A Feature I Would Pay For

[Chadtindale]

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then, Cakewalk will crash, stall out, or otherwise need to be closed while I'm working in a project. When that happens I'm usually 2-3 hours in on it. An "autosave" feature every 15 to 20 minutes would be loved. I know the files are huge. Hell, even just a pop-up that says "Don't forget to save" would be appreciated. 

[hsmusic]

There is one in prefs..I stopped using the auto-save years ago after it once corrupted a file (started saving while editing). I use crtl+s, muscle memory at this point or after making any serious adjustments or edits.

Edited March 15 by hsmusic

[Chadtindale]

There are many programs that don't overwrite your existing save, but instead save as a temp file. That's what I want.

 

[msmcleod]

Auto-save works in two ways:

1. Automatic saving based on time and/or changes

The automatic saving will save a temp copy called "Auto-save Copy of myproject.cwp"  when the auto-save criteria kicks in.  It leaves the original copy of your project alone, but the "Auto-save Copy of..." file is overwritten with the latest version every time it auto-saves. 

Due to how some plugins are (badly) implemented, it's probably best to leave the "changes" at zero, and stick to a time-based auto save.

2. Project versioning

Project versioning works slightly differently.  Every time you manually save, it'll rename your current project file on disk (adding it's last modified date/time as a file extension), and saves your current project using the original project filename.  You can specify how many versions of the project you want to keep on disk - older versions will be deleted once it gets beyond the number of versions specified.

There's nothing stopping you using both methods at the same time.

These options can be found under Preferences->File->Advanced:



I've often questioned why these methods are separate, but actually the more I think about it, it does makes sense:

• The auto-save is a backup copy you can go back to if something goes wrong (e.g. crash/power outage etc)
• The project versioning is a deliberate history of your saves, allowing you to essentially "check-point" your project every time you decide to save.

If auto-save was also using project versioning, there would always be the danger of either filling your disk up with loads of project files, or deleting an older version of the project that you really wanted to keep.