculum. His own ego is so wrapped up in his child writing a good essay and showing 'critical thinking' that he's not letting her do her own work. He admits to cheating. Just a wretched situation that I hope turns around when another adult steps in or his child gets old enough to tell him to back off.

    jdnewmil ,

    While I can understand you wanting autosave on in your situation, I much prefer autosave off because I often open files to see what is in them and do not want to automatically modify them just because I accidentally hit a key and delete it. Automatically changing stuff is a choice you should have to make, not a feature that I have to race to disable.

    BlueEther ,
    @BlueEther@no.lastname.nz avatar

    I work with 365 and have to create docs from yesterday's version (or last weeks etc) all the time. Auto save can be a real pain in the arse.

    Turn it off, save as <yyyy-mm-dd-DocName>, oh hell auto save is back on...

    IHawkMike ,

    Just mark it as final then. This whole thread is infuriating. People working themselves into pretzels with their misguided reasons for not wanting auto-save when they really just don't know to use the software.

    OP is right. I use Office 365 and haven't lost work on a document in over 10 years. Auto-save absolutely should be the default.

    SkippingRelax ,

    Or not trusting autosave because they lost a document once in the 80s when autosave didn't exist, and now they tell everyone to compulsively press ctrl-s because software can be trusted enough to drive a car, but not save a file every minute or so.
    Bonus point when they introduce themselves as I'm a software developer..

    intensely_human ,

    Yeah so maybe when we trust software to drive cars, then we can talk about trusting autosave.

    leftzero , (edited )

    Exactly. I don't want my computer doing things without me telling it to. If I want it to save the file I will tell it to save the file. If I don't tell it to save the file, I most definitely don't want it to save it behind my back. Auto save is an anti-pattern, especially if it overwrites your manual save files.

    (Saving an independent recovery file, preferably including undo and redo history, might come in handy in case of crashes, sure, but it should be optional and never on by default, out of privacy concerns; other users might use the computer, and it's safer to assume that the previous user might not want others to see the documents they had open last time.)

    intensely_human ,

    What freaks me out is when I open a file, make no changes, go to close it, and I get “Do you want to save the changes you made?”

    cathyk ,
    @cathyk@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes. Like many here, I’ve learned to hit save A LOT. But I also want to decide when the time is right. Whether I’m writing a paper, coding, photo retouching, whatever, I flail around and experiment while working. I want to lock in my changes when I’m happy with the progress. If something goes awry I’d rather resume at the last manual save than some other weird thing I did afterwards.

    HarriPotero ,
    @HarriPotero@lemmy.world avatar

    On the other hand.. consider if your cat had walked over the keyboard before it rebooted and replaced it all with hhhhgggggggggggggggggggghgf before it auto saved and replaced the document. Would you still be an advocate for auto save?

    It sucks to lose work, but this is clearly a user error.

    FlyingSquid OP ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I don't have a cat and we did this out at a cafe, so yes, I would still be an advocate for it. I think that most people do not have that issue even if they have a cat.

    JaxNakamura ,

    Can confirm, have a cat and don't have that issue. Because I lock the screen when leaving the machine unattended.

    intensely_human ,

    ThE sCrEeN sHoULd AuToMaTiCaLly LoCk

    qwertyqwertyqwerty ,

    UXD would state that this is a software design issue, and not user error. The software should be designed with crashes and "lost" user data in mind.

    narc0tic_bird ,
    @narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee avatar

    That is true. I could've sworn LibreOffice had a recovery mechanism similar to MS Office after a crash.

    JaxNakamura ,

    Even LibreOffice can only recover what has been saved. And if autosave is off, there might be less to recover than desirable. Again, that's a UXD problem.

    TheDarksteel94 ,

    To be fair, you could just delete the faulty part or click on Undo, and just save again.

    Nacktmull , (edited )
    @Nacktmull@lemmy.world avatar

    Auto-save can usually create a new save with a timestamp, every time it saves. It´s called incremental auto-saves.

    intensely_human ,

    I’ve never seen this feature

    biscuitswalrus ,

    This is an insane scenario: my software design decision is, despite recovery mechanisms like previous versions, file history, and undo mechanisms, I'm afraid if a cat uses a keyboard I'll accidentally save changes I don't want to a word document.

    Lol. The only user error was choosing libre office instead of a user friendly software stack that has reasonable defaults and r recovery mechanisms.

    intensely_human ,

    Yup. The fear is input that wasn’t intended to be saved, being saved.

    Your inability to comprehend the scenario doesn’t erase it.

    biscuitswalrus ,

    You realise if it's saved you can now use features that are built into the software, that get saved, like using 'track changes' to accept or discard edits granually. You have file system level version control to choose previous versions, you have an undo feature built in. Three different tools to use.

    westyvw ,

    Libre office is fine. You have no need to bash it. And it does have recovery files, this example is.... odd.

    JaxNakamura ,

    That's why I lock my machine before walking away. That's <windows key> + L for those who don't know.

    intensely_human ,

    Command-option-Q on mac

    A_Very_Big_Fan ,

    It sucks to lose work, but this is clearly a user error.

