Auto save

[julien-duponchelle]

A user want to contribute that
https://gns3.com/discussions/gns3-auto-save

[julien-duponchelle]

You will need to add this in the main window and call at a regular interval the save project function
https://github.com/GNS3/gns3-gui/blob/master/gns3/main_window.py#L463

You will need to use a QTimer:
http://ralsina.me/weblog/posts/BB974.html

After that you need to add a settings for that.
Add the settings in the UI by editing gns3/ui/general_preferences_page.ui with Qt Designer.

And after run:

python scripts/build_pyqt.py

This will generate the Python from the UI

Next add the settings to the list of the settings:
https://github.com/GNS3/gns3-gui/blob/master/gns3/settings.py#L247

After add the link the settings edit to the setting pages:
https://github.com/GNS3/gns3-gui/blob/master/gns3/pages/general_preferences_page.py#L298

After that in the main windows you can access to the general settings via _self.settings

[grossmj]

Not really fond of a periodic "auto save" feature. I would prefer that GNS3 saves after key action like stopping nodes, before closing GNS3 etc.

[julien-duponchelle]

Other question should we drop the save and always save after each stop and redump the .gns3 at each topology modification. Like vSphere.

For a desktop app the save is common, but for a web app generally it's auto save (See Google Docs). And if we start to have multiple users connected to the same topology the save as you will could be tricky.

By the way we already know that if you don't save after adding a device you will have orphan files in your project.

[Raizo62]

Not really fond of a periodic "auto save" feature. I would prefer that GNS3 saves after key action like stopping nodes, before closing GNS3 etc.

i regret the autosave of GNS3-legacy. Often, my students forget to save project before crash. When they reload project, they have an empty topology.

[grossmj]

What should trigger the save, a request on any server? A periodic save (e.g. every minute)?

[Raizo62]

As GNS3-legacy ? we choose the periodicity.....?

[julien-duponchelle]

I propose that the .gns3 is save at each action that modify the topology.

For the config perhaps we can do that differently. When we detect that the NVRAM of IOU and dynamips has change (It's the only case where we have to extract the config) and when it's change we extract the new config. It's possible on Linux with pyinotify. If we have that we have the same behavior of qemu based appliance.

[Raizo62]

"modify the topology" does it include also move object on lab ? or just add/remove ?

Save at each action does it be heavy if there are a lot of object ?

[julien-duponchelle]

I doubt that a .gns3 could be huge since it's contain only meta data about the position of stuff.

[grossmj]

We don't need an "auto save" feature because the new 2.0 will save as it goes.