    Didn't wanna say it but yeah, 100%.

    Also I was kinda suspicious of the simultaneous claim that the PC randomly restarted and LO crashed. And there's no recovery file. But that's probably just me. For all the faults Windows has, failing to catch programs with unsaved work when restarting isn't one of them I've ever experienced.

    dylanTheDeveloper ,
    @dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world avatar

    Never trust autosave. Everything from notepad to Visual Studio gets the Ctrl+S treatment when something is updated.

    SkippingRelax ,

    Is that because of bugs, or shitty software that you don't trust autosave? Isn't it likely that ctrl-s is affected by the same problem and regardless of how compulsively you press the combo, it does in fact nothing?

    Note that OPs instance simply had autosave disabled, not really a trust issue

    gamermanh ,
    @gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Autosave has intervals, shit can happen between those intervals

    I've lost good work to a program crash / power outage / other sudden loss of work enough times to know that trusting autosave when it's there is a fools move

    SkippingRelax ,

    Fair enough obviously a real issue considering that it is not just you but many other in this thread, that are posting the same or upvoting I do wonder what software, or and electricity grid you are all on and if you are typing from a war zone though.
    It has happened to me too, mind you. Once. It was some sort of word processor, in the 1990s before autosave. Been spending my days on a computer since then for work and hobbies, can't say I remember a single other occurrence after that.

    gamermanh ,
    @gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    I do wonder what software, or and electricity grid you are all on and if you are typing from a war zone thoug

    Bruh what? I live in California, wild to jump to questioning if we're in a war zone. The issue is more often crashing software than it is power problems, as well.

    Losing power goes beyond the grid though, you can have a power supply fail, animal turn off a power strip your PC is plugged into, a lightning strike can cause momentary grid interruption, a car can knock down a pole and take out local power for a few hours, an idiotic roommate can accidentally hit your PC and cause it to freeze, an animal can knock into your power button or switch and shut your PC down, you can accidentally hit your PSU power flip and accidentally shut it off, and more

    All of these ive had happen to me. Not always while I was working on something, but many while I was. Auto recovery doesn't always work for these kinds of things so it is ALWAYS a good idea to save

    JasSmith ,

    The responses have classic “I run Arch” energy. It’s never the fault of the software. It’s always the fault of the user. Ignore them. This is terrible UX and should be criticised. She did absolutely nothing wrong.

    EatATaco ,

    Lol she didn't do anything. It was the op doing his daughter's work for her that didn't save it.

    That's the most troubling part of this story, that the op doesn't insist their child learn how to type. I'm wondering how much of their other work they do for her.

    Libre office is open source, btw. If it's so poorly designed op can go and fix it.

    Hadriscus ,

    Whether or not OP can fix it hinges on much more than "if it's so poorly designed"

    guacupado ,

    People have said "I lost everything because of Microsoft Word." "I lost everything because of Wordpad." "I lost everything because of Notepad." You guys probably blame schools for not teaching your kids how to laundry, taxes, or change a tire.

    jagungal ,

    Seriously, it's 2024. Everyone has to use technology now, so the software should reflect that. UX is probably one of the big barriers to widespread FOSS adoption.

    westyvw ,

    How? How is this terrible? Why should autosave be expected? I absolutely do not like autosave. No thanks. It is an unusual behaviour, why would anyone expect it to do this?

    That said, it is really weird that it didn't recover. I have never hard Libre office not recover from a computer outage or even a forced shutdown. That is unexpected.

    iegod ,

    You're weird. Autosave is the norm in 2024. It's not unusual at all, and helps in the most important of use cases; accidental non-saving. It was the norm a decade ago.

    westyvw ,

    No it isn't.

    And in the case of Word and Excel it only is enabled if you have One Drive, Office 365 subscription, or Sharepoint Online. And all of that started in 2023. Google Docs auto saves - which follows the pattern of needing to deal with state changes since the document is not local.

    None of my local apps auto save. Some do auto recovery, but they are temp files until closed. This is not the norm in 2024.

    iegod ,

    What you refer to as auto recovery is what I mean as auto save. Even your email clients do it. I will concede if you can see the value of auto recovery.

    4AV ,

    You’re weird. Autosave is the norm in 2024

    I do support challenging the software design before blaming the user, but I feel like I'm being thrown through a bit of a loop here. Autosave, while not unusual, is still the minority behaviour - surely?

    I'm checking through tools I have installed and can't find much that autosaves - even Word (tested editing a local file) doesn't seem to autosave as far as I can tell. And, to be fair to the software, I often don't want to overwrite the disk copy automatically (though there are some "best of both worlds" approaches, like with VSCode).

    thawed_caveman ,

    I would have sworn that autosave was enabled by default in absolutely every software that has anything to save since like the 2000s, you're throwing me on a loop here.

    As far as text editors actually, i feel like they may be constantly saving, particularly if they're cloud-based. But i've been using LibreOffice for a while so i wouldn't know. (and yes i did have to enable autosave)

    4AV ,

    I would have sworn that autosave was enabled by default in absolutely every software that has anything to save since like the 2000s

    Possible that we're thinking about different features? Like for Microsoft Word, if I save a file to disk, make an edit, then exit out without saving (hitting "cancel" when it asks if I want to save) the disk copy is left untouched. That's how the most tools work as far as I'm aware. It does have crash recovery (which may or may not work better than LibreOffice's crash recovery, no idea).

    Simulation6 ,

    Some editing software will use a copy of your file as extended memory, so it is always caching to disk. That can be slow, so some don't do it for small files. I am thinking of Linux tools like vi and vim.

    thawed_caveman ,

    Ok but what's your argument against autosave? You haven't made one?

    westyvw ,

    Autosave has screwed me over many times. Not all changes I make need saving. Not all drives are always present during a save.

    I have worked up what if scenarios and had it auto save, and now the document is missing the original.

    I prefer to manage my own revisions.

    Hadriscus ,

    Yea same here, I see autosave as a side effect. I want to be in control of my increments

    barsoap ,

    No worries LibreOffice has ancestry going back to CP/M (via StarOffice) so it's on the DOS side of things: Of course it's the fault of the software, it's not a Unix native program.

    WeirdGoesPro ,
    @WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    I wouldn’t have learned to type if a teacher hadn’t lied to me and told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to go to high school unless I could pass a basic typing test. It enraged me at the time when I found out, but it was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me in the long run.

    My mom was like you, well intentioned and getting involved a lot, to my detriment. I’ve never been able to get across to her that I would have been better off as an adult if I’d been allowed to struggle and accept consequences more as a kid. This became extremely apparent to me when I went to boarding school as an older teen, and had to catch up fast to my more self reliant peers. Getting away from people going overboard to help me was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I watched the same pattern play out with a lot of other students who had overly loving parents. The road to hell can be paved with good intentions.

    Typing things for your kid is like reading things for your kid—it is such a fundamental skill that not being forced to reach your potential in it will massively change your life for the worse. My mom was a teacher for over 20 years, and the three biggest factors in success were reading ability, reading comprehension, and typing (as the modern form of writing). None of those skills are going to be obtained with anything other than exposure, practice, and time. You can give someone tools for practicing, but you can’t do the practicing for them.

    I saw in your comments that your daughter has a learning disability, but all of this still stands. She will be judged against her peers as an adult, regardless of her diagnosis, so it’s best to start finding ways to work with it now.

    generichate1546 ,

    Man the best for learning to type was AIM in the long before times. Without that program I'd still be chicken pecking.

    What do you mean "tell me you graduateed high school in 2000 with out telling me"?

    Emerald ,

    For me it was learning dvorak during covid times. Went from 60 wpm with subpar typing technique to 120 wpm with proper touch typing

    generichate1546 ,

    Yeah but you gotta be on your keyboard right? Pretty sure the qwerty board is a due to trying to keep keys from jamming on a typewriter.

    Emerald ,

    People can type 120 wpm on qwerty I just dont personally prefer to

    ridethespiral ,

    Playing games online was huge in getting me to type, especially because I was so young and didn't want to use ventrillo

    BURN ,

    Same. CSGO and typing in the game chat got me proficient enough to type quickly.

    nexussapphire ,

    CTRL+S CTRL+S CTRL+S CTRL+S CTRL+S

    Shit, did I save yet?

    CTRL+S CTRL+S CTRL+S

    I don't fuck around, that's how I play my games too!

    tooclose104 ,
    @tooclose104@lemmy.ca avatar

    I use Office 365 for work and I still CTRL+S. Something learned the hard way is hard to let go of lol

    dumnezo ,

    Bound quicksave to the M4 button, same as F5/refresh. I'll just spam it at all times, in all apps and games.

    Copythis ,

    quicksave

    Passerby6497 ,

    3 take aways from this that I hope you'll get:

    1. Learn to save often. Sometimes that means 5x in a row just to be sure.
    2. Never just assume the software is going to save you from yourself. Its OK to trust software, but you gotta make sure it does what you expect it to do. In this case, that means either checking those settings when you start out, or making sure the file exists on disk.
    3. Invest in some typing games for your kid so they learn how to type properly and can do their own work! I understand wanting to help your kid succeed, but you can't do that in the long term without crippling their development.
    makingStuffForFun ,
    @makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml avatar

    This is user error. Everyone knows to save.

    dukatos ,

    /s

    SpookySnek ,

    Not really, autosave has been a thing for so many years at this point

    intensely_human ,

    So has automatic braking in cars.

    SpookySnek ,

    Many people still drive older cars due to costs and environmental factors, meanwhile there's no real reason to use an old version of a word processing software unless you really want to due to nostalgic reasons. And automatic braking doesn't even exist on every new car...

    Zacryon ,

    I agree and disagree at the same time.
    I agree, people should learn how to use technology.
    I disagree, technology should be easy to use.

    veni_vedi_veni ,

    Unless she is has some sort of disability, you typing for her just seems like enablement.

    intensely_human ,

    But she’s bad at it, see

    shasta ,

    Yeah and practice is useless. Everyone knows you're either born with it or not

    WeirdGoesPro ,
    @WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    My momma says I was born with yellow switch hands.

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